August 14-15, 2011
Aug 14 09:21 Pawlenty Ends White House Run Aug 14 12:05 BREAKING NEWS: Sutton to approach Pawlenty on Senate run Aug 14 12:45 The Most Important Information From Iowa, Saturday Edition Aug 14 16:14 Another nail in Obama's presidential coffin Aug 14 19:14 The Progressives' Hatemongers Emerge Aug 14 22:45 Obama Thinks We're Gullible Aug 15 15:32 Is it a 2 man race? Aug 15 17:08 Obama's DEBT (Debt End Bus Tour) off to feisty start
Prior Months: Jan Feb Mar Apr May Jun Jul
Prior Years: 2006 2007 2008 2009 2010
Pawlenty Ends White House Run
Appearing on ABC's This Week, former Minnesota Gov. Tim Pawlenty announced that he was ending his presidential campaign :
Former Minnesota governor Tim Pawlenty said today he will end his campaign for the GOP presidential nomination.
Pawlenty informed his supporters in a conference call and then announced his decision on ABC's This Week. He finished a distant third in yesterday's Iowa presidential straw poll, well behind the winner, Rep. Michele Bachmann, his Minnesota rival.
"We needed to get some lift to continue on and have a pathway forward," Pawlenty told ABC. "That didn't happen, so I'm announcing this morning on your show that I'm going to be ending my campaign for president."
Gov. Pawlenty's announcement ends what should've been a competitive run for president. Gov. Pawlenty. Iowa proved to be his Waterloo, though, as he never gained traction in the state.
It isn't for lack of talent or retail politicking ability. Gov. Pawlenty's message of competence just didn't catch on, which is a shame. Compared with President Obama, it would've been a welcome change to have someone living at 1600 Pennsylvania Ave. who isn't utterly incompetent.
It'll be interesting to see if this morning's announcement means he's done with politics of if this means Gov. Pawlenty is shifting his focus. There's been GOP political insiders who've said that they'd like to see him run against Sen. Klobuchar if the presidential bid didn't work out.
It's difficult to see Gov. Pawlenty making that shift that quickly, though it's far from impossible. There's still alot of support for him in Minnesota, especially following Gov. Dayton's litany of screw-ups this past session.
One thing that's certain is that a Klobuchar-Pawlenty match-up would make it the most-watched Senate race in the nation.
It'll be interesting to see what's next for Gov. Pawlenty.
Posted Sunday, August 14, 2011 9:21 AM
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BREAKING NEWS: Sutton to approach Pawlenty on Senate run
What was a busy news morning for Minnesota politics just got hectic. Appearing on Esme Murphy's program on WCCO-TV this morning, Minnesota Republican Party Chairman Tony Sutton said that he will approach Gov. Pawlenty to see if he's willing to run against Amy Klobuchar.
Despite solid polling figures, Sen. Klobuchar is exceptionally vulnerable. She's voted for each of President Obama's failed economic policies, including his disastrous stimulus and Obamacare.
Minnesota is an innovator in the health care and health insurance industry. Sen. Klobuchar's vote for Obamacare essentially took away Minnesota's ability to innovate. What's worse is that Obamacare raised taxes on 2 important Minnesota companies, Boston Scientific and Medtronic.
Gov. Pawlenty would be a strong advocate for a robust domestic energy production policy. He'd vote to limit the EPA's and the NLRB's authority. Finally, he'd vote to repeal Dodd-Frank and for tax reform.
A Pawlenty-Klobuchar match-up would instantly jump to being the most watched Senate race in the nation for 2012. With Sen. Klobuchar's vulnerabilities and Gov. Pawlenty's fundraising abilities, plus his substantial policy chops, Sen. Klobuchar's best bet is to pray Gov. Pawlenty doesn't jump into the race.
Posted Sunday, August 14, 2011 12:05 PM
Comment 1 by Chad Quigley at 14-Aug-11 05:29 PM
So ol' Timmy couldn't handle the fact the Michele threw it back in his face what a failure and RINO he was that he had to drop out of the race and now this is the best we can run against Hind Sight Klobuchar? What a joke the GOP in MN has become if this is what we will be offered in 2012. Why not just bring ol' Norm back if we are just going to get a RINO to run?
