No Runny Eggs

One of the advantages of working with a blogging powerhouse like No Runny Eggs is the vast number of relationships that NRE has throughout all levels of the Federal and various State’s governments.  One of the benefit of these relationships is that on occasion, we receive advance copies of press releases, speeches and prepared statements.  Typically when we receive one of these advance copies they will be embargoed.  Embargoed simply means that we can’t share the information with the public until after a date and time that is specified on the document.

President Obama, Henry Gates and Officer Crowley will be meeting this evening.  They’ll be having a beer and discussing race relations.  The White House staff has already sent out a press release as a follow up to the meeting.  This piece has been embargoed until 7:30 PM Eastern but with the increased concern that President Obama has with race relations I think it’s important for you to get this information sooner rather than later:

Press Release

Office of the President of the United States

Embargoed until July 30, 2009  7:30 PM Eastern

Following his meeting with the distinguished professor Henry Gates and Sargent James Crowley, President Obama had the following comments:

“Today I met with the distinguished professor Henry Gates and Sargent James Crowley.  We each had a beer.

Professor Gates had a Red Stripe, Sargent Crowley had a Blue Moon and I had a Bud Lite.

We talked about the incident that Professor Gates and Sargent Crowley were involved in.  We talked about my comments on the incident.  Each of us agreed that the other two could have done a better job.

We all feel good about our discussions and I am particularly pleased with how my Presidency has been able to move the discussion of race relations to this point of closure.  In fact, I’m so pleased with our progress, that as it regards my goals of solving race relation problems during my Presidency, I am happy to declare:”

Today’s the day that President Obama, Henry Gates and Officer Crowley will sit at a picnic table on the White House lawn and sip beers.

This may be the biggest risk of Obama’s young administration.

As I posted yesterday, Rasumussen Reports shows that a plurality of Americans believe that President Obama sees our society as something other than the fair, open society that most Americans believe it is.  President Obama reinforced that perception in his original response to the Gates situation.  As a result of this perception, President Obama will walk a very very fine line during his meeting.

If President Obama is perceived to have gone “over the thin blue line” as he addresses Officer Crowley he will further reinforce people’s perception that he ascribes to the vitriolic rhetoric of Jeremiah Wright and as we’ve now learned, statements made by Henry Gates himself.  If Obama is perceived to have not supported a “brotha in the struggle” he risks putting a chink in the solid support the African American community has provided him thus far. 

As an aside, the last group Obama can’t afford losing support from is the African American community.  As Rasmussen reports Obama now has his lowest favorability and highest negative ratings to date.  The only group who hasn’t started to defect from him are African Americans.  If they start to slide, hello 40% favorability rating, goodbye Obama agenda!

If Obama comes out of his beer bash with nothing but “we laughed, we cried, we drank beer,” he will be seen as having responded to his own stupid gaff with nothing more than another self focused media moment. 

Regardless of what does or doesn’t happen at this meeting, this was a dumb idea.  In the world of politics you need to look at the value of each engagement asking “What is the upside” and “What is the downside”.  In the case of this meeting, there is very little, if any upside and more than a modest opportunity to further harm his polling numbers.

Obama has proven time and again that he believes his personality and persona can save him from any real challenge or difficulty.  Responding, “Beer?  Brilliant!” when this meeting was suggested may be a response he’ll look back on and wish he hadn’t said.