Obama Hopes “Disturbing News” Will Net Him $3

The Obama campaign is sending emails out with some “disturbing news.” In order to fundraise, Obama is trying to scare his base because Romney and Ryan have been pulling crowds as high as 15,000 since the running mate announcement on Saturday. Apparently Democrats who discover this “disturbing” information will be scared they’ll dig into their wallets and contribute at least $3. Yeah, that’s right, Obama wants $3. The email even cites a “Republican supporter” as saying ”I love him (Ryan)… He’s going to excite the Tea Party and get them on board.” Truly frightening, I almost passed out of the vapors!

As close as I am to contributing $3 to Obama (doesn’t the paperwork cost more than $3?) I think it better to get over the fright of Republicans actually being content with the winner of the Veepstakes. What’s really interesting about the email is how afraid the Democrats are over the fact that Republicans seem to be excited about the Romney-Ryan ticket. They’re freaking out over crowd size in August. Granted, Biden recently pulled all of 600 to a North Carolina rally and Obama recently held a fundraiser in a half empty room (at a whole $51 a head) so maybe they should be concerned.

But let’s face it, crowd size in August isn’t all that important. Sarah Palin pulled huge crowds, bigger than McCain’s at times but it didn’t matter in the end. In 2008 the Obama team did a good job making sure the Senator spoke in places just a little smaller than demand called for. That allowed them to pack the room and make it look like there were more people excited about Obama than there really were. At Obama’s campaign kickoff in Columbus back in May the team made the mistake of hosting a rally in a half empty basketball arena. They failed to account for a drop off on Democrat enthusiasm. Apparently the Republicans have gained in enthusiasm so expect to see more scare emails asking for $3 for Obama.

Republicans need to temper their enthusiasm with a little dose of reality. Paul Ryan is not the savior of the Reagan movement and he likely isn’t the savior of the Romney campaign. He’ll excite the right and maybe that means we’ll be really excited to wake up on election day to vote for Romney. Still, our excited vote is worth just as much as the drab people who are unenthused by still voting for Obama. Romney has a lot of ground to make up. He is losing in most of the battle ground states and his running mate isn’t going to make the difference. A running mate never does over the long haul.

If Ryan helps Romney anywhere it’s in Wisconsin and maybe Iowa. Those states have 16 electoral votes, so they’re nothing to sneeze at. But they aren’t enough to put Romney over the top even if Ryan is popular in his Democrat district. (keep in mind, Obama won Ryan’s district even though Ryan received nearly 2/3 of the vote) Romney still has an Ohio and a Virginia problem. He’s still losing in all three of his home states. He was born in Michigan and is losing here, he served as Governor in Massachusetts and has no shot there and he owns a vacation home in New Hampshire and is losing there. Paul Ryan isn’t going to change any of that.

Even though Romney isn’t doing well in a number of states he’s going to have a good August. The running mate announcement and the GOP Convention ought to make things interesting going into September. In the very least we can laugh at the panic striken fundraising emails Obama is sending out. Next up will be the “disturbing news” that Romney is speaking to a full house in Tampa at the GOP Convention. Horror of horrors! I hear that one Republican thinks the speech might excite the crowd! Now if that doesn’t have you on the Obama web site contributing $3 nothing will.