Response 1.1 by Gary Gross at 14-Aug-11 06:21 PM
I've had it with the TPaw-is-a-RINO crap. I'll agree that he isn't the firebreathing conservative that Michele is but he's far from a RINO. A RINO would've caved into the DFL's tax increases his last 4 years. A RINO wouldn't have cut spending his last biennium in office.
In a state where the DFL media protects St. Amy & where 99% of the columnists would likely give their lives to protect her, Photo op Amy is a formidable candidate if the GOP candidate isn't well-funded. TPaw would raise gobs of money He'd be able to get around the St. Amy-protecting media with ad buys. Without the fundraising, St. Amy glides to re-election. With the fund-raising, life gets infinitely more difficult for St. Amy.
That's reality.
Comment 2 by walter hanson at 14-Aug-11 10:06 PM
Gary:
Here's an example of how weak Amy is. Today at a friendly gathering she gave a speech where she said she was protecting Social Security.
Um the best protection that Social Security has is a balanced budget. If I remember right when Amy got elected she was complaining about $200 billion dollar deficits. Now she's eager to support deficits of $1.4 trillion dollars.
Any candidate who seriously runs on that message will beat her. Chip proved that!
Walter Hanson
Minneapolis, MN
Comment 3 by eric z at 15-Aug-11 06:22 AM
Pawlenty is not a RINO. He's the worse Republican Governor the State has experienced. But Republican. Same camp as Sutton and Brodkorb, and what's that? RINO? Give me a break, and be serious. A Bill Cooper Republican. But as a vice-presidential candidate wouldn't a Senate run be contradictory, counterproductive?
It there will be news about Klobuchar it would be via a primary challenge, not the general election. She is so middle of the road ---
Here's one along the lines of Republican retreads.
If Bachmann goes deep into the GOP sweepstakes, to where more than a placeholder is needed in CD6, who? The guy who was there before her? And that takes us full circle, to Klobuchar. Her election victory.
Comment 4 by Bob J. at 15-Aug-11 01:06 PM
I like this idea. Perhaps Pawlenty may even have it mind. Personally I wish he would have run again for governor as he'd have remained a dramatic improvement over Mark "Governor Mini-Me" Dayton.
The Witless Wonder is vulnerable. Pawlenty could hit her where she lives.
The Most Important Information From Iowa, Saturday Edition
Of all the information coming out of Saturday's staw poll, the most important news is that Gov. Perry got more write-in votes than Mitt Romney got while being on the ballot :
Neither was competing in Iowa, but Rick Perry won an in-your-face victory of sorts over Mitt Romney Saturday: The Texas governor bested the nominal frontrunner by 151 votes in the Ames Straw Poll.
Adding insult to injury, Perry did it the hard way; 718 Iowans wrote his name down on their straw poll ballots, compared to the 567 votes that were cast for Romney, whose name appeared on the ballot.
It's an meaningless statistic from an artificial, non-binding political event but it's one that was widely noticed in Ames. And it underscored the anticipation for Perry's entry into the race, as well as his sudden emergence as a top rival to Mitt.
Perry's straw poll write-in total meant that in less than two weeks, the Texas governor was able to scrape together a third of the votes that it took Tim Pawlenty a year of time and more than $1 million to assemble. And Romney wasn't exactly a stranger to Iowa; in 2007, he won the Ames Straw Poll with ease.
I wrote here that these results scramble Mitt's general election campaign strategy:
Today's Iowa Straw Poll results are an embarrassment for Mitt Romney. They're also damaging to his candidacy. Mitt Romney's general election campaign ended with today's results. Before today's results, Gov. Romney could pretend that he was the frontrunner. That strategy disappeared today.
Gov. Romney's people will spin this by saying he wasn't competing in the straw poll. That's BS. Four years ago, he won the straw poll with 31.6% of the vote. It's a big deal to go from 31% to just 3% four short years later. Another thing that's got to sting is that a guy who announced his presidential ambitions earlier in the day beat him by 150 votes.
