Barack Obama's holiday comes just as 'Obama fatigue' emerges

Barack Obama needs a break. So on Friday he's heading to Hawaii for a weeklong family vacation.

Good timing, because much of the public apparently needs a rest from him. (See video below.)

The Pew Research Center reports that Obama's mush-discussed "media dominance may not be working in his favor." A Pew poll conducted over the last few days found that almost half -- 48% -- of those surveyed said "they have been hearing too much about Obama lately."

One possible upshot: According to the Pew pollsters, "by a slight, but statistically significant margin -- 22% to 16% -- people say that recently they have a less rather than more favorable view of the putative Democratic nominee."

John McCain staffers may well snicker and think to themselves, "Such are the perils of excessive celebrityhood."

And his camp likely will be heartened by this: "Pew's respondents said they want to hear more, not less about the Republican candidate. Just 26% in the poll said they had heard too much about McCain, while a larger number (38%) reported that they had heard too little about the putative Republican candidate."

But then there's this -- as with Obama, "a slight plurality reports that recently they have come to have a less favorable view of McCain rather than a more favorable view of him -- (23% to 18%)."

Our colleague Katie Fretland has more on the Pew findings at the Swamp.

Obama's vacation plans may have one meritorious effect -- temporary relief from the incessant, and often pointless, speculation about who's up and who's down in his running-mate search.

An announcement now is not expected until Obama's return from the state of his birth, as detailed by the Financial Times (which also can't resist providing a tote sheet of the leading contenders).

Eagle-eyed reporters, of course, will be checking the schedules of Evan Bayh (above, campaigning Wednesday with Obama), Tim Kaine and Joe Biden for any sudden trips to Honolulu.

-- Don Frederick

Photo credit: Associated Press 

Comments

[David]

This could be easily fixed. All McCain and Republicans would have to do would be to talk about McCain instead of talking about Obama.

Just look at a McCain ad. How much of it is about McCain?

Hmmm ... I wonder if there is a reason the Republicans are not talking about McCain.

[Candy G]

Have a good vacation Barak. Rumor has it Hillary may come back as a candidate and campaign for delegates.

[R in Austin]

Exactly! Why doesn't McCain prove to me that he's a better candidate? Cause he can't; he's too busy throwing dirt on Obama. The worst thing they can call Obama is a "celebrity" and a "messiah." I can think of quite a few words to call the last president that the Republicans elected twice-- I'll give you a clue: none of the words even rhyme with celebrity or messiah.

[NEVER NObama]

The reason we don't need McCain to speak about McCain is because we KNOW McCain and his honor and moral standing. NObama is one that people watch to see what side he is on today!!!
LOL!
The messiah is on the way to Hawaii...too funny.
Good thing is the NObama will lose; Bad thing, they hurt Hillary Clinton to try to SELECT a puppet for the puppet show.
Flush the toilet and get rid of Pelosi, Dean, Brazille, NObama and START OVER.
For now, it is Nader/Gonzalez 2008

[Doug]

isn't the BIGGER vacation story about Nancy Pelosi skipping-out of her responsiblitiies to the American public.
Why aren't these Congress people working? they are getting paid to conduct the people's business.as a matter of fact...ah D'oh, we are living in some turbulent times.

[starryperdun]

Maybe people are getting to know BHO:
Barack Obama's Stealth Socialism
By INVESTOR'S BUSINESS DAILY | Posted Monday, July 28, 2008 4:20 PM PT
Election '08: Before friendly audiences, Barack Obama speaks passionately about something called "economic justice." He uses the term obliquely, though, speaking in code — socialist code.

IBD Series: The Audacity Of Socialism

During his NAACP speech earlier this month, Sen. Obama repeated the term at least four times. "I've been working my entire adult life to help build an America where economic justice is being served," he said at the group's 99th annual convention in Cincinnati.

