Last week I declared that Mitt Romney would win the GOP nomination. Nothing has changed my mind since last Saturday. Romney hasn’t sealed the deal yet, but Gingrich is crashing and the former governor should win Florida on Tuesday. At this stage it would take something incredible to keep us from an Obama versus Romney match-up.
Much will be written about head to head polls between Romney and Obama, but I’m here to tell you that they don’t matter. Ronald Reagan trailed Jimmy Carter by over 30 points six months before the election. President Obama trailed John McCain two months before the election. President Obama will be judged on his record and on the economy. Say what you want about Mitt Romney, but trying to brand him as an extremist will not work.
Mitt Romney is boring. He’s not quite as robotic and uncharismatic as John Kerry, Al Gore, or Bob Dole, but it’s not a stretch to compare him to those gentlemen. Romney is the steady hand. He’s the guy you call when everything else has failed. In other words, he’s the guy who will beat Obama if the economy doesn’t improve before November.
President Obama’s problem is that people have tuned out. Obama has no plan to make the economy better. He’s out of ideas. After all the adulation and all the grand speeches, what is Obama’s core conviction? Sure, the liberals still love him, but they loved Clinton. Democrats are a loyal bunch. It’s a collection of voter blocs. Give us your subsidies, affirmative action, unions, trial lawyers, hand-out recipients and those who’ve been brainwashed into believing that abortion is the ultimate civil liberty. The Democrats love to pat themselves on the back for their diversity, but no one is immune from the pandering hand outs. That is why the Democrats are fundamentally opposed to reducing the size of goverment.
If you reduce the size of goverment the Democrats would suddenly have issues with their voting base. Can any argue otherwise? How many people on food stamps vote for Democrats? Wouldn’t it bad for Democrats if any of the people dependent on the goverment could take care of themselves? So President Obama is out of ideas. If he allows pipelines, invests in real energy, or really reduces the size of the goverment he would be hurting his political party.
In the grand scheme of things far too many people are dependent on the goverment. It will be nearly impossible to roll back the tide. However, there aren’t enough dependents to keep Obama from losing. If gas prices go up over the summer Obama could lose in a landslide. The Republicans could have a super majority in the Senate. That would be the true test of our goverment. Would the Republicans have the guts to starve the beast? It will be very unpopular. Look how the union thugs in Wisconsin have behaved. Liberals and conservatives have very different ideas about the role of goverment. The reckoning is here.
I had hope that Obama would be a president that transformed the debate in the United States. Instead, he made things worse. He loves to talk about himself except when he’s blaming others. I don’t dislike the President. He seems like a nice guy. Most Americans like the 44th president, but that doesn’t mean they think he should continue.
Will Mitt Romney be any better? I doubt it, but could he be any worse?
On Friday, October 6, 1931 President Hoover faced an economy in turmoil. His party had taken a beating in the mid-terms in 1930. With the general election one year away he gave a press conference. Here’s a portion of what he said.
But I think you will bear with me if I don’t discuss these matters with you. Nothing would be more pleasant to me than to be able to tell you in detail everything that has taken place in the last 3 weeks, to tell you of the difficulties that have been plunged upon us by the situation in Europe, the endeavors we are making to meet them, but it would not be fair to the American people that I should start crosscurrents that are bound to rise from partial programs. So that I hope you will bear with me, and I have to bear with you.
This is not a game; this is not the time for the usual political gridlock. The problems Europe is having today could have a very real effect on our economy at a time when it’s already fragile. But this jobs bill can help guard against another downturn if the situation in Europe gets any worse. It will boost economic growth; it will put people back to work.
How strange that, 80 years to the day, the President of the United States discusses the troubles in Europe affecting the United States. President Obama doesn’t take Hoover’s course of keeping political discussions behind closed doors. Much of Obama’s opening statement is directed toward House Republicans for not voting on the bill. It’s odd since the Democratic controlled Senate hasn’t even started work on it.
President Hoover and President Obama share a common fate. Both are facing a grim prospects at reelection. Both were super popular when they were elected, but economic forces and failed government action led to malaise amongst the population.
It’s been eleven days now since Jimmy Hoffa dropped his infamous “take these son of bitches out” comment at an Obama Labor Day rally. Why hasn’t the press been hounding the White House for an apology or at least a comment about Hoffa’s remarks? When Rep. Joe Wilson yelled, “You lie!” during President Obama’s health care pep rally, which was true by the way, it was all we heard about for days on end. The press has basically ignored this event.
Does anyone think the President Bush could have gotten away without having to comment about something like Hoffa’s slur? Faith in President Obama’s leadership is unraveling, but one has to wonder how much worse it would be if the press wasn’t in love with him.