Mitt can't afford to write off Iowa any more. He can't take New Hampshire for granted either. Gov. Perry is capable of doing well in both states. Gov. Perry's affinity with Christian conservatives will help him in Iowa. Gov. Perry's libertarian streak will appeal to New Hamsphire voters.
After that, the race shifts south to ultra-conservative South Carolina. Mitt's chances of winning that primary are miniscule or less. Gov. Perry's chances of winning the South Carolina primary are at least 50-50, with a strong possibility of them being better than that.
South Carolina isn't a state that's a good fit for Mitt. He's a moderate on his best days and South Carolina is strong conservative state. The other thing that's working against Mitt is that Gov. Perry's job creation record negates Mitt's private sector record.
The dynamics of this race just changed dramatically this weekend. Michele Bachmann's win in Iowa's Straw Poll put her firmly in the top tier of candidates, with Mitt and Gov. Perry being the others in the top tier.
Finally, what this weekend proved is that Republicans own a substantial enthusiasm gap and that their message is resonating with voters.
When it comes to the GOP presidential nominating process, things apparently will keep getting interestinger and interestinger.
Posted Sunday, August 14, 2011 12:45 PM
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Another nail in Obama's presidential coffin
While President Obama's "Summer of Recovery" failed miserably last year, America's Summer of Recovery appears to be gaining strength. It isn't that the economy is turning around. It isn't that President Obama's administration is trying to control our lives less. It's that there appears to be one expression of dissatisfaction after another.
This week's Gallup poll represents another nail in President Obama's political coffin:
President Obama's summer woes have dragged his approval rating to an all-time low, sinking below 40% for the first time in Gallup's daily tracking poll.
New data posted Sunday shows that 39% of Americans approve of Obama's job performance, while 54% disapprove. Both are the worst numbers of his presidency.
Obama's approval rating has hovered in the 40% range for much of 2011, peaking at 53% in the weeks following the death of Osama bin Laden.
But Americans' view of his job performance continued to tick downward as the debt-ceiling debate heated up. By the time he signed legislation averting a federal default, he was mired in the low-40% range.
I can't see how President Obama can turn this around. The Fed's announcement that it wouldn't be raising the interest rate until the summer of 2013 essentially is their admission that the economy will stink the rest of President Obama's presidency.
With economic growth all but statistically nonexistent, with unemployment expected to be stuck at 9% the last 40+ months of President Obama's administration, with the federal government attempting to control more and more of our lives, people are rebelling against this administration.
The most telling signal I've seen from the American public came during a special Iowa Straw Poll edition of Sean Hannity's Great American Panel. In the last segment, Frank Luntz asked the adults assembled around Hannity's open-air studio if they thought their standard of living was as good as their parents experienced. Not a single person responded. Luntz then asked the same people if they thought their children would experience a better standard of living than they're experience. Again, crickets.
People responded to then-candidate Obama because of his mantra of hope and change. President Obama delivered on the change. Unfortunately, he's dashed the people's hopes of an economic recovery. He's talked alot. In fact, he's rambled on and on and on.
His speeches have had the effect of the boy who cried wolf too often. It's my opinion that people tuned President Obama out, for the most part, in the summer of 2009. That's when he delivered one speech after another after another on how great his health care reform legislation would be.
During the August recess, frustrated citizens, many of whom had never been engaged in politics before, piled into townhall meetings to tell their senators and their representatives what they thought of the President's health care legislation.
Week after week, President Obama's mouthpieces told the press that The One would address the nation to help them understand his genius. Throughout the process, President Obama refused to listen to the people.
Now, the people are returning the favor. They've tuned him out for the most part. That's partially due to the fact that he's refused to deviate from his pre-election course even slightly.
While telling people that he's serious about deficit reduction in a prepared speech, he'll then work in billions of dollars of new programs. With speeches like that, why take him at his word?
This polling data is just a snapshot of how frustrated people of all political persuasions are with this administration. Most imporantly, I've heard an ever-strengthening chorus of 'November 2012 can't come soon enough'.
That isn't a song in President Obama's worship me hymnal but it's a chorus that he'll hear from the people with increasing frequency.