Democrat Barack Obama arrives in Washington on Monday. On the campaign trail, Obama has styled himself a centrist. But a look at those who've served as his advisers and mentors over the years shows a far more left-leaning tilt to his background — and to his politics.
And as president, "we'll ensure that economic justice is served," he asserted. "That's what this election is about." Obama never spelled out the meaning of the term, but he didn't have to. His audience knew what he meant, judging from its thumping approval.
It's the rest of the public that remains in the dark, which is why we're launching this special educational series.
"Economic justice" simply means punishing the successful and redistributing their wealth by government fiat. It's a euphemism for socialism.
In the past, such rhetoric was just that — rhetoric. But Obama's positioning himself with alarming stealth to put that rhetoric into action on a scale not seen since the birth of the welfare state.
In his latest memoir he shares that he'd like to "recast" the welfare net that FDR and LBJ cast while rolling back what he derisively calls the "winner-take-all" market economy that Ronald Reagan reignited (with record gains in living standards for all).
Obama also talks about "restoring fairness to the economy," code for soaking the "rich" — a segment of society he fails to understand that includes mom-and-pop businesses filing individual tax returns.
It's clear from a close reading of his two books that he's a firm believer in class envy. He assumes the economy is a fixed pie, whereby the successful only get rich at the expense of the poor.
Following this discredited Marxist model, he believes government must step in and redistribute pieces of the pie. That requires massive transfers of wealth through government taxing and spending, a return to the entitlement days of old.
Of course, Obama is too smart to try to smuggle such hoary collectivist garbage through the front door. He's disguising the wealth transfers as "investments" — "to make America more competitive," he says, or "that give us a fighting chance," whatever that means.
Among his proposed "investments":
• "Universal," "guaranteed" health care.
• "Free" college tuition.
• "Universal national service" (a la Havana).
• "Universal 401(k)s" (in which the government would match contributions made by "low- and moderate-income families").
• "Free" job training (even for criminals).
• "Wage insurance" (to supplement dislocated union workers' old income levels).
• "Free" child care and "universal" preschool.
• More subsidized public housing.
• A fatter earned income tax credit for "working poor."
• And even a Global Poverty Act that amounts to a Marshall Plan for the Third World, first and foremost Africa.
His new New Deal also guarantees a "living wage," with a $10 minimum wage indexed to inflation; and "fair trade" and "fair labor practices," with breaks for "patriot employers" who cow-tow to unions, and sticks for "nonpatriot" companies that don't.
That's just for starters — first-term stuff.
Obama doesn't stop with socialized health care. He wants to socialize your entire human resources department — from payrolls to pensions. His social-microengineering even extends to mandating all employers provide seven paid sick days per year to salary and hourly workers alike.
You can see why Obama was ranked, hands-down, the most liberal member of the Senate by the National Journal. Some, including colleague and presidential challenger John McCain, think he's the most liberal member in Congress.
But could he really be "more left," as McCain recently remarked, than self-described socialist Sen. Bernie Sanders (for whom Obama has openly campaigned, even making a special trip to Vermont to rally voters)?
Obama's voting record, going back to his days in the Illinois statehouse, says yes. His career path — and those who guided it — leads to the same unsettling conclusion.
The seeds of his far-left ideology were planted in his formative years as a teenager in Hawaii — and they were far more radical than any biography or profile in the media has portrayed.
A careful reading of Obama's first memoir, "Dreams From My Father," reveals that his childhood mentor up to age 18 — a man he cryptically refers to as "Frank" — was none other than the late communist Frank Marshall Davis, who fled Chicago after the FBI and Congress opened investigations into his "subversive," "un-American activities."
As Obama was preparing to head off to college, he sat at Davis' feet in his Waikiki bungalow for nightly bull sessions. Davis plied his impressionable guest with liberal doses of whiskey and advice, including: Never trust the white establishment.
"They'll train you so good," he said, "you'll start believing what they tell you about equal opportunity and the American way and all that sh**."
After college, where he palled around with Marxist professors and took in socialist conferences "for inspiration," Obama followed in Davis' footsteps, becoming a "community organizer" in Chicago.
