Wisconsin

Obama’s Attempt to Distance Himself From Wisconsin Rally Fails

Alana Goodman

In a good indication that the Wisconsin protests have become a liability for Democrats, the White House and the DNC have clumsily attempted to distance themselves from the event in the New York Times:

Administration officials said Sunday that the White House had done nothing to encourage the demonstrations in Wisconsin — nor was it doing so in Ohio, Florida and other states where new Republican governors are trying to make deep cuts to balance their budget. …

And, officials and union leaders said, reports of the involvement of the Democratic National Committee — specifically Organizing for America, the grass-roots network born of Mr. Obama’s 2008 campaign — were overblown to start with. …

“This is a Wisconsin story, not a Washington one,” said Dan Pfeiffer, the White House communications director. “False claims of White House involvement are attempts to distract from the organic grass-roots opposition that is happening in Wisconsin.”

But apparently someone forget to tell the DNC’s communication director Bob Woodhouse to scrub his Twitter feed to reflect this new strategy. Doug Ross has pointed out a Feb. 17 Tweet from Woodhouse saying that the White House was “proudly” playing a role in the protest.

With all of the baseless claims made by Democrats that the Tea Party movement was Republican Party Astroturf, it doesn’t seem likely that the GOP will let this blunder by the DNC slide.