UPDATE: Allahpundit's got the best line of the day on President Obama's cratering poll numbers.
Posted Sunday, August 14, 2011 5:28 PM
Comment 1 by Bob J. at 15-Aug-11 09:26 AM
Bring on November 2012. More and more people are waking up to the Obama Downgrade and fewer and fewer people approve of what they see.
The Progressives' Hatemongers Emerge
I can't say that I'm surprised that the progressives' hatemongers have emerged to start leveling the cheapshots at Texas Gov. Rick Perry. Thankfully, the hatemonger this time is Paul Begala. If it was someone with 2 or more brain cells rubbing together, I'd be worried.
Instead, I'm thankful it's only Paul Begala.
I first met Rick Perry in 1985. He was a Democratic freshman state rep, straight off the ranch in Haskell, Texas. He wore his jeans so tight, and, umm, adjusted himself so often that my fellow young legislative aides and I used to call him Crotch. Even among state representatives, even among Texas Aggies (graduates of this cute remedial school we have in Texas), Perry stood out for his modest intellectual gifts. Hell, he got a C in animal breeding. I have goats who got an A in that subject. But lack of brains has never been a hindrance in politics.
How a blithering idiot like Begala gets paid for writing, or providing political analysis, says more about the woeful state of liberal journalism.
If liberal journalists were required to consistently string coherent sentences together, Begala would be unemployed. Instead, he's paid by CNN to be a total jerk. Here's a smattering of Begala's jerk act:
Does Michele Bachmann make conservative crowds swoon by saying the Lord told her to study tax law? Meh. Perry gathers 30,000 people to a controversial Christian prayer rally. In Houston. In August. One veteran Texas politico told me, 'The guy is Elmer Gantry. He could take over a conservative megachurch tomorrow and outpreach the pastor.'
Oh wow. Some politico who doesn't have the fortitude to stand by what he said criticizes a man in the arena. Talk about spineless. It's impossible to think of the anonymous whiner as a profile in courage.
Then again, it's impossible to think of Begala as a serious journalist. He's a paid political hack whose claim to fame was playing a major role in destroying the Democrats' 40-year hold on the U.S. House of Representatives.
Here's the perfect illustration of Begala's being a cheap political hack:
Perry has flaws, huge flaws. Not the least of which is that he presided over the execution of one of his constituents, Cameron Todd Willingham, who was probably innocent.
Talk about a cheapshot. This is gutter politics at its worst. The guy "was probably innocent"? Probably is the best that Begala can do.
That's the equivalent of me saying that Begala is probably insanely jealous of anyone who doesn't worship his opinions. Either that or he's probably just insane.
The bottom line is that Gov. Perry is instantly a top tier candidate while Begala is a paid political hack for the progressives.
Posted Sunday, August 14, 2011 7:14 PM
Comment 1 by eric z at 15-Aug-11 06:09 AM
Is the term "hatemonger" itself hateful?
I find it hard to envision a progressive as on faculty at Georgetown. It is not a progressive place. Clinton, for example, went there. Scalia. Hiriri from Labanon, King Abdullah of Jordan.
Check the Wikipedia page for that institution. Check out its institutional seal. A war-eagle with a globe in one talon, a cross in the other. The motto banner above the eagle's head about two shall be one. Perry would fit in. Bachmann could have gone there if she'd scared up tuition or gotten a scholarship.
With that background for this Bagala chap, what basis in fact is there to ever even think to call him "progressive?" He is skeptical of Perry, and that equates to progressive. Sorry, but saying so, that doesn't make it so.
We have merely a mainstream media-head saying Perry has baggage, and the right-wing goes ballistic?
Keep a perspective.
Don't over-propagandize this tiny thing.
Last, I admit I was wrong about win-place-show in Iowa. It looks as if Bill Cooper pulled out the active money rug from under your guy Timmy. Now he sits and waits for someone to say Veep-Veep, a variant of road runner. Wily Pawlenty.
Comment 2 by Bob J. at 15-Aug-11 09:23 AM
Gary, I'm curious as to your thoughts on Perry. If he rids the Republican Party of Romney he will have performed a valuable service, but his conservative bona-fides are a little suspect to me.
