Obama's Bummer of a Summer

This is everybody's bummer of a season, particularly these rough weeks for Barack Obama. You could call this a summer of discontent, but there's nothing poetic about it. The president warns that the economy will only get considerably worse before it gets better.

"The long-term deficit outlook remains daunting," the White House said Tuesday. Unemployment is expected to surpass 10 percent soon, the deficit to swell to $1.5 trillion, and the gross domestic product to shrink by 2.8 percent this year. We may get an early frost, too.

The stimulus was supposed to make everybody feel a lot better by now. The deficit would be smaller, Wall Street greed would be tamed, and General Motors would be selling cars again without federal subsidies. The health care debate would be over, with legislation signed. But senior Democrats are saying now there will be no health care scheme in place before Christmas, if then, and nobody knows what it would look like, anyway.

The good news is that the U.S.A. is still the Old Reliable, rebounding with poise, grace and growing confidence, just as it always does. That's because we're not the nation Obama and his friends on the left imagine we are, permanently susceptible to the blandishments of big talk and the music of seductive pipers, willing to be remade in the image of the Old and Third Worlds. America is unique -- "the last best hope of civilization," as Abraham Lincoln put it -- and this is the idea a community organizer and his friends from the '60s just can't get their minds around.

In getting itself turned right side up again, the public is beginning to see the Obama phenomenon for what it was, a vaporous display of fluffy clouds, soft and inviting, streaked with a nifty rainbow. He cleverly put together a coalition of '60s radicals, aging but still dreaming of a socialist paradise, antiwar dreamers who think apologies will subdue the violence of those who hate us, white liberals who imagined that electing a black president would relieve them of guilt for things they both did and didn't do, and black voters understandably eager to finally vote for one of their own (just as white Southerners eagerly took a chance with Jimmy Carter).

Obama's genius is his ability to read an electorate weary of war, weary of a world that seemed not to like us very much and weary of presidents named Bush. He inherited the possibilities in a perfect storm.

Sometimes the cultural instincts of Middle America seem to be missing in Obama; he's the son, after all, of a Kenyan father and an American mother who spent her adult life trying to get away from America. It's impossible to imagine Barack Obama hitting all the notes (or knowing all the words) in a hymn to "morning in America." But he understood that if he intended to remake America in a way that few Americans could tolerate he had better do it before the fat lady sings. He knew that the magic of the campaign of '08 would eventually flee.

What he didn't expect was how quickly the magic would flee, how quickly the public would awaken and how fiercely the awakening public would answer the golden con. The public saw that Obama's idea of the overhaul of health care was the first step in overhauling everything, and if the public was surprised, the president was equally surprised by the "loud voices" of the town halls.

Suddenly railing at the sins and shortcomings of George W. Bush, both real and imagined, is not enough. The heartaches and headaches of the presidency are his now, and he is clearly astonished that the unique responsibilities of a president can't be eased by spending a few minutes with an adoring press, making a speech or dispensing an apology to a distant enemy.

The "loud voices" that bedevil the dreams of the president have served notice, as Fouad Ajami, an international studies professor at Johns Hopkins University, writes in The Wall Street Journal, "that Mr. Obama's charismatic moment has passed. Once again, the belief in that American exception that set this nation apart from other lands is re-emerging."

That's very good news for the rest of us, but it's enough to ruin a day at the beach as a summer of discontent fades into the suspicions of September. Obama becomes less a man for all seasons than a man who must be watched closely when autumn leaves begin to fall.

He cleverly put together a coalition of '60s radicals, aging but still dreaming of a socialist paradise, antiwar dreamers who think apologies will subdue the violence of those who hate us, white liberals who imagined that electing a black president would relieve them of guilt for things they both did and didn't do, and black voters understandably eager to finally vote for one of their own (just as white Southerners eagerly took a chance with Jimmy Carter).

Very good article overall, and I want to believe the quote above, but I find it incomplete to describe what we are up against.

Most of the people I know who (uncharacteristically) voted for Obama cannot be pigeon-holed in the above groupings. We have a structural problem, and it's economic.

If you add up the astounding numbers of citizens who, in one way or another, benefit directly or indirectly from government, in a financial way, then we who live and work in the private sector are simply outnumbered. Add up, please, the numbers who benefit from the progressive tax structure, plus the numbers who actually work directly or indirectly for the government, and you will see that they comprise a solid plurality of voters. There are too many votes that have simply been bought. The public sector is now larger than the private sector, period. We shouldn't be surprised when people vote their own economic issues, and they will continue to do so.

The stimulus was supposed to make everybody feel a lot better by now.

The politicians know exactly the type of stimulus to give to get this economy going, but won't do it because it takes power away from them. The Solution?

