Posted on 03/20/2012 8:12:09 AM PDT by IbJensen
I received a campaign letter from Michelle Obama the other day. This is especially surprising because I am a registered Republican; hardly a likely prospect to contribute to her husband’s reelection efforts.
“Every day I learn about the challenges and the struggles—the doctor bills they can’t pay or the mortgage they can no longer afford,” said the text. The “fairness” theme, a socialist meme, was expressed. “American prospers when we are all in this together, when hard work pays off and responsibility is rewarded, when everyone—from Main Street to Wall Street—does their fair share and plays by the same rules.”
The fact is, however, America has not been prospering for the last four years during which Barack Obama has been President. And everyone knows it. The U.S. sovereign debt rating was downgraded for the first time while he occupied the Oval Office. Federal spending (25% of GDP) is the highest since World War Two. Federal debt (67% of GDP) is the highest since just after the end of World War II, and the nation has experienced, not only the longest recession, but the highest unemployment since the 1930s.
In the first nineteen months of his term, Obama added more federal debt than was amassed by all U.S. Presidents from George Washington to Ronald Reagan.
I have two theories about the November 6 election. (1) That it will be an overwhelming defeat for Obama or (2) that it will be so close we could see a situation comparable to the Bush-Kerry election in 2004.
Obama’s Achilles’ heel is, of course, Obamacare. As Robert Bluey of The Heritage Foundation notes, recent polls indicate that 53% of Americans favor repeal and more than half (57%) say that the Supreme Court should strike it down as unconstitutional. Fully 60% of physicians believe the law will have a negative impact on overall patient care.
The Congressional Budget Office revisited Obamacare this past week and concluded that 20 million Americans could lose their employer-sponsored health benefits and 49 million more Americans could become dependent on government-sponsored health care. Projecting through 2022, Obamacare could cost as much as $2.134 billion and the employer-mandate penalties could hit $221 billion.
There’s another reason why Michelle Obama was writing to me last week. As Karl Rove noted in a Wall Street Journal March 14 commentary, “Many of Mr. Obama’s 2008 donors are reluctant to give again” to his campaign. “As the Obama campaign itself reported, fewer than 7% of 2008 donors renewed their support in the first quarter of his re-election campaign, well below the typical renewal rate.
The Obama campaign and the Democratic National Committee are burning through current donations so fast that the White House has told this year’s congressional candidates that they will not receive any funding support for their campaigns because Obama needs all the money.
While Obama’s 2012 campaign is already showing signs of stress, other issues will impose great pressure. Unemployment affects most American families either directly or because some member of the family or a friend is unemployed. Even the unemployed vote.
The price of gasoline continues to rise. Releasing oil from the Strategic Petroleum Reserve that exists for use only in an emergency is not a solution, and Americans are well aware that this administration has opposed or thwarted every effort to drill for more oil on federal lands. The failures of “green energy” companies that have cost Americans billions in loan guarantees are well known. A President who hypes “algae” as an energy solution will be seen as a fool and/or a complete charlatan.
Recent polls indicate how close the 2012 election may be. Obama has lost ground among female voters. In a head-to-head match-up with Mitt Romney, women voters back Obama 49%, but that is seven points lower than 2008. A Rasmussen poll found that 59% of likely voters asked whether Obama is more liberal or more conservative than they are answered that he was more liberal. Of these likely voters, 65% who are also union members thought Obama was more liberal than themselves.
Polling firms have been asking Americans to self identify themselves as conservative or liberal for decades. In February 2012, Gallup polling revealed “that in every single state with the exception of Massachusetts” conservatives outnumbered liberals.
The Battleground Poll conducted by George Washington University in collaboration with Democrat and Republican polling organizations found that 58% of Americans described themselves as “very conservative” or “somewhat conservative”, while only 37% described themselves as “very liberal” or “somewhat liberal.”
A conservative campaign message will win in 2012 and this explains why the Republican primaries are all about candidates striving to describe themselves as a “true conservative.”
Even the mainstream media are showing less enthusiasm for Obama. When even The Washington Post rejects Obama’s lies about U.S. oil reserves, as it did on March 15th, it suggests there may be a growing, wider level of disenchantment with the man they embraced in 2008.
Obama will lose in November. It may be a very close election or it may be an overwhelming rejection, but the polling numbers and the state of the economy will be the deciding factors.
Memo to Michelle Obama: The “fairness” message is not working. The appalling failures—“stimulus” anyone?—of Obama’s first term will ensure that there will be no second term.
Either that or they are truly ALL oligarchical frauds. That too would explain it; Republicans in power are content to be the loyal, permanent opposition - spouting off at the mouth during campaigns to ensure votes but never QUITE doing what they know needs to be done to reverse the rot. This would also explain their repeated shutting out of any candidate who even smells like a true conservative.
Either way, barring a true miracle, I believe our Republic is already irreversibly brain dead and on life support.