In short, anyone who managed an Al Gore campaign needs to prove himself, at least in my eyes. Am I wrong to say that?
Comment 3 by Gary Gross at 15-Aug-11 09:41 AM
Bob, it's ok to do your due diligence into Rick Perry but let's remember that a) he was Gore's Texas chairman, not campaign manager & b) that happened in 1988.
Rick Perry certainly has crafted a great conservative record since then. Here's a little something to tell you how conservative he is: This year, he signed into law a bill that says if a lightbulb is manufactured in Texas & is used in Texas, then it isn't subject to federal regulations.
Does that sound like an Al Gore liberal?
Comment 4 by Bob J. at 15-Aug-11 12:12 PM
I stand corrected, Gary. Pardon the error.
I guess what bugs me about Perry and Al Gore is when he was affiliated with the campaign. We had just had eight years of Ronaldus Magnus and the economy was roaring. Democrats were running against the Reagan record to try to defeat GHWB and Gore was right there with them.
I honestly don't have a candidate yet. I will take a look at Perry but frankly that bugs me. I'm also willing to admit that people can change -- after all, Reagan himself was once a Democrat and Winston Churchill was once a Labour back-bencher. I guess the jury is still out for me.
Response 4.1 by Gary Gross at 15-Aug-11 03:36 PM
Bob, there's really no rush to decide. FWIW, it's worth noting that the Republicans who've converted from being Democrats have become staunch conservatives. Ronaldus Magnus & Phil Gramm leap to mind.
Ron Paul talked negatively about Perry once being a Democrat. Frankly, that smacks of bitterness.
Obama Thinks We're Gullible
Based on this AP article , it's apparent that President Obama thinks we're totally gullible. How else would you describe this paragraph?
Obama, expecting the political shelling he would take, fired pre-emptively in his weekly radio and Internet address to the nation on Saturday. He told listeners that it was the Republicans running for president and serving in Congress who were at work crushing voters' hopes and dreams.
It's pissing me off that President Obama won't accept responsibility for the pain he's inflicted on America. Republicans didn't shove Obamacare down Americans' throats. Republicans didn't shove the stimulus down American's throats. Republicans didn't vote for President Obama's budgets.
It's insulting that President Obama would spend 2 years signing into law the most damaging agenda in American history, then blame America's problems on the people who fought against that radical agenda.
President Obama, Sen. Reid and then-Speaker Pelosi shoved the stimulus, the bailouts and Obamacare down our throats. Then they put the finishing touches on destroying the economy. Then President Obama Obama, Sen. Reid and then-Speaker Pelosi spent us into the biggest deficits in U.S. history.
If President Obama thinks that Republicans are to blame for the biggest deficits in U.S. history, then he's exceptionally stupid. If he's just saying it's Republicans' fault, then he's a liar.
The question for Obama and his backers remains: Will he sustain the counterattack? Of late, he's been seen by even his most staunch supporters as too ready to retreat from critical ground when confronted by intransigent Republicans.
He's been forced to retreat because he's on the wrong side of the debates recently.
November, 2012 can't get here soon enough. When it does, President Obama will find out that voters won't hesitate in holding him accountable.
Posted Sunday, August 14, 2011 10:45 PM
Comment 1 by eric z at 15-Aug-11 06:11 AM
Perry thinks we're gullible. Along with the Koch brothers and other puppeteers for the Tea Party stuff.
Comment 2 by Bob J. at 15-Aug-11 09:18 AM
They don't call him "Der Leader" for nothing.
Is it a 2 man race?
I'm skeptical of this NYPost article , mainly because I don't think it's a 2-man race for the GOP presidential nomination.
The Texas governor announced in South Carolina, instantly turning it into a two-man race, neither of them named Michele.
The real GOP contest is down to two candidates, each offering a competing vision for the future of their party and the country: Mitt Romney, the technocratic millionaire businessman and establishment blue blood, and Perry, the Air Force veteran from tiny Paint Creek and the longest-serving governor in Texas history.