His boss there was Gerald Kellman, whose identity Obama also tries to hide in his book. Turns out Kellman's a disciple of the late Saul "The Red" Alinsky, a hard-boiled Chicago socialist who wrote the "Rules for Radicals" and agitated for social revolution in America.
The Chicago-based Woods Fund provided Kellman with his original $25,000 to hire Obama. In turn, Obama would later serve on the Woods board with terrorist Bill Ayers of the Weather Underground. Ayers was one of Obama's early political supporters.
After three years agitating with marginal success for more welfare programs in South Side Chicago, Obama decided he would need to study law to "bring about real change" — on a large scale.
While at Harvard Law School, he still found time to hone his organizing skills. For example, he spent eight days in Los Angeles taking a national training course taught by Alinsky's Industrial Areas Foundation. With his newly minted law degree, he returned to Chicago to reapply — as well as teach — Alinsky's "agitation" tactics.
(A video-streamed bio on Obama's Web site includes a photo of him teaching in a University of Chicago classroom. If you freeze the frame and look closely at the blackboard Obama is writing on, you can make out the words "Power Analysis" and "Relationships Built on Self Interest" — terms right out of Alinsky's rule book.)
Amid all this, Obama reunited with his late father's communist tribe in Kenya, the Luo, during trips to Africa.
As a Nairobi bureaucrat, Barack Hussein Obama Sr., a Harvard-educated economist, grew to challenge the ruling pro-Western government for not being socialist enough. In an eight-page scholarly paper published in 1965, he argued for eliminating private farming and nationalizing businesses "owned by Asians and Europeans."
His ideas for communist-style expropriation didn't stop there. He also proposed massive taxes on the rich to "redistribute our economic gains to the benefit of all."
"Theoretically, there is nothing that can stop the government from taxing 100% of income so long as the people get benefits from the government commensurate with their income which is taxed," Obama Sr. wrote. "I do not see why the government cannot tax those who have more and syphon some of these revenues into savings which can be utilized in investment for future development."
Taxes and "investment" . . . the fruit truly does not fall far from the vine.
(Voters might also be interested to know that Obama, the supposed straight shooter, does not once mention his father's communist leanings in an entire book dedicated to his memory.)
In Kenya's recent civil unrest, Obama privately phoned the leader of the opposition Luo tribe, Raila Odinga, to voice his support. Odinga is so committed to communism he named his oldest son after Fidel Castro.
With his African identity sewn up, Obama returned to Chicago and fell under the spell of an Afrocentric pastor. It was a natural attraction. The Rev. Jeremiah Wright preaches a Marxist version of Christianity called "black liberation theology" and has supported the communists in Cuba, Nicaragua and elsewhere.
Obama joined Wright's militant church, pledging allegiance to a system of "black values" that demonizes white "middle classness" and other mainstream pursuits.
(Obama in his first book, published in 1995, calls such values "sensible." There's no mention of them in his new book.)
With the large church behind him, Obama decided to run for political office, where he could organize for "change" more effectively. "As an elected official," he said, "I could bring church and community leaders together easier than I could as a community organizer or lawyer."
He could also exercise real, top-down power, the kind that grass-roots activists lack. Alinsky would be proud.
Throughout his career, Obama has worked closely with a network of stone-cold socialists and full-blown communists striving for "economic justice."
He's been traveling in an orbit of collectivism that runs from Nairobi to Honolulu, and on through Chicago to Washington.
Yet a recent AP poll found that only 6% of Americans would describe Obama as "liberal," let alone socialist.
Public opinion polls usually reflect media opinion, and the media by and large have portrayed Obama as a moderate "outsider" (the No. 1 term survey respondents associate him with) who will bring a "breath of fresh air" to Washington.
The few who have drilled down on his radical roots have tended to downplay or pooh-pooh them. Even skeptics have failed to connect the dots for fear of being called the dreaded "r" word.
But too much is at stake in this election to continue mincing words.
Both a historic banking crisis and 1970s-style stagflation loom over the economy. Democrats, who already control Congress, now threaten to filibuster-proof the Senate in what could be a watershed election for them — at both ends of Pennsylvania Avenue.
A perfect storm of statism is forming, and our economic freedoms are at serious risk.
Those who care less about looking politically correct than preserving the free-market individualism that's made this country great have to start calling things by their proper name to avert long-term disaster.

