Obama cannot run on his miserable record so he is going to have to try a replay of his 2008 campaign of running against Bush. The problem is that the American public has softened its view of Bush. Bush may have been an average to mediocre president but he was a great patriot who believed in American exceptionalism and until the Wall Street crash of September 2008 (precipitated by events dating back to 1993), he actually had a decent economic record with low unemployment numbers. We must not let Obama get away with it and Donald Trump and Benjamin Netanyahu have in their separate ways showed us how to do it. Go on the attack and stop playing defense.
by Victor Davis Hanson
We are beginning to see the contours of the upcoming 2012 reelection campaign of Barack Obama. Whether always officially sanctioned or not, Obama’s campaign will focus on three general themes: a) the 2008 meltdown of the economy on Bush’s watch; b) conservative heartlessness in gutting cherished entitlement programs; and c) racial bias behind any criticism of Barack Obama.
By any standard, the economy has remained mostly dismal for well over two years. Deficits, joblessness, fuel prices, average GDP growth, and housing are far worse than the average during the eight years of Bush’s presidency. Unemployment during almost all of President Obama’s tenure has exceeded 9 percent, despite promises that, because of the stimulus, it would not exceed 8 percent. Gas still averages almost $4 a gallon nationwide, amid a landscape of continual administration resistance to new domestic exploration and leasing. Record numbers of Americans now draw food stamps and unemployment insurance; to suggest that these programs are plagued by abuse and fraud, or that, if they are too easily available, they can discourage initiative, is heresy. Some of the largest states — California, Illinois, New York — are nearly fiscally insolvent. We’ve borrowed $5 trillion since 2009 to “stimulate” the economy — and seen little upsurge in economic growth, but a lot of evidence of a raging inflation to come on the heels of soaring gas and food prices.
Massive debt, record new deficits, high rates of joblessness, out-of-control prices for essentials like fuel and food — a combination like that usually dooms a president’s reelection bid. Similarly weak economies in 1980 and 1992 derailed incumbents Jimmy Carter and George H. W. Bush.
However, Team Obama will make the argument that at least there has not been another Wall Street panic as during September 2008 under Bush, with the general uncertainty that followed. “Bush did it” is now too ironic a charge to evoke any more in matters of foreign policy, given that President Obama has now accepted all the Bush anti-terrorism protocols and wars — and gone well beyond them by joining a third conflict in Libya and quintupling the number of Predator-drone targeted assassinations.
[...]
Then there are those cruel congressional opponents who for some reason believe that the $5 trillion in additional borrowing since January 2009 was a bit over the top. Greed, selfishness, and a lack of compassion — not an aging population, vastly expanded benefits, and soaring health-care costs — are responsible for the difficulties facing both Social Security and Medicare. Remedies abound, but none have been adopted by Team Obama. Before 2012 do not expect that the retirement age will be hiked. Benefits will not be trimmed or some entitlements privatized to encourage competition and cost-cutting — despite the real urgency for reform, since we are already running a $1.6 trillion annual budget deficit, and millions of baby-boomers are on the verge of retirement, a generation not known for either its reticence or its willingness to do without.
[...]
Already, almost weekly one columnist or another insists that to criticize Barack Obama is to display racial bias. A reckless Donald Trump going after Obama’s birth certificate is emblematic of endemic racism; in contrast, unhinged nuts who claimed Sarah Palin never delivered her own child are perhaps a bit too zealous in a noble cause. House Assistant Minority Leader James Clyburn (D., S.C.) summarized the racialist strategy best, when he explicitly charged that opposition to Obama’s reelection hinges on racism: “The fact of the matter is, the president’s problems are in large measure because of his skin color.”
Clyburn’s demagoguery is a sort of strategic racial preemption: Prep the campaign in such a way that no one dares to talk of the president’s shortcomings for fear of being called a bigot — just as, in 2008, legitimate questions about the racist Rev. Jeremiah Wright and his intimate connection with Barack Obama were acknowledged to be off limits by a terrified McCain campaign. Yet there is no evidence that mainstream criticism of Barack Obama is racial or has in any way exceeded that shown George W. Bush or Sarah Palin. I will concede widespread racism and irrational hatred against the president when Alfred A. Knopf publishes a sick anti-Obama screed that exceeds Nicholson Baker’s Checkpoint; or when we see something comparable to the deplorable editorial that the Guardian published by Charlie Brooker, which ended with the question, “John Wilkes Booth, Lee Harvey Oswald, John Hinckley Jr. — where are you now that we need you?”; or to Jonathan Chait’s crazy “Mad about You: The Case for Bush Hatred” New Republic article.
[...]
The president himself — well after the beer summit, Eric Holder’s rants about “cowards” and “my people,” the racist inanities of Van Jones, the “wise Latina,” and all the rest — in ethnically divisive fashion urged Latinos to punish their conservative enemies, and joked that his opponents wanted alligators and moats to stop Mexican nationals from crossing the border.
