The Romney campaign’s latest ad entitled ‘Many Americans” is rather simple but in its simplicity lies the degree of persuasiveness that could sway the very independent swing voters from in the very swing states that Mitt Romney needs to win in if he intends to be elected president. (see video below this post)
In the less than 30 second commercial spot, a tieless Romney casually looks into the camera and in a very natural and convincing manner states;
“Too many Americans today are struggling—living paycheck to paycheck. More Americans live in poverty than when President Obama took office. We should measure our compassion by how many of our fellow Americans are able to get good paying jobs, not by how many are on welfare. My economic plan will get America back to work and strengthen the middle class. I’m Mitt Romney. I approve this message because we can’t afford another four years like the last four years.”
The ad offers different things to different people. Romney supporters will be glad to see and hear their candidate speak what they believe to be the truth. Obama supporters who live in a state of perpetual denial will walk away from the ad believing that it was a bunch of lies. So for the people on both sides, the ad will have little effect. But this commercial will have a positive impact on the increasingly small group of undecided independent voters in the middle.
With the use of focus group tested keywords and phrases such as “living paycheck to paycheck”,”welfare”, and “poverty”, Romney subtly bonds with these undecided voters who are complaining about and struggling with their own attempts to live paycheck to paycheck. He is also capturing their attention by subtly reinforcing the quiet fears of these voters who really do not want to believe that we must simply accept the current economic condition of our country as the status quo. Romney’s words connect with voters who are willing to accept the fact that increased historic levels of debt, the longest sustained period of inordinately high unemployment, and the weakest economic recovery in history are not is can not be accepted by continuing with the economic policies which are sustaining such conditions.
Then with words like “compassion”, and phrases like “get America back to work”, and “strengthen the middle class”, Romney offers a narrative to his candidacy that connects his campaign to all that most undecided voters want to hear. They want to hear that Mitt Romney has a plan that is better than President Obama’s. They want to hear about “good paying jobs”, and about a leader who understands that fiscal responsibility is the only way to lead our nation back to a decent level of sustainable prosperity. And that is exactly what those voters hear in this latest Romney ad.
As the sun set on our nation last night, an exclusive video unearthed by Daily Caller Editor-In-Chief Tucker Carlson was aired on Fox News Channel’s “Hannity”. It was a video of a speech being delivered by then Senator Barack Obama back in 2007. In it, Senator Obama who was campaigning in a tough race against Hillary Clinton for the Democratic presidential nomination, addresses a predominantly African-American audience which he tries to fire up by essentially telling them that the federal government hates black people. Of course the President didn’t use those exact words. Instead he painted a picture of a federal government that doesn’t care as much about minorities as it does for other people.
The President made his charge in this speech by trying to claim that that the federal government is unwilling to help minorities who are victims of disasters such as those in New Orleans during Hurricane Katrina back in 2005 (see video of the remarks below).
And while he did not exactly say that the federal government is a bigoted extension of the white man, he tried to explain that survivors of Sept. 11 and Hurricane Andrew received generous amounts of aid while residents of majority-black New Orleans did not because according to him, the federal government considers those victims in Florida and New York to be “part of the American family” but it does not considers the minorities of New Orleans to be “family”.
He reached that conclusion by falsely stating that the federal government refused to issue the same fund-matching waiver to the mostly minority communities torn apart by Katrina Katrina that were offered to more affluent and caucasian communities such as the one in Manhattan which was destroyed during the attacks of 9/11 on the Twin Towers. In addition to being irresponsibly inflammatory, the charge was also false. As it turns out, the federal government did issue the same fund-matching waiver to Katrina-torn regions that it offered to the victims of other disasters throughout the nation.
As seen in the clip below, Tucker Carlson sums the video up probably better than anyone else. According to him, Obama’s words were “shocking”, “divisive”, “demagogic”, and “untrue”.
Since the initial reporting of the story, conservative activists have been a buzz. For some, like Tucker Carlson, the story has the makings of that oft mentioned “October surprise” that every campaign hopes to avoid but prays to see their rival’s campaign have to figure out how to recover from. The problem is that this conservative activist doesn’t see it that way. Unfortunately, I don’t believe this speech will have any impact on the election.