President Bush received a never ending stream of negative press. What was going “wrong” in Afghanistan and Iraq was always headline news. It’s as if the wars ended the day Obama was sworn in. This has been the bloodiest year in Afghanistan since the war began, yet it’s not even news. The economy is in tatters and the President still blames Bush after spending over a trillion dollars. After receiving non-stop adulation from the mainstream media for four years how does Obama spin his way out of this? The American people have tuned it out. These are very strange days.
Gossip Girl or serious journalist? After watching the Republican debate on MSNBC last night I'm leaning toward Gossip Girl.
As usual, Henshaw made some good points about last night’s Republican debate, though I’m not sure I agree with his winners and losers. Alas, it is quite difficult to come up with an objective list of winners and losers since a debate isn’t quite as easy to score as, say, a boxing match. And even boxing matches that declare a winner without a KO are sometimes controversial.
Even so, here’s my list of winners, losers and those who fought to a draw… Winners: Mitt Romney, Newt Gingrich and Herman Cain. Losers: Rick Perry and Jon Huntsman. Draw: Ron Paul, Michele Bachmann and Rick Santorum.
Part of my problem scoring and declaring a winner is that these debates don’t allow for much explanation by any one candidate, thus they tend to stick to rhetoric and key words. Even when it’s narrowed down to two candidates during the Presidential race, debates don’t offer much substance.
Still, the candidates could make a move away from the pack by better articulating core principles. In the case of a conservative candidate, one of these core principles, and what is perhaps the most important one, is the role of the Federal government.
Ron Paul and Herman Cain came closest to hitting the mark on this, though no one’s really listening to them. The others danced around it and the moderators probably don’t know the difference between Federalism and oligarchy, though they certainly know how to gossip (“A friend of your campaign manager said that Rick Perry is a wussie. Why is he a wussie?”)
There was a golden opportunity at this debate to point out that the governors in the debate did the best they could with the circumstances specific to their states and the needs of their constituents. And that’s the point. Who best to make decisions for the welfare of its citizens than local and state government? And, who is more accountable to their voters than local and state government?
You can yammer on and on about this and that you did as governor, or that this governor had this much or this little job growth in his state, but it’s just a waste of time. Just once I’d like to see a candidate point out that an ever-encroaching Federal government endangers the individual and his liberty. The growth of the Federal government is, in fact, a move toward oligarchy; rule by the few over the many. Moreover, it’s an oligarchy that favors certain people and groups over others, destroying the concept of equality before the law. The bailouts, stimulus and health care bamboozles are striking examples of this inequality created by cronyism.
Still, I don’t know how much you can blame the candidates for their shallow answers. The moderators made it quite difficult to provide any depth by purposely pitting one candidate against the other and framing the questions to make it sound as if they were defending the indefensible. “Rick Perry, Romney said or did this. Respond,” or, “Why are Republicans so heartless?” Bullshit. Ask them a real policy question.
Speaking of BS, how about that brief foray into “science”? The Charlie Crist-like Huntsman took a sideways swipe at Perry, playing the ever-so-reasonable-and-moderate Republican card. He’s pro-science because he has not an ounce of skepticism about the wild-eyed lunatic-fringe claims of a madman (Al Gore)?
Meanwhile, Perry’s response was less than adequate. Once again, a golden opportunity to put the nail in the coffin of the climate change debate wasted. Will anyone rise to the occasion and point out simple logic? As a reminder, logical and thought-provoking arguments Perry could have made include:
- The sun may have something to do with our climate, given that it accounts for 99.86 percent of the mass of the entire solar system
- The climate has been changing for more than four billion years; it always has and it always will. This would mark the first time in the history of earth that a species was willfully unable to adapt to a changing climate. Who’s more stupid, the dinosaurs who simply didn’t know they needed to adapt, or human beings who drown in extremely slow-rising water because they thought the government was going to do something about it?
- Do Climate Changelings/Global Warmongers really believe that we have the power to regulate the earth’s thermostat, and if we did, what is the proper setting?
- Further, if we had the power to regulate the climate, who makes the decision about where to set the thermostat and who benefits from the settings? Will the entire earth be like San Diego, or will only those parts the enviro-nitwits care about live eternally in San Diego’s climate?
- Global warming is far better for life on earth than is global cooling. You can look it up. But the beauty of “climate change” is that you can claim the climate’s changing no matter what’s going on globally or locally. A little warmer this year? Climate change! Unusually cold another? Climate change! No change? Climate change!