Give a permanent and significant tax cut to all income earners, especially the rich. A meaningful tax cut would allow consumers to plan for large purchases of consumer durables, qualify for larger loans, etc. I would also cut corporate tax rates significantly. It's not by accident that the fastest growing economy on the planet is Ireland and they have the lowest corporate tax rate (12%). If you're worried about the impact on the deficit, look up the Laffer Curve. There's a good chance the gov't would actually collect more in taxes if they cut the rates.

Politicians would never do this, however, because they want the money to pass through their hands first so they can appear to "give" us something. Yeah, right! You're giving me back what you took from me in the first place. Sadly, the Dems give it to the least productive segment of society and it's really starting to piss off the productive sector. I hope we throw them all out, Republicans and Democrats alike, starting next year.

DEMOCRATS: Holding All the Cards and Still Losing
National Review | August 25, 2009 | John J. Pitney Jr.
FR Posted by rhema

Pres Obama is plunging in the polls, and his health-care plans face an iffy future on Capitol Hill. His supporters blame right-wing muscle. “I think it is very hard because [Democrats] don’t have the message machine the Republicans do,” says Democratic message guru George Lakoff. Even at the GOP’s 2004 peak, rumors of its omnipotence were greatly exaggerated. Now they are just plain loopy. Democrats hold daunting advantages that American parties have seldom enjoyed.

Start with Congress. A few years back, House Democrats complained that the Republican majority was shutting them out of the legislative process. Now Speaker Pelosi and company are pulling tricks that Tom DeLay never dreamed of.

A Brookings study concludes: “The number and percentage of restrictive rules used by Democratic leaders to control debate and amending activity on the House floor exceeded the degree of control and departure from regular order exercised by their Republican predecessors.”

The ruling party is even unfairly censoring Republicans’ official mailings to constituents.

Senate Democrats have 60 votes, enough to close debate if they all hang together. Such strength is extraordinary. Democrats last crossed that line in the 95th Congress (1977–1979), and Republicans have not done so in more than a hundred years.

Democrats claim that their majority is less decisive than it seems because they are more fractious than Republicans. But they aren’t. In roll call votes during 2008, Senate Democrats scored higher in party unity (87 percent) than Republicans (83 percent).

Democrats do not exactly face a hostile media environment, either. The evening news broadcasts of the Obama-friendly Big Three networks have dropped in the ratings, but they still draw far more viewers than Fox News. That’s why the Gibson and Couric interviews could do so much damage to Sarah Palin.

What of all-powerful talk radio? Rush Limbaugh reaches up to 25 million Americans, many more than other syndicated hosts. That’s a big number, but it means that at least 80 percent of voters are not listeners. More significant, polls show that most Americans have a low opinion of El Rushbo. So the “Limbaugh Did It” theory works only if he can mesmerize millions who dislike him and/or don’t even listen to him. Liberals and Democrats also dominate the hot medium of our time, the Internet.

During the 2008 campaign, the Obama campaign mastered social networking and other online technologies. By far the most popular political blog is The Huffington Post. Along with Talking Points Memo and others, HuffPo conducts a great deal of investigative journalism that advances liberal causes. As the Politico reported last year, the Right lags badly in this regard.

What about money? According to stereotype, the well-heeled GOP can bury the Democrats in campaign cash. That image is obsolete: Any Republican financial advantage is long gone. In 2008, Barack Obama smashed all fundraising records and got most of his money from large donors. He raised twice as much as McCain from physicians and other health professionals, and three times as much from the health-service and drug industries.

And listening to his attacks on the insurance industry, you would never guess that it supplied him with almost as much money ($2.3 million) as it did McCain ($2.4 million). No wonder Obama could co-opt business opposition to the health plan and strike a deal with Big Pharma: His corporate ties were a pre-existing condition. The Democrats continue to hold the money edge. So far in the 2010 election cycle, Democratic national committees have raised $12 million more than their Republican counterparts.

And as in the past, liberals have the upper hand at foundations and universities. Research from these institutions has been especially important during the health-care debate. A Yale professor, for instance, devised the “public option.”

With such a commanding position, President Obama and his party should be having an easy time. Indeed, they may still ram a bill through Congress. But the battle has been tougher than they expected.

There are a couple of possible explanations. First, despite his talents as a candidate, President Obama is showing weakness and inexperience as a chief executive. Second, the health plan is so bad that even a mighty political operation has trouble pushing it across the finish line. Perhaps both explanations are true.

John J. Pitney Jr. is the Roy P. Crocker professor of American politics at Claremont McKenna College. With James W. Ceaser and Andrew E. Busch, he is co-author of Epic Journey: The 2008 Elections and American Politics.

Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.