"American politicians have manipulated the Obama brand to be synonymous with anti-American, anti-freedom and anti-you."

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Opinion: American voters too easily swayed by political buzzwords
By Jana King, November 20, 2014

Last week, Texas Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, took to the Washington Post to inform Americans that the hot topic of net neutrality is “Obamacare for the Internet.” It’s politicians like Cruz who have me counting down the days until President Barack Obama is out of the White House.

Personally, I’ve been pro-Obama from the start. But it seems like conservative politicians have molded him into a scapegoat to blame for our problems and compare liberal initiatives to. And it’s equal parts exhausting and frustrating.

Sen. Cruz made a valid point. Net neutrality is the idea that financial relationships between web service providers and websites should not impact the availability of information to the public. The Affordable Care Act aimed to make healthcare a public utility which was available to all American citizens regardless of income, employment status or place of residence.

While there is considerable lobbying on both issues, from both conservative and liberal forces, the main goals are, in fact, similar. Ultimately the two just want things to remain free, or as close to free as possible for the American population, both in financial and accessibility terms. And as far as I’m concerned, health and education should be at the top of every American’s priority list.

But if there’s one thing we hate more than big companies taking over public utilities for their own financial gain, it’s the Obama brand.

I doubt Cruz wrote his op-ed on the importance of entrepreneurial freedom in America to show the American people the evils of net neutrality. Because at the end of the day, it doesn’t matter what facts or statistics he shared with readers. All they will remember is net neutrality being compared to Obama.

When Rep. Bill Cassidy, R-La., joined other Senate hopefuls Sen. Mary Landrieu, D-La., and Col. Rob Maness in the debate hosted on campus last month, every single answer he gave, not matter the question asked, included a comparison of Landrieu to Obama. In fact, after viewing the entire debate, the only thing I could tell you about it a month later is the phrase “Senator Landrieu backed Obama 97 percent of the time in 2013.” This phrase has also appeared in Cassidy’s attack commercials during the election season.

Similarly, anytime Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal takes to Twitter to rant about why the Affordable Care Act is the root of all evil in our state, he doesn’t use its real name. He doesn’t even bother to abbreviate it to ACA in an effort to keep within the 140 character restrictions. He uses the anti-Obama mindset of Louisiana voters and, in doing so, keeps them on his side.

But what would happen if Jindal started using the term “affordable” when talking about government regulated health care? He would lose the ignorant or otherwise politically apathetic to the financial stress most Louisiana citizens live under. If he were to call it what it actually is, the Affordable Care Act, it would not be viewed so negatively.

And if Cassidy didn’t use the Obama brand to sway voters, he may have actually had to prepare one or two intelligent responses for the Senate debate. Given the few phrases he muttered during the one hour debate which weren’t Obama attacks directed at Landrieu, I doubt he would’ve made it to runoff elections.

But once again, the only thing Americans hate more than spending money or an empty-headed politician is the Obama brand.

American politicians have manipulated the Obama brand to be synonymous with anti-American, anti-freedom and anti-you. And Americans have allowed them to do so by never questioning Cassidy’s statistics or Jindal’s tweets. We simply hear the name Obama and get angry.

But what we should be getting angry about is how naive and simple-minded those in positions of power think we are.
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