Pasted from

[Q]

Look at that word-picture of McCain's website that someone published the other day. McCain talks about Obama more than anything else.

But I don't blame him. Why would he want to talk about himself? He nearly dropped out of the Air Force (4th from last place in his class), but made it through because daddy was an Admiral. That didn't help much in war, when he got shot down right away (which is why you shouldn't let unqualified folks into the Air Force to begin with). And how did he finally get out of the North Korean prison? They broke him and he made a propaganda film for them about how great North Korea was.

So he gets back to the US, joins the Senate using daddy's political connections. And then he dumps his first wife, the one who got disfigured in an accident, to marry a millionaire and establish himself.

Now he's an angry old crank. He's a mean and spiteful whenever the cameras aren't on him (and sometimes even when they are). He's flip-flopped on everything he ever claimed to support and has been toadying up to Bush for the past 3 years so he could get a shot at president (he didn't always vote 95% of the time with Bush, but he changed that around 2005 when he turned into a little toadie).

I should know. He's my senator. I supported him for years, but there's no way in hell I'm voting for him this time, now that he's showing his true colors!

[Blissed Out]

Tell me more about McCain. Convince me.
(Know Thy Enemy)

[JJ Flash]

Why do you give space to all these wackos?
If they had a brain cell to share between them they would know that people only read their inane, paranoid comments for comedic relief.

Me? I listen to McCain for comedic relief.

[Jonathan]

nevernobama - if we know so much more about McCain, then please tell me - where does he stand on torture, overturning Roe v. Wade, immigration, the Bush tax cuts, offshore drilling, the public financing of his primary, warrentless wiretaps, the estate tax, Justice Alito's competance as a judge, social security privatization, whether or not increased taxes are on the table to save social security, preserving the Everglades, investigating the response to Hurricane Katrina, voting with Bush, whether we've been better off or worse off since Bush became president, and the "agents of intolerance" who lead the Christian right? Because he's switched his positions on all of those issues in recent memory. So how do we know exactly what he believes?

There are also quite a few topics (like, say, definition of when life starts, definition of marriage, adultery, divorce, and his own religious denomination) that have rarely been talked about when discussing McCain. I wonder why...

[braggingrights]

This is what I term as third world journalism or crap!! the story posted by starryperdun is false, fabricated lies!. I grew up in Kenya but what the investors business daily has reported are lies!. Luos have never been communists! and I think luos in USA should sue this tabloid!
By INVESTOR'S BUSINESS DAILY | Posted Monday, July 28, 2008 4:20 PM PT

[Joel]

Barack Obama has run a magnificent campaign, shown real leadership and has earned a much deserved vacation.

John McCain is confused, showing signs of dementia and is mindlessly spouting dirty politics talking points from corrupt Republicans. Another four years of Bush would totally destroy our country and this is what the American people would get with McCain. For the sake of our country, we must make sure that Barack Obama is elected President.

[Harry]

McW doesn't want to talk about himself, because what little we know is ugly, mysoginistic, ill tempered, and mean spirited. If his poll numbers continue to be mired in 41%, he may just drop the charade and call Obama "uppity" to fire up his redneck base.

[Too filling and indigestible]

He needs to recharge his socialist battry.His timid moove
to the center has shocked the far-left lunatic fringe and
his flip-flopp on drilling has the tree huggers in a tizzy.
Add to that Obama's wild accusations of racism towards
pres. Clinton and you cant help seeing how amateurish
and immature this presumptive democrat nominee is in
reality.

[Tina]

To the Honorable Barack H. Obama,

Please stay in Hawaii and let Hillary take over. We Democrats need real leadership to win this election. You change your opinion every time you read a new poll. What happened to the ideas you lied about in the primaries to beat the real candidate. You think your way to cool and cocky to be the President. So go back to your nice little racist church and plan your next attempt hijack an election. Hate to say it but if the choice is between you and the old man, he gets the vote and I have never voted for a Republican.

Tina

[Jeff]

Referring to Obama's call for:" "Economic justice" simply means punishing the successful and redistributing their wealth by government fiat. It's a euphemism for socialism."

Interestingly, I thought the bailout of BearSterns by the Fed was socialism; "Corporate Socialism" for a company who couldn't make it through the down turn.

