Campaign 2012

Obama’s Re-election Strategy

Retired Spook246 Comments

Is Obama trying to lose the election?  The current disconnect with reality and desire to pander to every far left cause has me wondering if Obama is trying to lose, is he just this clueless, or, as Rush noted recently, is he simply confident that he has bought enough votes to assure his re-election?

The keystone pipeline was a no brainer, and could have boosted consumer confidence to a new level resulting in higher approval numbers for Obama, not to mention bringing unemployment down, creating good paying jobs, and stimulating the local economy of many towns along the way, but Obama chooses to pander instead to environmental extremists.

The recent constitutional over reach with respect to religious liberties was another bone-headed move and not very well thought out, although it appears the move may be the first broadside in an effort to shift the political conversation away from abortion to “the GOP wants to ban contraception”.  I guess we’ll find out in a few months if that’s a viable strategy.

The fact that Obama is talking out of both sides of his mouth with respect to the individual mandate in Obamacare, on one hand calling it a tax, and on the other calling it a fine, depending on the audience, was largely overlooked by the MSM. But then his budget director got caught on camera saying this.  So either the OMB Director committed perjury before Congress or the Solicitor General will be perjuring himself before the Supreme Court.  Either way, it should be interesting.

Obama’s allegiance to AG Holder and turning a blind eye to Fast and Furious, would be a huge controversy were it not for complicity of the MSM. To date, no one has been fired, much less prosecuted.

The recent call for significant nuclear disarmament at a time when the threat level is at a post-Cold War high, and the continued indifference to the action in Egypt, Syria, etc., may pander to the far Left, but the majority of Americans have to see these actions as detrimental to America’s future.

Obama proves once again that he is not a serious president by submitting a budget with a deficit that adds another 1.3 trillion of debt, when it was just 4 years ago while campaigning he called Bush unpatriotic for much smaller deficits. When the GOP finally lands on a nominee, the conversation will be about Obama, and not only can he not defend his record, his own words will be used against him to a point that everyone will finally realize that he is not a serious president.

America is slipping into a malaise of mediocrity under his guidance and if he is reelected, we may have federal school officials checking our kids’ lunch boxes for the proper nutrition ……… Oh wait.

This president has abdicated leadership and is the most partisan president this country has ever had. The only things Obama has improved in the last three years are his bank account and golf game.

Thanks to Cluster for most of the content for this post.//RS

Religious Freedom and the 2012 Election

Matt Margolis125 Comments

Did Obama just hand the Republican Party an issue to galvanize conservatives in 2012 to boot him out of office?

The top Republican in the Congress on Wednesday denounced President Barack Obama’s new rule on contraceptives as an assault on “religious freedom” and vowed to overturn it, as the White House sought to prevent the issue from becoming an election-year liability.

Fanning a political firestorm, House of Representatives Speaker John Boehner joined an outcry from religious leaders and social conservatives over a requirement that health insurance plans, including those at Catholic hospitals, charities and universities, offer birth control to women.

Seeking to ease a controversy that has roiled the 2012 presidential race, White House spokesman Jay Carney appeared to leave the door open to compromise. He said Obama was sensitive to religious beliefs on contraception and hoped to find a way to implement the rule that can “allay some of the concerns.”

But Obama, at a meeting with Senate Democrats, reaffirmed his decision and was “not equivocating,” Senator Frank Lautenberg, who attended the closed-door session, told Reuters.

Between things like this and the economy, things continue to look bad for Obama this year.

Ron Paul’s “Insane” Internet Support

Matt Margolis77 Comments

Last week I discovered I’d been quoted in an International Business Times story about Ron Paul’s loyal followers. The article actually quote me from a Wired article a few years old from back when I was running GOPStrawPolls.com.

Anyway, I followed up with the reporter and answered a few questions. The new story came out today.

Texas Congressman Ron Paul is the only 2012 GOP presidential candidate who has not won a primary or caucus while he continues to win each and every online poll by huge margins.

People who design online polls have alleged that Paul’s supporters spam the online polls and vote multiple times to ensure online victory for their candidate. “I would say there was enough evidence of well-coordinated efforts by Ron Paul’s supporters to vote in online polls,” Matt Margolis, who ran the GOP straw polls during the 2008 presidential election, told IB Times

There’s plenty more to the article. Feel free to discuss.

Well, what do you know…….another failed promise!

tiredoflibbs83 Comments

If you will recall, the obAMATEUR promised in 2009 that he would “cut the deficit we inherited by half by the end of my first term in office.”

How has he lived up to that promise?

Not only has he broken that promise, but he has crushed it.  For the first three years of the obAMATEUR’s presidency, he increased our deficit by over $1 trillion every year: $1.4 trillion in 2009, $1.3 trillion in 2010 and $1.3 trillion in 2011. The CBO has recently crunched some numbers and it looks like the obAMATEUR is on track to have another banner year of $1 trillion+ deficits.  The CBO predicts that the deficit will rise $1.08 trillion in 2012.

To put all of this into perspective, the largest deficit that our country had ever run before 2008 was $458 billion (and the liberal looters and their obedient drones whined about “saddling our children and grand-children with debt” and obAMATEUR called this “UNPATRIOTIC!”).  Thus, even though obAMATEUR’s deficit for 2012 is projected to be the lowest of his administration, don’t be fooled.  It will be, by far, the largest deficit ever recorded between 1947 and 2008.

What’s the result of this big-government spending?  The CBO estimates that the jobless rate will rise to 8.9% by the end of 2012 and to 9.3% in 2013.