So will this tripartite strategy work? Only if the president’s opponents allow themselves to be caricatured as greedy Wall Street profiteers who want to punish the elderly and are prejudiced against blacks. And if they can’t answer back defiantly to that nonsense, then they really do deserve to lose.
Read the rest: Reelecting Obama
Tags: Victor Davis Hanson
I think that, by now, the race card is overdrawn. If anybody seriously tries to use accusations of racism to defend Obama from criticism, the backlash will be fast and furious.
1389AD wrote:
It will be played again and again because they cannot run on their record of failure. Every one can see inflation when they go food shopping or try to tank up their cars.
Per the radio news – O’s been in office for 28 months and has been golfing 70 times.
Speranza wrote:
I’m not saying that they won’t try to replay it – I am saying that it will no longer be effective in intimidating critics of Obama into silence.
Speranza wrote:
Meanwhile, the rest of us can’t afford to play golf or to do much of anything else.
1389AD wrote:
I think he feels that the details of the job, the minutiae of governing are beneath his genius.
1389AD wrote:
Oh I agree with you on that. You cannot make people feel that they are racists when in their heart of hearts they know they are not. Only stupid white liberals (a redundancy) feel that way and they would vote for Obama no matter what.
@ 1389AD:
Sir, your Race Card™ is declined!
ROTFLMAO… Odumbo is running against Bush using the race card while Palin is inside his OODA loop eating his lunch, smoking his fancy Cuban cigars and drinking his beer…
Palin/West 2012…
@ doriangrey:
Did I mention that Obumbo is going to come home from his campaign only to find himself stuffed and mounted on Sarah Palin’s wall?
@ doriangrey:
She can hang him next to the elephant head. With those ears, he’ll be right at home…
First let’s see if Ozero’s Imperial regime doesn’t get mugged by reality before the end of 2011. The U.S.is the most indebted nation in the world. There are mass demonstrations in Spain and people are still in the squares since the elections. Doesn’t get the coverage here that it should, but Spain has, I think, the 4th largest economy in Europe. It’s all precarious and Ozero is busy pushing his Marxist agenda and partying instead of dealing with the serious business of the economy. The consequences of digging more deeply into debt every day will hurt us all. The Zero is making sure it all hyper-accelerates to PLAID.
In a marked shift from the Bush administration, President Obama’s Justice Department is aggressively investigating several big urban police departments for systematic civil rights abuses such as harassment of racial minorities, false arrests, and excessive use of force.
BUT BUT BUT on the same Drudge page, the headline is
UPDATE: MIAMI ‘WAR ZONE’ DURING URBAN WEEKEND…
‘I was scared for my life’…
Poet ‘Da Real One’ Gunned Down In Front Of Miami Poetry Cafe…
Violent crime explodes in Myrtle during Black Bike Week; 8-hour hell…
Rib Fest At Rochester beach turns rowdy…
Riot On Long Island…
Urban Melee In Charlotte…
Chaos causes DNC concern for convention…
Unruly urban crowd shuts down Nashville water park…
TEEN GANGS UNLEASHED ON BOSTON BEACH
And I think we can all guess who most of these trouble makers are
Limousine liberals? Number of government-owned limos has soared under Obama
the number of limos owned by Uncle Sam increased by 73 percent during the first two years of the Obama administration
doriangrey wrote:
Well, she gonna have to also mount TOTUS right next to him.
@ Nevergiveup:
I used to go to Miami Memorial Weekend back in the 90′s. I stopped in the early 2000′s becasue it became a ghetto Gang gathering.
Rodan wrote:
I hear ya
Rodan wrote:
2011 is the Year of Afrodescent slavery (or something like that)
http://www.panafstrag.org/pages/news.php?id=22
yenta-fada wrote:
Well according the latest science and DNA finds, we are all descended from a African Origin. So who the fuck cares
@ yenta-fada:
The UN “recognition” of descendents of slavery helps to sustain a victim class and further divides people along color lines. Just like Ozero does. I have a number of black friends with whom I can no longer discuss politics. It’s ridiculous to put up barriers between people where color was not formerly an issue. Stirring up grievances nationally and internationally is “progressive”. Divide and conquer.
Nevergiveup wrote:
I don’t the fuck care. Ozero is making it matter by “getting in your face” in true Alinsky fashion. Dangerous when there’s so much money and media behind him.
@ Nevergiveup:
Anyways, Stop being such a grouch. It’s not my fault you have to be at work. lol lol
song_and_dance_man wrote:
Ugh. You said ‘mount TOTUS’. lol
@ Nevergiveup:
Maybe the wealth redistribution is not happening fast enough for holder’s people?
yenta-fada wrote:
Wasn’t directed towards you but to the race agitators like Obama, Jessie Jackson, and Sharpy Sharpton and all them liberals who love to play race politics
Nevergiveup wrote:
Thanks for clarifying.
