Dem's Line of Attack on Boehner May Well Backfire

Democrats are getting frantic by the day as the November election approaches.

From the President on down, the Democratic political and media establishments are getting in gear attacking the GOP Minority Leader John Boehner. They insinuate Boehner gets his tan in a tanning salon, they say he plays golf a lot (uh huh, Mr. President), he spend a lot on vacation (uh huh, Mrs. Obama), that he is a rich elite in the pocket of the lobbyists (uh huh, Mr. President).

Well, they seem to have picked a wrong guy.

John Boehner: the second of 12 kids from Ohio who is Barack Obama's elitist target (9/17/2010 Telegraph UK)

"The White House is attempting to cling on to Democratic control of Washington by portraying an Ohio congressman who grew up in near poverty as an elitist country club Republican controlled by wealthy lobbyists.

"President Barack Obama is doing his best to turn Representative John Boehner, the House minority leader, into Public Enemy Number One. If Republicans win back the House of Representatives in November, as polls indicate, he will replace Nancy Pelosi as Speaker of the House.

"In a recent speech, Mr Obama mentioned Mr Boehner by name nine times. A fundraising email sent out from BarackObama.com this week stated that corporate interests and lobbyists “have put all their chips on one man: Congressman John Boehner”.

"Democrats have started a BeatBoehner.com website that claims he spent $1 million on "luxury hotels, exclusive golf resorts and gourmet dining for himself and his fat-cat contributors". On the I-75 freeway outside Cincinnati, a huge poster showing a tanned Mr Boehner playing golf accuses him of teeing off 119 times in a year.

"Yet Mr Boehner's life story is the type of classic up-by-the-bootstraps tale of the American Dream that can put a tear in a voter's eye. As his story becomes better known, the Democrats could even be drawing favourable attention upon him. Right now, most Americans have never heard of Mr Boehner, and fewer still can pronounce his name, which rhymes with Rayner. The alleged elitist country club Republican is an Ohio Congressman who grew up in near poverty.

"... Mr Boehner, 61, is the second of 12 who grew up in a German-Irish family in Reading, Ohio, just outside Cincinnati. All but two of them still live within a few miles of each other. Two are unemployed and most of the others have blue-collar jobs.

"The future Congressman started work as a janitor and took seven years to get his degree – the first in the family to do so – because he had several jobs to pay his way. He joined a plastics and packaging company, rising to president before entering local politics by being elected to the town board.

"The family house on Hill Street initially had two bedrooms with Mr Boehner and three brothers sleeping in one, their sister in another and their parents on a pull-out bed in the living room. Their father Earl later built a three-bedroom extension.

"...Mr Boehner's deep tan is often mocked by Democrats. At a dinner last year, Mr Obama said: "He is a person of colour, although not a colour that appears in the natural world."

"Like Mr Obama, Mr Boehner is a keen golfer and a smoker. His sister sniggered at the suggestion her brother might ever have been on a tanning bed. The "dark hair and olive skin", she said, came from her mother.

"Bob Boehner, 62, the oldest of the 12, who sells real estate and is "looking for work", said: "We were conservative because we had to be. There wasn't the money to spend frivolously on things. We grew our own vegetables up on the hill. We learned early on that if you wanted something you had to go out and work for it." [The article continues.]

"Up by the bootstraps" is exactly the concept that Barack Obama as the Democratic presidential nominee openly scoffed at in the nomination acceptance speech.

I also happen to remember President Obama trying to portray his days in Indonesia as "poor", a blatant misrepresentation as his stepfather was a rich man providing well for his family and enrolling Obama in an upscale private school.

And now he is mocking and attacking a self-made man who rose from near poverty by his own hard work in the real world as an elite with a fake tan?

What a childish line of attack that is. Kindergarten level. Someone at the White House didn't do his/her homework very well.

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