While the video most certainly shows the soon to be President lying and while it also reveals him to be speaking in what is described as a highly “urbanized African-American accent” which is undeniably uncharacteristic of Barack Obama, what the video does not do is present anything new to us.
We have already seen President Obama launch into his chameleon-like ethnic accents that are designed to endear him to the audiences he addresses. It is practically a standard operating procedure for the Obama-Biden campaign. It was perhaps best displayed back in August when Vice President Biden stood before another predominantly black audience in Danville, Va. and shouted with an exaggerated Southern drawl… “They’re going to put y’all back in chains.”
This latest Obama video also does not make news by revealing to us that President Obama is a liar. Many of us already know that President Obama lies. We know that he lies straight to our faces. Recent events in Benghazi have made that more than obvious.
Furthermore; we also know by now that President Obama is anything but a uniter. We have long understood that this President has built his entire political career on a divide and conquer strategy. And it has long been understood that this President’s entire reelection effort is based on a class warfare strategy designed to pit some against others.
If there is anything worth reporting here it is that Mitt Romney raised this very issue back in August while speaking at a rally in Chillicothe, Ohio. It was there that Romney first told us the following;
“Over the last four years, this president has pushed Republicans and Democrats about as far apart as they can go. And now he and his allies are pushing us all even further apart by dividing us into groups. He demonizes some. He panders to others,” Romney said. “His campaign strategy is to smash America apart and then try to cobble together 51% of the pieces.”
He then added;
“Mr. President, take your campaign of division and anger and hate back to Chicago, and let us get about rebuilding and reuniting America.”
So I repeat… President Obama’s hate filled, lies in this speech are nothing new and as such, nothing new will come from this latest example of his deceitful, race baiting tactics and divisive political tendencies. The truth is that the 47% of the electorate that opposes Barack Obama knew this about him long ago. So this video will not change their votes. The other 47% knows Obama is a divisive liar but they refuse to admit it. So those Obama supporters will also not be changing their vote because of this video.
As for the remaining 6% who describe themselves as undecided, they will be seeing this video through the filter of a primarily pro-Obama, biased media that will excuse the President’s comments away. As they get fed the liberal spin on the President remarks, these six percent who claim to be undecided but whom I see as simply slow, dazed, and confused , will accept the liberal narrative given to them. As such, most of these “indecisive” voters will never realize how much the President’s past words undermine his attempts to portray himself as a unifying force in American politics. Because of the media’s biases, this swayable six percent of the electorate will probably never allow themselves to accept the fact that President Obama is playing us all for fools. They should, but they probably won’t.
A new 30 second commercial being run by the Romney-Ryan ticket finally begins to interject a narrative into the presidential race that can effectively counter the Obama class warfare strategy being aimed at middle class Americans. (see ad below this post)
While the ad is far from groundbreaking what it does do is cast a large shadow of doubt over President Obama’s policies by pointing out that not only will they lead to higher taxes on the middle class… they ‘already have’ raised taxes on the middle class.
The ad which is aptly titled “Already Has” bases the claim on a very reliable and non-partisan report issued by the Congressional Budget Office back in July. The report essentially concludes that between Obamacare and Obama economic policies the federal government will spend more money, raise more tax revenue, and reduce the deficit by much less than the President claims.
According to the C.B.O. revenue increases built into in the Obamacare law would essentially lead to a trillion dollars in higher taxes. These taxes include revenues from Obamacare-driven individual and employer mandates, combined with a so-called “Cadillac tax” on high-cost benefits and additional taxes on drugmakers, medical device manufacturers and insurers. All of which in addition to raising medical costs will also place direct and indirect tax increases on middle class taxpayers and their families. The report also concludes that this would all result in a net increase in federal budget deficits of $109 billion over the 2013–2022 period.
All of this spells disaster for taxpayers and the American economy and none of it should provide thinking Americans with good reason to reelect President Obama but to really drive the point home, the ad goes a step further by featuring a picture of the President with House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi. The image is a politically damaging reminder of just how ideologically close Obama and Pelosi. It is a point that can only help to turn the stomachs of any fiscally responsible voter.