Also, I think if you look at all the provisions that the IRS allows inidividual corporations you find there is plenty of socialism going on there as well.

The reality is that Obama is aware that the middle class needs some protection after years of losing ground. Something to consider when you realize that 95% of the wealth in this country is held by less than 1% of the population.

Can anyone say "The New Third World"?

[Baz]

It doesn't take a genius, to understand what's going on.
Obama is under intense scrutiny by the Media, 24/7.
McCain, well, according to the Media... he's a Maverick, Hero, GOP-Defying, Independent, Straight-Shooting, Foreign Policy wizard, and thus, the Media's decided he needs no scrutiny. That he lies, flubs, & flips daily is unimportant.

What's really amazing is how the Media frames this as *Obama Fatigue,* rather than *Media Blindness.*
Unless the Media decides to scrutinize Senator McCain, it'll be *Mission Accomplished* for The Media - - 4 more years of America's decline.

[braggingrights]

I have started legal actions against INVESTOR'S BUSINESS DAILY Posted Monday, July 28, 2008 4:20 PM PT for defamation and hate crimes towards the luo tribe of kenya! hold your seat belt too LA times! this will be big buicks!!

[Paul Stewart]

I think we are all a little fatigued about Obama. Its because there is not even any pursuit never mind discussion of what and who is McCain. Instead, it is trying to "brand" Obama as something. Unfortunately, that is a little hard to do, because, he fights back and aggressively. This, in a short time will change. And, I would note, despite the fatigue, that Obama is leading in the polls still.

[reason]

It's not just Obama fatigue.. it's media bias fatigue and discust.

Journalists have reached a new low in americans eyes. All credibility has been lost, we don't trust any of the media news types.. especially the democratic propoganda machines called the LAtimes and the NYtimes. And they wonder why noone pays for their moronic bs anymore.

Get a clue.. if noone buys your rag then its because we don't believe you anymore. Good luck finding a job at the National Enquirer.

[Ron]

Why is it that every other word that comes out of McCain's mouth is OBAMA ?

[Ricardo]

Q: Thanks so much for the additional info on McCain's background. Having served as Marine infantryman in Vietnam, I was well aware than McCain was a Navy Pilot [May Peace be Upon Them] during the Vietnam War; that he had been shot down on a run over North Vietnam, and that he spent 5 or 6 years in the Hanoi Hilton (or, as the Daily Kossites refer to it, "a hotel"). However, I had no idea that McCain had previously served in the Air Force during the Korean War and had also been captured by the North Koreans. And to think that he accomplished the latter feat while still a teenager! Thanks again for this info.

[Don Jones]

Let us have an election for First Ladies...
Bro O is a salesman, If you fall for his line then you deserve what you get. The problem is the rest of us must live with your gullability.

Obama and Puloski - Wow, won't that be a great team for the country.
Don Jones

[Democrats 08]

No one has all the answers but overall Obama is still our best bet. I just hope Obama supporters can honestly understand NOW why Bill Clinton was saying Obama is the "establishment candidate" next to Hillary. HOWEVER, and a big however, McCain is not more of an establishment candidate, he IS the establishment, out of touch and flopping all over the place much worse himself just to get elected, McCain is LYING just like Bush did when Bush ran on lies and what people wanted to hear, just to get elected. We know the rest after they get in office, or at least we SHOULD by now. Obama is a chance and he will not fix it all, but he certainly will make some seriously needed changes in badly suffering areas McCain will completely neglect and ignore just like Bush has. These men, Bush and McCain are seriously wealthy snobs, they do not care about your money problems or your health, they have everything they need for life, they do not care. Look at their actions, not their words, they lie, but their damaging record does not. If you are thinking well what has McCain done so wrong? He has voted for and supported the vast majority of Bush's FAILED policies, that's what. McCain = Bush, count on it. This is a no brainier people, Obama is still head and shoulders the better choice for the fallen American people, no matter how you slice it.

[Rene]

Why is it that every other word that comes out of McCain's mouth is Obama ? He put out a couple of vicious ads about Obama and now he is claiming that it was all in fun.
John McCain likes to have fun at other people's expenses.... especially the American people.