The whole thing is absurd, as is the case for a larger and more meddlesome federal government, and yet it’s nearly impossible to get a cohesive, coherent and concise answer on either subject from the candidates. Immigration? I know that Rick Santorum’s grandparents were immigrants, but that doesn’t tell me jack diddly about his plan.
Perhaps most absurd, and also the best part of the debate, was the commercial produced by Californians for Population Stabilization, which proves beyond a reasonable doubt that there’s a special interest group for anything and everything these days.
Californians for Population Stabilization is against legal immigration. That’s right, legal immigrants are taking jobs away from Californians and Californians for Population Stabilization wants to end this travesty. What’s next? Californians against Seeing Eye Dogs and other Working Dogs?
httpvh://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ryd1-xco9cg
President Obama has asked for another speech in front of a joint session of Congress. This time it’s for his 2012 campaign launch jobs plan. Both President Clinton and President Bush served two terms and never had more than one joint session speech other than the State of the Union.
It seems Obama is incapable of any kind of leadership. His only talent is making speeches devoid of any real significance. It’s as if he needs to remind people he’s the President. How could anyone forget? Obama has had his entire term to solve our economic problems. Wasn’t that what the stimulus was for? Why did Obama pass ObamaCare? That certainly didn’t help with economic uncertainty.
The whole administration is a mess. The administration of “change” is the most status quo administration in history. President Obama is so clueless he doesn’t realize that the entire country has caught on… Why would we reelect this guy?
History tells us that the President almost always wins a standoff with Congress. The President has the bully pulpit. President Obama has wielded this power with three press conferences in three weeks. Obama is also aided by a press that is unwilling to point out his hypocrisy and the fact that he has no plan. Obama is the king of nebulous rhetoric. Pay no attention to what he says because the true measure of the man are his actions.
Back in December President Obama refused to raise taxes and in the past he’s on record as saying, “You don’t raise taxes in a recession.” Obama’s obsession with raising taxes would be bewildering if you believed he had the nation’s best interests in mind. Obama fanatics love to cite the President’s “intelligence,” but his current position is sickest form of cynical politics. The President’s position is political. He has chosen his political future over the nation’s economy. New Jersey Governor Chris Cristie’s characterization of the “old playbook” is the embodiment of Obama.
The 2008 Obama campaign slogan was hope and change, but the President’s true mantra is to lie, deceive, obfuscate, make it to the next election. President Obama’s position is to appease the left. They have become disillusioned with some of Obama’s policies, but nothing fires up the base up more than tax increases. Obama also hopes to splinter the GOP and blame Bush for the economy. If he’s able to get tax increases he hopes it would crush the GOP. He is far from a brilliant tactician because this move would seal his fate as a horrible one term president.
Obama will not be running against the House GOP in 2012. He’ll most likely be running against a Washington “outsider” who will point out that Obama raised taxes during the worst recession in a generation. The President can blame Bush until he’s blue in the face but raising taxes now is dumb. Obama will be the President who faced an entitlement crisis and shrugged. The President decided it was more important to increase entitlements, spending, and taxes.
The only thing that can rescue Obama’s presidency is luck. How much more can he have left? So many people on the left cited Obama as the arrival of a new kind of politician. I know most liberals have their blinders on and can’t admit to themselves what is happening. He’s the worst kind of politician. All of his promises were lies. Liberals, you’ve been had. For the first time in Obama’s life he’ll have to run on his record. President Obama’s record is debt, taxes, war, new entitlements, and a bad economy.
If President Obama loses his bid for reelection next year it will be because of the poor economy. If the election was this November he would be toast, but there’s still a year to go. I don’t expect much to change in the next year, but some positive movement would help Obama’s chances. To get an idea of how bad Obama’s prospects for reelection are just check out this Washington Post poll.
New Post-ABC numbers show Obama leading five of six potential Republican presidential rivals tested in the poll. But he is in a dead heat with former Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney, who formally announced his 2012 candidacy last week, making jobs and the economy the central issues in his campaign.
Among all Americans, Obama and Romney are knotted at 47 percent each, and among registered voters, the former governor is numerically ahead, 49 percent to 46 percent.
Romney is up 3 points in survey of registered voters? Ouch! That means a poll of likely voters would be even worse for Obama. Imagine of Obama was up against a candidate that people actually liked? I know, I know, that may never happen, but one can dream.
It’s still a long way out, but Obama needs a lot to go right between now and November 2012. People said the same thing in June, 2007 and he became president. Last year the economy was showing signs of recovery and it really hasn’t happened yet. The President really can’t do much to jump start things at this point. Plus, all the pointless “stimulus” spending has only masked the problems. There’s an even a chance things could be worse next year. If that happens, Obama could face electoral disaster. Time will tell.