If there's anything we've learned through the Pawlenty campaign, it's that the GOP electorate is looking for a fighter with impeccable conservative credentials. That isn't Mitt.
Mitt has the money to stay in the race as long as he wants. He just isn't on the right side of the issues. Romneycare, of course, is a disaster but his difficulties go deeper than that.
In fact, it's quite possible that his biggest hindrance is that it's impossible to predict what he'll do from moment to moment. Triangulation worked with Bill Clinton when the stakes seemingly weren't that high. That won't work now.
It's disquieting that Mitt won't admit who he really is: a GOP moderate. He continues to pretend that he's a staunch conservative.
If this truly is a 2-man race, then one of those 'men' might be my congresslady, Michele Bachmann. This nominating race is beyond the establishment's control, which is probably driving the establishment control freaks nuts.
Here's proof that this nominating race is beyond the establishment's control: anti-establishment candidates, aka Michele Bachmann, Ron Paul, Rick Perry and Herman Cain, got almost 75% of the straw poll vote.
Mitt's strategy will be to spin this by saying he wasn't participating in the straw poll. That strategy will fail because he spent tons of time campaigning before the straw poll. He got into a heated exchange with a Democratic activist the day of the debate. He was fully invested.
For Mitt to get only 3% of the vote after winning in 2007 with 31.6% of the vote is shameful. To lose, as Frank Luntz put it, to a guy who'd been in the race "for minutes, not even hours" is stunning.
In fact, it isn't difficult to make a respectable argument that this is a 1-man race right now. I don't think it is a 1-man race but I don't think it's difficult to argue that this race is really about Rick Perry.
Rick Perry will play well with Christian conservatives in Iowa and South Carolina. With his strong libertarian bent, he'll likely play well with New Hampshire's libertarians. When the race shifts to the south, he'll likely take off.
Michele, despite her winning the Iowa Straw Poll, still faces difficulties translating her popularity into votes outside Iowa. She'll certainly face a challenge in New Hampshire because she's a conservative, not a libertarian. I think she'll do well in South Carolina but I don't think she'll do well in Michigan because she opposed the auto industry bailouts.
Mitt's and Michele's policy of letting the businesses go into bankruptcy for reorganization is the right policy. It just won't add up to many votes for them. That gives Gov. Perry a major advantage in the Michigan primary. It's possible that Michele's momentum will have disappeared before the candidates reach Florida's primary.
If Mitt doesn't contest Iowa and do well there, his campaign will be struggling. If he loses South Carolina and Michigan, a distinct possibility, his campaign is essentially finished.
Whatever happens from here, it's going to be a fun time for bloggers like myself.
Posted Monday, August 15, 2011 3:32 PM
Comment 1 by Sam at 15-Aug-11 04:10 PM
Anyone who actually thinks the Iowa Straw poll means anything well.
Bush (HW) won before Regan was our Candidate.
Pat Robertson Won before Bush (HW)
Mitt before McCain.
All the straw poll does is kill off week candidates, and let everyone know who will not win.
Ron Paul came in second - enough said.
It is a two man race - Mitt on one side as the moderate/insider candidate. Rick Perry as the Conservative/outsider candidate.
Michelle doesn't have a chance. She has too many negatives (deserved or not) that folks will flee to Perry.
Response 1.1 by Gary Gross at 15-Aug-11 04:26 PM
I don't know that it's down to 2 finalists. It might be. I'm just not certain of it.
Comment 2 by Bob J. at 15-Aug-11 04:15 PM
You wrote: "I don't think she'll do well in Michigan because she opposed the auto industry bailouts."
If Michigan Republicans support a candidate who was in favor of taxpayer bailouts of Obama union cronies, that says all we need to know.
It's quite possible that this primary may indeed be all about Perry. However, I want the most conservative candidate we can get, because that's what the primary process is for, and I'm still doing due diligence on Governor Perry. I don't think he'd be a deal breaker if he were the nominee.
But if I had to choose between the two right now, my vote would go to my home state Congresswoman.
Response 2.1 by Gary Gross at 15-Aug-11 04:24 PM
Michigan's primary is an open primary.