Now the leftist mindless drones will, of course, chime in with “it’s Bush’s fault” and the “he inherited the economy” dumbed down talking points.  But this pResident raised baseline budgeting by almost 25% in his first two years.  This increase had nothing to do with the stimulus, the “venture capitalist” failed spending or his other schemes like “cash for clunkers”, etc. etc. The baseline spending increases had nothing to do with Bush or the “economy he inherited”.  He is a tax and spend liberal! – plain and simple.  Now before you drones get your panties in a wad about the tax part of the previous statement.  This pResident has increased taxes on every income group in this country (alcohol and tobacco taxes, taxes to finance his health-care plan, etc. etc.).  Plus, the CBO says taxes are going to go up as a result of this pResident’s policies.  And he is a “spend-thrift” liberal, he has outspent and accumulated more debt than all Presidents from Washington thru Clinton COMBINED.

By his own words, the obAMATEUR is the most UNPATRIOTIC pResident in history!!!

If We Really Want To Talk About Wealth

Matt Margolis209 Comments

You’ve probably heard the same stuff I have about how Mitt Romney’s wealth contributes to him being “unelectable.”

While I’m sure the teenie tiny fraction of Americans that would sooner attend an Occupy rally than buy a coffee at Starbucks would look at Mitt Romney’s wealth and say “I can’t vote for this successful businessman,” I can’t imagine why any normal, thinking American would take that view, especially when the other choice is Barack Obama.

Barack Obama’s net worth is over $10 million. I’ve checked multiple sources on this, and that seems to be a consisted low-end number.

That’s a very high net worth for someone who has never held a real job before.

Of course, the bigger issue here is that in America, why is wealth, and the accumulation of it actually considered to be a bad thing? If you think wealth is a bad thing, then you weren’t gonna support anyone but Obama anyway… because the only wealth that can be ignored by these anti-capitalist voters is the wealth of Democrats who seem to get richer while they keep the poor dependent on the government.

But really, if wealth is so bad to these people, why is Obama’s massive wealth, given his lack of ever having a real private-sector job, not an issue?

More on tax fairness

Retired Spook120 Comments

Tiredoflibs beat me to this topic in the previous post, but I’d like to expand on the issue of tax fairness.  Anyone who has been listening to the radio or watching any news show on TV is aware of the Left’s latest class warfare tactic.  In the last couple days we’ve heard Lefties from Al Sharpton to network news anchors ask the question, “is it fair for millionaires to pay less than Warren Buffet’s secretary who, like most average Americans pays 30% in income taxes?”  When Reverend Al asked Congressman Tim Huelskamp that question on Sharpton’s MSNBC show, the Rev simply wouldn’t accept the Congressman’s answer that his premise wasn’t true.  Talk about comedy gold.  And what’s even more pathetic is that Sharpton is delinquent on almost as much in federal taxes as Romney paid.  How is that FAIR, Al?

A little research completely refutes this new Leftist assertion that the average American pays an effective federal tax rate of 30%.  In fact, according to the IRS’ own data, 97% of Americans pay an effective federal rate of less than 13%.  And, what’s even more interesting about the IRS charts that NewsBusters links to are the demographics of “the wealthy”.  The charts show that there were (as of 2009) 235,413 Americans who had adjusted gross incomes of $1 million or more who paid $177.5 billion in income taxes on taxable income of $623.538 billion.  So if we increase the tax rate on those “rich” back to the 39.6% Clinton era top marginal rate that so many of our resident Progressives have called for, it would raise an additional $23.3 billion (and that’s assuming 100% compliance) a year in federal revenue — enough to run the federal government for about 2 days.  That’s barely a rounding error, but I guess it would be fair — right?  No?  OK, how about if we DOUBLE the top marginal rate on those making over $1 million.  That would raise an amount equal to about 17.6% of the current deficit or enough to run the government for about 18 days.  I think what’s FAIR is to say that we have a SPENDING problem, not a TAXING problem.

Folks, it’s time to take the gloves off — call a spade a spade and a liar a liar.

Do Conservatives Want To Lose In November?

Matt Margolis30 Comments

Every single day I hear the same lines of attack from Mitt Romney supporters against Newt Gingrich and Newt Gingrich supporters against Mitt Romney.

The way things are panning out now, it is highly likely one of those two will be the GOP nominee.

So really, it is time to stop the attacks. All we are doing is making it easier for conservatives to lose all advantages in the fall. In 2010 we had the enthusiasm, we won big in the midterms. This year, we are setting ourselves up for another 2008. We look for a conservative Messiah, a second coming of Reagan (who would never have survived a campaign like this, being a former Democrat) and ensure that no candidate can possible meet our expectations, then many of us stay home and complain that there wasn’t a “true conservative” in the race, and lo and behold, we have Obama again.

Well, enough of this already.

Yes, I support Newt Gingrich. I think he gives us our best chance to win in November. His record reducing government is unmatched by any candidate. His ability to articulate the conservative message is hands down the best I’ve seen. Do I care what he said about Ronald Reagan back in the day? No, I don’t. Ronald Reagan is the past. The canonization of Ronald Reagan is killing our party. Newt’s record matters far more.

That said, I would easily support Mitt Romney, should he be the nominee. Mitt Romney was my governor for four years. Did I agree with everything he did as governor? No. I was against Romneycare when it happened, but as I was active in the Massachusetts Republican Party back in those days, I know first hand how much effort he put into trying to build up the party in a ridiculously blue state. Do I believe him when he says he’ll repeal Obamacare. You bet I do.

If we keep slaughtering the candidates in our party, we might as well give up and give Obama the blank check he most certainly think he’ll have if he wins in November. Because frankly, we already are, with these vicious attacks against the likely nominees of our party.

No candidate is perfect. No candidate is a saint. But they are all determined to undo the damage done by Obama’s extremism and incompetence. Let’s focus on winning, not on destroying ourselves as a party. Obama can’t win in November, but the Republican Party can certainly lose.