Unfortunately, most casual observers will not want to get into the nuts and bolts that explain the charges in Romney’s new ad. However, by just bringing it to the attention of the 6% or so of the independent voters out there in the six swing states that will determine who the next President is, Romney is finally on track to establishing a narrative in this campaign that could provide him with the momentum he needs to turn those currently uncommitted voters in to committed Romney voters.
According to most of the latest data made available to the public through the mainstream media, there is no denying that President Obama holds an upper hand in his reelection effort. In fact, according to most pundits, pollsters, and network political prognosticators, President Obama is almost certain to be reelected. However, given a number of factors including the depth and duration of our dire economic condition, a proliferation of polls that are based on a 2008 voter turnout model which overestimates the enthusiasm that exists for President Obama in 2012, and a growing trend toward Mitt Romney among the critical independent voting bloc , I am not convinced that this election can be called for President Obama just yet.
It’s The Economy Stupid! Maybe?
As for the economy, now over 5 years since the recession began, over 25 million Americans remain unemployed or underemployed and despite approximately $800 billion in Obama deficit spending meant to stimulate the economy, the government’s official but undercounted unemployment rate remains above 8.0% for 43 consecutive months. And at the same time, all other economic indicators remain so sluggish or stagnant that it is clear that our job growth and overall economic growth fails to even keep pace with the existing population growth rate. Yet regardless of these glaring facts, polls would have us believe that a majority of Americans do not hold this worst economy since the Great Depression against President Obama. It is a conclusion which I find hard to fathom. Especially given that if reelected to another term, the only solution President Obama seems to be offering is more of the very same Keynesian, deficit spending mentality which has sustained and prolonged the worst economic recovery in American history. Still though, even with history as a guide, I can not state for sure that a majority of Americans will blame the poor economy on the President. During the Great Depression, voters did not blame FDR for the very slow recovery he commanded over, but in 1980 angry voters did hold Jimmy Carter responsible for inflation, stagflation, unemployment, and the misery index which he presided over.
The optimist in me wants to believe that most Americans do believe that President Obama should be held accountable for his failing economic policies which seem to lack the ability to turn the economy around. However, the pessimist in me fears that the socialist tendencies promoted for generations through FDR’s New Deal, LBJ’s Great Society, and now BHO’s blatant focus on the redistribution of wealth, have finally been accepted by a majority of Americans as the new norm… a norm that has a majority of Americans proudly dependent upon government. It is a mentality demonstrated in the clip below.
If a majority of voters agree with that woman, then Barack Obama will be a two term President. But I am not yet ready to believe that the views held by the slave to government in that video clip are the views held by most respectable and learned American voters.
Slanted Polls and the Blatant Media Bias
The second area of doubt that I have regarding the certainty of a successful reelection effort by President Obama is based upon the polls and the interpretations of those polls being offered to voters by the mainstream media.
Now to be clear, I am convinced that most reputable polling outfits want to be accurate in their polls. Although the current regime in Washington, D.C. finds the free market to be an enemy of the people, the free market still drives entrepreneurs, even the political entrepreneur who wishes to make a buck by gauging the sentiments of voters. That stated, it behooves pollsters who want to be in demand in the future to get things right in the 2012 election. So I cannot in good conscience totally discount all the current polls that are out there. But I can and do disagree with the decision by most pollsters to rely on the 2008 turnout model which tends to overstate the strength of President Obama’s support.
I am of the opinion that in 2012, a more accurate turnout model to base this election on is the turnout seen in 2010. I see little reason to believe that the massive anti-Obama sentiment which existed in the 2010 midterm elections does not continue to exist in 2012. In my view even those voters who are not quite excited by Mitt Romney will still be coming out to cast their ballot for Mitt if for no other reason than to vote against President Obama.
Independent Voters
Combine those two factors with the lack of appropriate reporting regarding the fact that the all important independent vote seems to be breaking for Mitt Romney by as much as 14 to 20 percent and I believe that the Romney-Ryan ticket is on the verge of establishing an Election Day lead over the Obama-Biden ticket.
While an undeniably polarized electorate consisting of the 94% of voters who are firmly planted on one side of the political and ideological spectrum or the other make it certain that states like California and New York will be voting for Obama while states like Missouri and Texas will be going for Romney, the six percent of the undecided independent voters in the middle will make all the difference in the remaining states that are toss-ups… particularly Colorado, Florida, Iowa, New Hamphire, Nevada, and Virginia. If this pro-Romney trend among independent voters continues, and I believe it will, each of those states will cast their lot with the Romney-Ryan ticket.
