I think you've made an important point--it is essential that Obama talk past the press to the electorate.
It would be one thing if the press were dealing in substantial arguments. Instead they are giving substance to things like birtherism and whatever sideshow has been most recently presented by some loudmouth. 

I think the third party Progressive fund raisers will be extremely important in dampening and skirting the media bubble. I recently contributed to Bold Progressives ,for the Wisconsin recall effort, which has been successful so far, which to me is extremely important (for example the Florida Republicans are rejecting some of Gov. Scott's attempts to undercut collective bargaining and it could be that Wisconsin's experience might have something to do with it), and which received very little coverage in the media.

Good Post.

Did you see the link that I put up from Carville? http://www.cnn.com/2011/OPINION/04/27/carville.birther/index.html

He seems to agree with you, though I must say that your explanation is much more lucid than his.

This is basically spot on, imho. I also agree with a pundit the other night that said if it wasn't Trump, then it will be someone else to step in to take 18% or 20% of GOP electorate that is looking for a politician willing to speak in the populist, subtle racist, wingnut conspiracy language.  In the end this kind of politican can't win in the long run, but can make some trouble in the primaries if they are able to pump up that facet of the base.  There was also some article can't find right now that saying the GOP strategists in DC are just hoping the birther issue would just go away because it makes the party look extreme to the middle of the road voters.  This makes The Donald a liability to their chances. 

In regards to the last questions.  I would posit that the problem is that the voters really don't tune into the media when it come to politics.  Their reality is formed by Comedy Central or CSI or thechive.com. For example, Hillary Clinton was able to counter much of the "reality" created by press with one appearance on SNL. Those that do make up their minds early on, whether they read Dagblog or watch Fox News religiously.  So much of the media becomes just much ado about nothing.  The issue is that there is always the exceptions, as Kerry found out with the Swiftboat incident.  So a politican always has to sort of approach things as if it was the next case of Swiftboating and to make preemptive strikes with appearances on the David Letterman Show, etc. 

"...but he likes to position himself as the reasonable alterative to unreasonable opponents."

"Obama's deepest political instinct is to pose as the reasonable centrist..."

When did acts of rationality become seen as a tactical maneuver? Perhaps when a person consistently acts in a rational manner it is because that person is, in fact, rational.

I can't wait to see how Dondi gets out of this latest revelation about his many deferments getting him out of the service during the Viet Nam years.  He didn't actually lie about his low number, he just neglected to mention that it came long after he had already dodged the draft many times.

Good post, Doc, as always.  After GWB I like the fact that Obama is a reasonable man.  But I want to see him insist that everyone he deals with is just as reasonable.  If they're not, all bets are off.  (But of course that won't happen.)

Nice piece. I like your theory of how he is using the Donald to mess with the GOP presidential field. Nothing drives the crazies crazy like sanity.

Still, I'd take issue with your more general remarks towards the end. I agree that Obama's overarching strategy is to appear reasonable - to start with a moderate position, and then move rightwards in the interest of compromise. The operative word here is 'appear', since there need be nothing actually reasonable in the final compromised position he ultimately endorses. But then, as you say, this strategy only works if the mediators of public impressions - the MSM - play along and present his actions as reasonable. And of course ... they aren't doing so.

So what does that mean? He has a strategy that (i) sounds awesome, but (ii) will only work if the media plays along, and (iii) he knows the media isn't playing along. Hmm, that is starting to sound like a really dumb strategy.

Then your solution is that he "communicate past them to the American people, who actually care about actual things". But that makes no sense to me. What is he supposed to communicate - his own 'reasonableness'? He can't just say 'I am reasonable'. That won't work. He can't actually state the reasons for his positions, because ... well the ACTUAL positions as we all know (budget, finreg, hcr, etc) are not ACTUALLY reasonable. So maybe you mean he should just ... lie.

Dunno.

But, that aside, there is the further vexed question: how does one go about speaking directly to the people, unmediated by the media? Town hall meetings? Podcasts? Again, that is unlikely to work, unless the policies he is pushing are ACTUALLY good and thus attractive to the American people who actually care about actual things. But, again, his policies aren't attractive.

So if you agree with this train of thought, what you should have said is that he should start doing stuff that not just "appears reasonable", but is ACTUALLY reasonable, and so satisfies the needs and values of the people who care about ACTUAL things.

In short, what you should have said is that his strategy sucks.

Too complicated.

Rule 1. People do things because they want those things to be done.The reason  Obama showed  the birth certificate proving he was born in the US  was to prove he was born in the US...

But do you deny he was also trying to also affect the Republican race?

In April 2011? Forget about it.

Andrew Card , about W's  getting us into Iraq:

 ' You don't start a sales campaign in the summer"

Put another way, there are just too many news cycles between now and when the Republican primary voters start thinking about how they will vote in the primary.

So why did Obama show the certificate now? 

 As Mark Shields says  the one lesson of 2004's Kerry  swiftboating  was..................

Rule 2 Every day a charge is ignored is a day that some voters come to believe it. Forever..The rebuttal never fully catches up with the charge.It's hard work changing your mind. And once you come to believe something bad about somebody you want to keep on believng it .

Doesn't  Rule 2 contradict Rule 1?

  Nah. When you're trying to convince someone to do something positive -like vote for Trump, or Romney, or God help us : Bachman , timing is all...But when you're trying to destroy somebody, the sooner the better. If you're lucky his campaign manager might advise him not to dignify the attack by responding to it. So he'll lose..

I'm pretty sure Trump's glory days are over. He just got chomped and stomped by the prez and Seth Meyers over at the WH Correspondents Dinner. It was hilarious! Especially his pouting during the whole thing. I heard he got booed as he came in. And at the end he hurried out, scowling, and nobody talked to him.