Party Like It’s 2008: GOP Goes After Obama’s Experience Again

President Barack Obama sings "Sweet Home Chicago" at the White House.
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“He’s the biggest celebrity in the world — but is he ready to lead?”

Thus began John McCain’s 2008 “Celebrity” ad, the single most effective attack against Barack Obama in the last presidential election, playing off voters’ fears that his resume as a half-term senator was dangerously thin. That argument died the second McCain picked Sarah Palin as his running mate. Republicans seem to have decided now’s the time to bring it back. But is it past its expiration date?

American Crossroads, the Karl Rove-connected big money group, put out its own homage to the “Celebrity” ad this week, trying to persuade young voters — once again — that Obama is a glitzy lightweight.

The RNC, in a similar move, launched an effort to brand Obama as unprepared for office on Thursday. In another throwback to the 2008 election, they used an old clip of Vice President Joe Biden, then a primary rival to Obama, questioning whether he was ready for the White House, and juxtaposed it with a video montage of lousy economic reports. Timing it to coincide with Biden’s speech touting the president’s record on foreign policy, the RNCpaired it with an accompanying Twitter campaign using the hashtag “#StillNotReady.”

Warn voters that a freshman senator is dangerously inexperienced is one thing. Running against an incumbent president with a few military campaigns to his name and Osama bin Laden in the ocean, is another. After all, there’s no one running more experienced at being president than the president himself.

Fred Davis, who created the original “Celebrity” ad, told TPM that he didn’t think the same message could work again in 2012.

“Obviously, I’m flattered that they ran something similar to what we did, but in those days there was no base of knowledge about him,” he said. “The most amazing thing about him was he became president of the United States with no one knowing about him.”

The RNC, however, argues that revisiting the experience angle can work — so long as it connects to the current debate over economy, as Thursday’s video does.

“We and the video are making the point that we were warned in 2008 that he wasn’t ready to be president by many people — including the vice president — and after three and a half years as president they were proven right,” Kirsten Kukowski, a communications official for the RNC, told TPM. “Because he wasn’t ready, the policies he’s put in place in his first term have not turned the economy around and are why he shouldn’t have another term.”

Republican strategist Rick Wilson suggested that the idea of Obama as celebrity candidate could still become a potent source of resentment if the country runs into an unexpected economic or international crisis before the election, making the friendly image of “our buddy Barack, slumming in college bars and auto-tuning the news” look out of touch. Like the RNC, he stressed the key was connecting the “experience” argument directly to today’s economic situation, not to some hypothetical danger ahead.

“If he’d been successful in having the public believe the economy is dramatically improved and been able to keep the promises of millions of green jobs, the experience argument would be weak,” Wilson said. “If the argument is ‘He didn’t and doesn’t have the experience and judgment to make smart economic choices, why trust him again?’ it’s the core question of the campaign.”

Much like 2008, how far the GOP goes with the “experience” angle might come down to Mitt Romney’s eventual vice presidential choice. It’s a lot easier to sell a dull, former OMB director like Rob Portman as the face of this argument than it is a newer star like Marco Rubio, who’s 40 years old and whose stint so far in the Senate is even shorter than Obama’s when he was running.

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