Comment 3 by Bob J. at 16-Aug-11 09:02 AM
"Michigan's primary is an open primary."
Ah, but you've also put your finger on another problem we've got. Open primaries and a fixed primary schedule are just two of the woes the Republican Party really ought to fix.
Why on earth Democrats should get to help choose our nominee is beyond me. I'd also like to see rotation of the primary schedule so voters in Iowa and New Hampshire don't get to choose the nominee every time as well.
I know ... dream on.
Comment 4 by eric z at 17-Aug-11 07:04 AM
I did a word search. This post. Earlier comments. I searched "ron." The only hit I got was the sidebar, middle of the word, "environment." Gary, is there an elephant in the room some fail to see?
Obama's DEBT (Debt End Bus Tour) off to feisty start
This morning, President Obama's taxpayer-funded campaign tour got off to a feisty start :
And he went after Congress for failing to compromise over measures to do both.
'You've got to send a message to Washington that it's time for the games to stop. It's time to put country first,' Obama said, his voice rising. ' Some folks in Congress...would rather see their opponents lose, than America win .'
The town hall, and several more events in Iowa and Illinois this week, set the stage for battles over the economy and the budget coming this fall.
Describing a litany of unexpected shocks to the economy, from the earthquake in Japan to the unrest in the Middle East, Obama repeated his call for extending a two- percentage-point cut in the payroll tax when it expires at the end of this year.
He called on Congress to pass measures to hire construction workers, a trio of trade bills, an overhaul of patent laws and new tax credits to spur new jobs for veterans.
What's disturbing is that President Obama lied when he said that "Some folks in Congress...would rather see their opponents lose, than America win.' That cheapshot accusation won't cut it with me. If President Obama is going to make that accusation, then he'd better name names.
This fits into President Obama's pattern of using strawman arguments. I don't believe for a split-second that "folks in Congress would rather see their opponents lose than see America win." Again, if President Obama is making these accusations, he'd better have verifiable proof to back those accusations up.
Another thing that's interesting is President Obama's insistence that everything that's wrong with Washington is the Republicans' fault. That dog don't hunt. The economy has underperformed the people's needs President Obama's administration. Democrats were in total control of DC for 2 years. What's more is that the budget bills were passed with Democrats' votes only. Republicans didn't vote for the stimulus, Obamacare or the Democrats' budgets.
At what point will President Obama take responsibility for the crappy economy?
President Obama made a significant mistake when he said this:
'We're not growing as fast as we need to, to drive down the unemployment rate,' Obama said.
He's right. It isn't growing fast enough to lower the unemployment rate. The only times that the unemployment rate has dropped has been when 100,000+ people have stopped looking for work that month.
In fact, it isn't unreasonable to think that the economy has stopped growing. Certainly the downward revision of the Q1 GDP from 1.9% to .4% doesn't suggest that the economy is doing anything but treading water, if that.
Democrats had 2 full years to diagnose, then fix, the economy. That didn't happen. That's why they lost a humiliating 63 seats in the U.S. House of Representatives. That's why 19 state legislative majorities flipped from Democrat to Republican.
The scripting for the event was obvious:
Before the event, audience members gave an upbeat appraisal of Obama's record on jobs, though some said they want him to push even more for taxing the rich.
'I'd like to see the ultra-rich pay their fair share,' said Ryan Zimmer, a nurse from Rochester. 'He's got to be a politician, but I'd like to see a bit more push.'
'I think he's doing a good job. He inherited a very big deficit,' said Bob Sixta, a financial planner from Rochester. 'He and Michelle are the first residents of the White House to be familiar with both organic food and leftovers.'
It's utterly absurd to say President Obama "inherited a very big deficit", especially considering each of the deficits during his administration were 3 times bigger than the last Bush administration deficit.
As far as taxpayer-funded campaigns go, which is what this is, it's doubtful that this tour will help him. People have, in my opinion, tuned his words out. They're rating him lower and lower because of his performance.
That he isn't qualified for the job isn't Republicans' fault. That's his fault and his alone.
Posted Monday, August 15, 2011 5:41 PM
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