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Saturday, April 2, 2011

Obama v GOP:The 2012 Showdown Begins


Well it feels like the announcement of President Obama’s victory in 2008 was just yesterday.  I guess time flies when you’re increasing the budget to catastrophic levels.  Fortunately for us, the Republicans get a chance to stand up and win the most important election in years.  Even if unemployment was 20% right now, the government shutdown, and the financial markets closed their doors beating Obama would not be an easy task.  The man knows how to campaign, and he knows how to take an issue that he has been wrong on over and over again and make it seem that he is the only possible solution.  It is nice though that there hasn’t been a re-release of The Audacity of Hope : Stories From the Big White House.  That should make the GOP’s job a lot easier.  With that being said though, Obama is going to be an incredibly tough opponent during this campaign.

·        “The financial problems our country is facing are as real as it gets to the American people.  Keep in mind though I inherited these problems from 8 years of failed Republican policy.”  This will be said in every debate, every commercial, and in every town hall meeting.  Obama knows that he needs to re-create the problem and put the blame on the Republicans for the current state of the economy.  He will make the case that he saved the country from pure chaos and while doing so making sure that unemployed Americans were still able to feed their families.  That is why campaigning is so difficult, because an issue like extending the unemployment benefits to the unemployed becomes more than what it actually is.  Realistically you can’t stand up and say we are going to cut all benefits for the unemployed because it will decrease the deficit.  People will be outraged and say “Don’t cut our benefits!  How about you guys decrease your pay and get rid of all that pork or beef that was in the stimulus!”  This can be translated to, I support decreasing the deficit but as long as it doesn’t effect how comfortable me and my family live our lives.  That is why domestic policy is so difficult, because the mathematically proven “right” decision is hard to sell if it takes money away from Americans.  Hence the Republicans aren’t very popular in low income regions of the country.
·         “In just two years, I fulfilled my promise to pull our troops out of a country that we should have never invaded.”  The war in Iraq is going to haunt the GOP, voting records will be brought up and commercials will be made.  This is where the GOP has to take a strong stance against the opposition of the war.  Sadam Hussein was a terrible person, killed his own people, and harbored terrorists.  The world is a better place without him.  We did invade the country based on the speculation that they possessed WMD’s within their borders.  Unfortunately we never found them, but that doesn’t make the war a failure.  That is what the GOP has to get through to the American people.  The next President is going to have to take an unprecedented hard stance on established Middle Eastern countries and let them know that we are not going to put up with any more of their crap.  Israel is staying get used to it, and if you harbor Al Quida then your nation will not receive a dime from the United States.  Put that in your hookah and smoke it!
·         “Healthcare is a right that people deserve.  All Americans need to have some form of health insurance.  It’s our moral duty to provide that.”  I didn’t see that in the constitution but I guess anymore it’s just used as a reference for a good quote once in a while.  The Healthcare bill is going to get so much coverage and attention in the next 19 months.  I think it’s obvious to anyone who follows this stuff that the bill isn’t going to stay around very long, but still the GOP can’t appear to be the bad guys coming in and taking healthcare away from people.  A solution needs to be created to replace the healthcare bill.  It’s no surprise to anyone that our current healthcare system is flawed, and that is a reason for reform.  Just because it’s in need of reform doesn’t mean that it is the government’s job to nationalize it.  The government needs to provide a path for the reform and let the private sector walk down that path to make the system more effective for all Americans.
·         “We have taken the necessary steps to make sure that we reduce our dependence on foreign oil, and to prevent another oil spill that is catastrophic to the environment.”  This is just going to be a lot of gums flapping because there is no real plan to decrease our dependence on foreign oil.  After Japan, nuclear energy isn’t going to get support.  So I don’t know what the best solution is, all I know is $3.65 for a gallon of gas is adding some urgency to energy reform.  Hopefully we don’t rush into a half baked policy.  I will say this though.  We never see 20 or 30 percent price fluctuations in milk and eggs because there are price controls on them.  For the most part Americans drive every day to work or to take their kids to school so they use gas everyday.  Maybe the solution to this in the short term is to pressure the oil companies to keep prices in a certain range that allows the continued economic recovery but also allows the oil companies to turn a profit.  If gas hits four dollars a gallon, the economic recovery we have worked hard for will stop.  Discretionary income for the middle class is low as it is, but if you have gas prices eroding that amount I will guarantee you that the economy will lose its momentum.

 Now that the main issues are established, who is the Republican to get the win?  That’s the tough question, I think that the best candidate is Chris Christie but he is handling business in New Jersey and isn’t running this time around.  When Obama ran in 2008 he was a fresh and new face to an old and withered process.  He brought charisma, intelligence, passion, and optimism to a frustrated country.  Three years later, we still have a frustrated country so the right candidate needs to possess the same attributes.  Whoever that might be is fighting an uphill battle.  Getting republicans to vote republican doesn’t take much effort, but getting 2008 Obama supporters to convert will be difficult.  It’s not because Obama has had the best policies, it’s because people genuinely like him.  So the Republican that runs against him needs to take the moral high road in the campaign and not just point their finger and say “you destroyed our country!”  That type of campaign will not work this time around, this won’t be a presidential race based on the normal insulting TV ads and town hall trash talking.  This campaign will need to offer solutions, and change that is more practical than ideological.  If the Republican candidate can inspire people even half as much as Obama did in 2008 then he/she will win.

Considering Chris Christie isn’t running I’ll be supporting Mitt Romney.  He has a background in business and he isn’t one of the GOP tea party members.  The tea party was needed but it should be for the people, politicians should only support them but not be a part of the actual group.  So much money goes into the Tea Party and the Sarah Palins in the world have made way to much money making speeches at their events.  A group that supports small government, and a return to liberty should support politicians that don’t want $100,000 to make a speech at one of their events!  The Republicans share the same views as the Tea Party, so why on earth would someone like Sarah Palin give them a price quote to make a speech.  This is why I think Tea Party candidates shouldn’t have a chance to win the Republican nomination.  Oh and the fact that the entire country thinks the Tea Party members are all right wing racists who hate Obama because he’s black.  With a public opinion like that I think it will be tough for Rand Paul to get the middle and low class vote.

We are in for some exciting campaigning and debates though.  The country will be in a better place regardless of the outcome.  I think it would be best if Obama got reelected for one reason.  He won’t be able to push through anything until the 2014 mid-term elections and I don’t see the democrats winning back the seats they lost.  So that will mean another failed four year term for Obama so the 2016 presidential election will be a sure thing for the Republicans.  Hopefully by that time we will see Chris Christie or Bobby Jindal running for office.  I like how that sounds.  Pretty much hand pick the right Republican who positions themselves as the solution to eight years of failed partisan liberal policy, and they will be able to pass solid conservative legislation because will have the house and senate. 

All of this is assuming on December 21, 2012 the world doesn’t blow up.

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