I’m such a marshmallow.
citizen_q wrote:
Holder should be, at the very least, fired for his inability to perform his duties adequately.
Dirty Barry’s plan to run against Bush sounds like a real solid winner to me. Just recall how well Carter’s running against Ford worked out in 1980. Throw in a GOP challenger that all the Experts said was unelectable and you can see why Carter won his second term with a landslide victory over the hapless Reagan …
citizen_q wrote:
Just give him a second term.
Bitching about, rather than fixing, the problem is a dumb move. But hey, what else can he talk about? How they jammed legislation we didn’t want down our throats?
Greetings from the airport, where I have once again navigated
the complexities of crack TSA security.
While I was subjected to advanced molestation so was
a Catholic priest wearing a Roman Collar looking about
eighty years old.
In a fairness I did see the first Muslim that I have ever seen
get advanced screening.
She was an old hag in a bag, with het close to 300 lb
daughter bitching & moaning, but at least it happened.
RIX wrote:
Sounds like a teaching moment. Did you mention that for the pleasure of her and her co-religionists company on flights we have to at least look like we are trying to not become the bride price for some moo-ja-ha-deen’s entrance to allah’s holy bordello?
/
Has CJ gone insane? Patterico has the evidence that he has become deluded.
http://patterico.com/2011/05/31/johnson-on-the-weiner-you-wingnuts-are-crazy-for-not-believing-wait-what-is-the-official-story-again/
RIX wrote:
The thing I hate about airports is CNN blasting everywhere.
pat wrote:
You just noticed?
Nevergiveup wrote:
But only b’cause of racism, discrimination and lack of social justice. ////
Need I ?
@ Nevergiveup:
Prach it my Nubian brotha!
/
_ General Seti!
@ Speranza:
Yeah, it’s always CNN at the Airport.
Interesting though, the hotels have gone to FNC
in the commoon areas. Not all of them, but a lot.
Guggi wrote:
Dirty Barry sure knows how to pick ‘em. I’ll bet this Crony Capitalist is Green on the outside and red on the inside. A real UN lovin’ watermelon, just what ‘We the People’ don’t need right now …
RIX wrote:
CNN of course pays the airports for the exclusivity.
yenta-fada wrote:
soft and squishy?
Guggi wrote:
That says crook to me or starry eyed naive useful idiot. I guess I don’t have a very high opinion of the un and those grifters who staff it.
citizen_q wrote:
And what about the hookers who service it?
@ Speranza:
That does explain it.
Macker wrote:
The Hookers in Zimbabwe could use a little business thrown their way too.
UN out of the US
US out of the UN
Da_Beerfreak wrote:
I suggest one of the many muslime garden spots, say yemin, or somalia.
citizen_q wrote:
Well, since those two “countries” are in such close proximity to each other, we can kill two birds with one “stone” in either location:
citizen_q wrote:
I say Haiti…
(WaPo)
@ brookly red:
Actually, I’d have to disagree. I think the Haitians are worth saving.
brookly red wrote:
Think what it would do for the Haitian economy. Whereas the UN is a net drain on the US economy, it would be a boon for the Haitians. All that new constructions for homes and titty bars that the UN folks clamour for. We could raze the existing UN building and build more condos. Or better yet, put a sewer plant on the UN site. At least the smell would be better.
Macker wrote:
OK, North Korea then…
@ father_of_10:
If you look real close at the background of my avatar, you’ll see there’s a titty bar there!
@ Guggi:
Welcome to the “Death Panels”.
Macker wrote:
look real close at mine and see if you can find the Pope.
PaladinPhil wrote:
Just a figment of Sarah Palin’s deranged imagnation
C.F. Johnson
@ brookly red:
Heading out for some Chinese takeout.
Jay Nordlinger once suggested that airports ought to have a “CNN Free Zone”.
PaladinPhil wrote:
we don’t use the term “death” it sounds so negative… we prefer to say “accounts no longer in use”… much better,no?
@ brookly red:
Can you e-mail me a larger version? I’m keeping my contacts out as much as possible today. Something’s in my right eye and it’s all watery and stuff. Thanks!
OR are you bullshittin’ me!
Speranza wrote:
too early… just had lunch.
Macker wrote:
Sorry, we noah make dah delivery…
Macker wrote:
Agreed!
Speranza wrote:
Racist!
/
New thread!
@ Guggi:
Well, whatever cred he may have had from his business career is shot to Hell by his involvement with the Natural Resources Defense Council. Bunch of watermelons.
@ Speranza:
Someone should start a class-action lawsuit against CNN and the airports for denying the traveling public a choice in which TV shows to watch, or even the choice of not watching any at all.
Alberta Oil Peon wrote:
I think it violates the anti trust clause. It is a monopoly.