Libyan war rattles Democratic political strategists in lead up to 2012 presidential election

The administration’s ambiguous stance towards Gaddafi prompted particular criticism from several Democratic consultants, who point to increasingly skeptical and damaging media coverage of the White House’s war-strategy. On Monday, for example, MSNBC’s Andrea Mitchell questioned Republican Indiana Sen. Richard Lugar about the administration’s statement that Gaddafi need not be forced out. “If that is one option, has the mission already failed?” she asked.

“General Mullen says Gaddafi is not the object, but then why did we bomb his house?” asked Crone.

Saunders pointed to the Washington Post’s Monday issue, which featured a front-page picture of an exploding armored-artillery gun, and an inside-picture of the president playing soccer with a child in Brazil, during his long-planned five-day trip of South America. “When we are sending men and women into harm’s way, not knowing what’s happening, the president should have his hand on the throttle,” not his foot on a soccer ball, he said. The contrasting images of soldiers at war and the president at peace “will look bad to anyone outside the Beltway, Democratic, Republican or independent,” he said. “I think it is politically bizarre,” he said.

North Carolina and Virginia are crucial swing-states that Obama must win again in 2012. In 2008, North Carolina independents swung 2:1 in his favor, giving him an edge of 15,000 votes, said Crone. But those independents swung back to the GOP in 2010, voting 2:1 for Republican candidates in federal, state and local elections, he said. “It was brutal,” he said. The Libyan intervention was rash and will add to the layers of economic, health care and deficit-spending problems facing Democratic candidates, said Crone.

Devine, however, argues that Obama has an image as a calm, multi-tasking, international manager that will boost the public’s confidence once the intervention succeeds. “He looks like a measured guy, like he’s not throwing his words lightly,” especially when contrasted to the “cowboy president” image of former President George W. Bush, Devine said.

For the 2012 election, that calm style “is a winning political yardstick because Americans have come to the conclusion that the policies favored by Bush — unilateral intervention anywhere in the world — is a failed political strategy,” he said. If he succeeds, “the winning political formula [will be that] the president was measured, and his measured action has led to a successful outcome,” he said.

However, Devine said, “the first risk is that the objective will not be achieved.” The second risk, he said, is that Gaddafi “will lash out and inflict damage on American interests and allied interests, and the [media] story will move away from the attack on Gaddafi to the damage done by Gaddafi.”

The White House needs to step-up its public outreach, Devine said. “What the president has to do, is to explain what they’re doing, to provide a narrative …. [to say] it is very complicated situation, and call it just that,” he said. That plays to Obama’s image as a calm manager, not a cowboy like Bush or Reagan, he said. “If Obama tries to be [an aggressive] Reagan instead of Obama, it is a loser… He should be what he is, someone willing to grapple with incredibly difficult problems,” he said. “That’s his brand, that’s what he needs to keep in place.”

“I’m a Democratic consultant,” said Crone, “and I don’t think the White House has done a good job in telling the American people what our objective is… [Obama] needs to come home and explain why we’re involved in another war.”