The new year will be a time for President Obama to focus on the activity at which he’s been most effective: campaigning. As president, he’s been, well, he’s tried really hard, but pretty much everyone agrees he’s an expert campaigner. In 2008, he easily cruised to election on his theme of Hope & Change. Perhaps his campaign was so effective that even today people are filled with hope and a desire for change. If so, he needs to put an end to that immediately.Read the rest of it here.
Obama will have to run pretty much the opposite campaign from what he did in 2008, as “hope and change” are now his enemies.
It’s easy to see why “change” is a bad thing for people to fixate on now that Obama’s the incumbent. “Know what would be a big change for this country? A new president.” It also works against his policy ideas. His “stimulus” consisted of lots of spending. And his “jobs bills” were . . . more spending. The last thing he’ll need is for people to ask, “Should we try something different — you know, a change?” To which he’ll have to respond, “No, that’s crazy. Where did you get this ‘change’ idea from? That doesn’t sound like something I’d say; it sounds more like something from one of those Koch brothers.”
Hope is even worse for Obama. Obama recognizes this, as he recently told 60 Minutes that it will probably take more than one more term and more than one president to fix the economy. Basically his message is: “Things are going to be miserable no matter who you elect, so stick with what you know.”
Because crushing hope is the only economic strategy that’s worked for him so far. It turns out that Obama and his experts understand how jobs are created at about the same level that a four-year-old understands where babies come from, so causing despair is a lot easier and perhaps even more effective in the short term than trying to create jobs. When unemployed people give up hope, they stop even looking for jobs and thus no longer count in the unemployment statistics. Boom! Unemployment drops — thanks to the abandonment of hope!
Obama can't run on his record. He can only run on the idea that keeping him would be better than what any GOP candidate would do (and sadly, there might be some truth there depending on the candidate). He won in 2008 with promises to unite America. His campaign in 2012 will be all about dividing America. It's gonna be ugly.
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2 comments:
Anyone the GOP puts up is better than Obama; sad, but true. Unless the GOP nominates Satan himself, I'm voting Republican. My vote will be "not Obama."
And for those conservatives who will undoubtedly say they just won't vote: NOT voting is like voting FOR Obama. In fact, that's how we got Obama in the first place.
“No matter the legalistic interpretation, the Fed is, working through the European Central Bank, bailing out European banks and, indirectly, spendthrift European governments. It is difficult to count the number of things wrong with this arrangement.
“First, the Fed has no authority for a bailout of Europe. My source for that judgment? Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke met with Republican senators on Dec. 14 to brief them on the European situation. After the meeting, Sen. Lindsey Graham told reporters that Mr. Bernanke himself said the Fed did not have "the intention or the authority" to bail out Europe. The week Mr. Bernanke promised no bailout, however, the size of the swap lines to the ECB ballooned by around $52 billion.
“Second, these Federal Reserve swap arrangements foster the moral hazards and distortions that government credit allocation entails. Allowing the ECB to do the initial credit allocation—to favored banks and then, some hope, through further lending to spendthrift EU governments—does not make the problem better.
“Third, the nontransparency of the swap arrangements is troublesome in a democracy. To his credit, Mr. Bernanke has promised more openness and better communication of the Fed's monetary policy goals. The swap arrangements are at odds with his promise. It is time for the Fed chairman to provide an honest accounting to Congress of what is going on.”
-Gerald O'Driscoll in WSJ, 28Dec2011
Obama has proven that he has no love for Europeans, what with their ugly history of African colonialism and all. Could he be using this to set up the Republicans by having Bernanke lie to them about the European bailout? The Republicans may object to the bailout, either on principle or because they don't like being lied to. Obama then cancels the bailout, blaming the Republicans for any resulting economic turmoil, and screwing Europe and the Republicans at the same time. All he needs is for Romney, Gingrich, Paul, et al, to criticize this European bailout.
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