The right to free ice cream isn't spelled out in the constitution, but when has that ever been a problem for "progressives."
I have to admit I’m growing a little weary of politics. Perhaps it’s the Arizona controversy and the left’s ability to ignore logic and its apparent inability to read. It seems our population is fine with being ignorant. It’s easier to be angry and upset with Arizona than to actually realize that its law not only mirrors the federal law, but provides additional protection from racial profiling. So if we boycott Arizona, shouldn’t we boycott Washington?
Then, on the other side, there are those who spend time theorizing about the President’s birth certificate. The Republic has a lot of problems, but the President’s birth certificate isn’t one of them. The average American’s knowledge of our current fiscal situation is abysmal. Sure, most Americans can tell you that the economy is not doing well, but how many people cared before 2008? Most Americans are frustrated by the business cycle, not the 40-plus years of governmental mismanagement of finances.
For the United States to right this fiscal Titanic it would take a huge majority in Congress to do it. I don’t see how this is possible as long as the Democrats have the support of 40 percent of voters. The Democratic party doesn’t have a plan to balance the budget or reduce our debt, only plans to run us into the ground financially. Sadly, neither does the Republican establishment. Eventually this economic policy leads to California.
“So goes California so goes the nation,” or so the saying goes. California is our homegrown version of Greece. The citizens of California want big government, but they don’t want to pay for it. The indelible Mark Steyn has an article about the situation in Greece, but it’s just as relevant to California and the United States.
The problem facing the Western world isn’t very difficult to figure out: we’ve spent tomorrow today, and we can never earn enough tomorrow to pay for what we’ve already burned through. When you’re spending four trillion dollars but only raising two trillion in revenue (the Obama model), you’ve no intention of paying it off, and the rest of the world knows it.
Most liberals I know haven’t thought this far ahead. They’re in favor of free health care like they’re in favor of free Baskin Robbins ice cream. The ice cream tastes good, it’s available in 31 flavors, and no one really cares who’s paying for it. I too am in favor of free ice cream because providing it to Americans would be a helluva lot cheaper than free health care.
Eventually we end up like Greece, except there will be no one left to bail us out. There’s no Tea Party in Greece. It’s the Government Party there. Almost everyone is employed by the state and they all want to keep their 14-month annual pension (that’s not a typo; they get paid for 14 months of work in a 12-month period). Think that can’t happen in the United States? It’s happening already.
In Yonkers, more than 100 retired police officers and firefighters are collecting pensions greater than their pay when they were working. One of the youngest, Hugo Tassone, retired at 44 with a base pay of about $74,000 a year. His pension is now $101,333 a year.
It’s what the system promised, said Mr. Tassone, now 47, adding that he did nothing wrong by adding lots of overtime to his base pay shortly before retiring. “I don’t understand how the working guy that held up their end of the bargain became the problem,” he said.
“It’s what the system promised.” What happens if the system is broken? I apologize, but I really don’t feel sorry for able-bodied men who retired at the age of 40. What are these people contributing to society? Being a police officer is a respectable job, but it shouldn’t mean that 15 to 20 years service equals 30-plus years of pension. Obviously some of these pensions are related to disability, but not all of them. Until progressives take this problem seriously the United States is headed to bankruptcy.
Here’s a hat tip to Mark J. Perry who has one of my favorite economics blogs. He’s been beating the “economic boom” drum for a few month and I believe he’s correct. Here’s a video from Larry Kudlow’s The Kudlow Report.
The short term looks good, but the long run is very very bleak unless we change our fiscal problems. It’s good news for President Obama and bad news for whoever replaces him in the future.
I mentioned a few days ago that the economy is slowly starting to turn the corner. It’s unclear if this will be a fast economic expansion or a slow crawl; however, things are going to get better before they get worse. Another good sign is that Home Depot is hiring for the first time in four years. New housing construction has taken a beating the past few years and is starting to turn around. Chris Burritt at Bloomberg has more:
Home Depot Inc., the largest U.S. home-improvement retailer, is adding store jobs for the first time in four years in anticipation of a rebound in sales.
“We have already added to our payroll this year,” Chairman and Chief Executive Officer Frank Blake said in an interview yesterday in Atlanta, where Home Depot is based. “As you have positive transaction growth, you need more associates to handle that in the stores. We are going to lean into our skis a little bit.”
Other areas that are showing improvement are railway freight and an increase in private sector jobs. What is driving the rebound? It’s not the government. It’s the American entrepreneurial spirit. The business cycle isn’t dead and as the Dow marches closer to 11,000 it’s worth reminding people that the United States is still a very prosperous nation.
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