LUKE SHARRETT/THE NEW YORK TIMES
HUFFINGTON 09.09.12
Sen. Blanche
Lincoln (D-Ark.),
and Sen. Saxby
Chambliss (RGa.) during a
session of the
Senate Agriculture
Committee in
April 2010.
Markell, who has served as a business-savvy surrogate for the president’s re-election campaign: “This
is a less romantic time, a less romantic campaign.”
“Maybe [Obama]’s had to do
some more things you would term
traditional,” Markell added. “But
there’s no question his vision is
more along the lines of where most
Americans are in the terms of a
strong middle class. He’s laid out a
specific plan to get there, and you
see it already, people really feel like
he will fight for them more than
Mitt Romney would.”
That may be true. Certainly,
THE DEMOCRATIC CONVENTION
grees or performed military service.
But for all that, the engagement
gap facing the Obama campaign
persists. Much of it is a product
of a stagnant economy, which has
sapped voters of the political energy they had in 2008. But even
Obama’s defenders admit that his
time spent governing as an insider
has altered the perception of him
as a change-agent.
“What you have is an incumbent
president who naturally gr Wr