So why are Republicans overwhelming choosing Mitt Romney as the standard bearer? Of all those left in the race, Mitt is the most like Obama. Gay marriage, left wing judges, raising not taxes, but fees, and Romneycare the forrunner to Obamacare. By the way, Romney got federal monies for both the Olympics and for Romneycare. This is how he was able to turn a "profit" on the Olympics.
If Rick Santorum is our nominee, Obama will lose big time. If Newt is our nominee, it will be close but he will win. If Romney is our nominee, I don’t think we will win it.
The Obamas care about no one other than themselves, and their feigned concern for others — cynically expressed by dumping cash to favored constituents — is nothing but their means to power.
Could this be because most substantial donors are really investors seeking financial returns, but Obama thought these people were really giving because they loved him?
ML/NJ
An increasingly perverse characterization in a society where 45% don't pay any federal tax at all, public employees get special benefits the rest of us don't & 50 million Americans (and non-Americans) are on public assistance.
Its especially demented coming from a woman who stepped into the white house from a $350k/yr patronage position and can't seem to squeeze enough vacation time into her schedule.
Zero will win re-election thanks to illegal voting, multiple voting, dead voting and supression of the military vote.
Looks like Republicans have been hijacked by a non conservative faction.
Even if Santorum didn’t stand a chance against Obama, I would still vote for him over Romney or Gingrich. My wife and I have decided that if Romney wins the primary, we are choosing not to vote for a president in the General Election. We will still vote for Senators and everything else, but we’ll just do a write-in for president.
To vote for a candidate you do not like still means you support them. As much as I do not want 4 more years of Obama, I believe even more strongly that I do not want to send a message to the GOP that I support their rhinos.
Wasn't the horror of 20 million uninsured Americans the main reason that ObamaCare was rammed through in the first place?
—If Romney is our nominee, I don’t think we will win it.—
I agree. And in no small part because of the people like me that will vote for neither him nor Obama. I use the analogy of being a Jew trying to decide between Hitler and Stalin.
—Obamacare could cost as much as $2.134 billion and the employer-mandate penalties could hit $221 billion. —
I assume he means “trillion”. 2.134 billion really isn’t much.
You have a right to your own conscience, of course. Myself, my attitude is: I am always voting for the lesser of two evils. There’s been no perfect candidate, and I include Reagan, who had a divorce history (not as bad as Newt’s!), legalized abortion in California (although he apparently deeply regretted it) and did a massive illegal immigration grab.
So I vote for the candidate that I think will do the least harm; and the most good.
—While Obama’s 2012 campaign is already showing signs of stress, other issues will impose great pressure. Unemployment affects most American families either directly or because some member of the family or a friend is unemployed. Even the unemployed vote. —
This reminds me of why the anti-war movement was so effective against the Vietnam war, but not the war in Iraq. In the former, almost everyone knew a kid who was killed over there. It mattered.
As it will matter in November regarding unemployment.
Choosing the lesser of two evils still garners evil.
Vote for the best viable candidate come November ... then prepare for very bad times.
That is your right, of course, but in my mind that's a vote for Obama. I'm not a Mitt fan either, but getting Obama out of the White House trumps ALL this time. If Romney wins it all, then a conservative Congress will help keep him in check.
I suspect that the average person—not aware Freepers, mind you, but the average, exhausted, hard-working, fundamentally conservative person who isn’t that deeply involved in politics—does not know the backstory on Mitt. He seems nice, he’s attractive, he sounds conservative, and he’s not Obama. That’s what they see. They see Newt as an angry guy who almost never smiles, even if he’s smart, and isn’t there something fishy about his past, they ask? They think Santorum looks nice too but he keeps saying out-there things that make them uncomfortable and make them wonder how he’d face down the nut-jobs in the Middle East if he talks about sex so much. So they vote for Romney with a shrug. They just aren’t that well-informed.
Doesn't matter how much bling Mitty has.
The ENEMEDIA has UNLIMITED, and they will convince everyone he is the second coming of der Fuehrer.
This country won't survive four more years of Obama. Obamacare will be firmly in place--irreversible. And his czars and continued spending will place us on a path to a Greek-like meltdown. In fact, it may already be too late given the huge debt Obama and the Dem Congress racked up in a little over three years--more than the total accrued from Presidents Washington thru Clinton and now more than Bush 43 incurred in eight years.
You can send whatever message you want to the GOP, but it will be meaningless and irrelevant. It is akin to rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic. Given what is at stake, i.e., the survival of the Republic, "anybody but Obama" should be the objective of patriots.
The biggest reason why it reasonated was we had the Draft, making everyone who couldn't get a deferment, eligible to being sent there. We had an all-volunteer military in Iraq.
As a Vietnam vet, I am not in favor of reinstitution of the Draft. Our forces are much more professional, better trained, and more committed than we were.
—Choosing the lesser of two evils still garners evil.—
What if there is no “lesser”. Should I draw straws?
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