The Results
I cautiously arrive at that conclusion through a combination of factors that include polling, reporting, and my own judgments and political instincts regarding all the available data that could and should be reasonably factored in the electoral equation. At the moment though, even my own unique formula finds Mitt Romney at a disadvantage. Using the Real Clear Politics average of polls in six of the seven current toss ups states, as a rule of thumb, I have adjusted for the overestimated Democrat turnout in the polls by giving Mitt Romney the benefit of the average margin of error in the Colorado, Florida, Iowa, New Hampshire, Nevada, and Virginia. In those six states, the average margin of error is 3.7%. Ohio and North Carolina are also considered to be tossups however, I believe North Carolina is a reliable state for Romney and that Ohio may be out of Romney’s reach at this point. Therefore; I have taken both of those states out of the toss-up category.
According to my formula, the adjusted 3.7% margin for Mitt Romney would swing Colorado, Florida, Iowa, New Hampshire, and Virginia to Romney, giving him a total of 267 electoral votes. At the moment though, President Obama holds an RCP average lead over Romney in Nevada that stands at 4.%. That is 0.3% outside of the existing margin of error which I give to Romney. Unless Romney closes the gap, President Obama would win Nevada and reelection to the presidency with a total of 271 electoral votes… one more than needed. However, given the closeness of the race in Nevada and the momentum Mitt Romney has among independent voters, I see the Golden State as being quite winnable for Romney. If that is the case Romney will defeat President Obama in the race for President with 273 electoral votes to Obama’s 265 electoral votes.
The Problem(s) Produced By a Race That is Too Close For Comfort
As politically divided as Americans are in 2012, a very close election result is fraught with problems that could trigger historic constitutional measures into action and lead to a level of discourse not seen since the Bush v. Gore case in 2000.
Thanks to the already incredibly polarized electorate and the left’s continued desire to exact revenge for the Supreme Court decision that thew the election to George W. Bush in 2000, if the presidential election turns out to be as close as it seems to be, we could easily another case of a Republican winning the White House by losing the popular vote but winning the Electoral College vote. The ensuing tensions from such a result could reignite a popular backlash that will lead to varying degrees of civil unrest that have the potential to linger on for at the very least, a few months and possibly spark a very real attempt to do away with the Electoral College… a cause that would consume the national agenda for quite some while.
With extraordinarily large pluralities being produced for President Obama in some of the most densely populated states in the nation, i.e.: California and New York, it is quite likely that much smaller pluralities for Romney from less populated states such as Montana, New Hampshire, Utah, and Wyoming, will not be enough for the Romney-Ryan ticket to overcome the total popular vote that the Obama-Biden ticket receives but could easily allow the Romney-Ryan ticket to reach the 270 votes required to win the presidency in the Electoral College.
Making matters worse, is the fact that if the election is actually as close as the above projection indicates, in addition to Romney losing the popular vote but winning the election in the Electoral College, if each state goes the way I predict but New Hampshire happens to go for Barack Obama instead of Mitt Romney, there would be a 269 to 269 vote tie in the Electoral College and with both candidates 1 elector short of the 270 needed to win the presidency, the election would be forced into the House of Representatives. In that event, thanks to a likely makeup of each state’s congressional delegation, Republicans would have control in at least 26 states, enough to assure a Romney victory. A result that will please conservatives like myself but which will send liberals running through the streets screaming.
Those are just some of the situations that could drag this election out if it remains as close as current data indicates.
But there still remains the possibility that this election will not be as close as we are led to believe it is.
With less than five weeks remaining, I contend that Mitt Romney will surprise many with a well coordinated and highly targeted campaign that will have the ability to attract the type of heavy Republican turnout that we saw in 2010. Of course being a presidential election year, the Democrat turnout will be much higher than it was in 2010 and that will compensate a bit for the wide gap that existed in 2010, it will not be enough to overcome the anti-Obama sentiment that I believe still exists. So much so that Romney may even be able to actually make a run at winning a state like Wisconsin and possibly also avoid becoming the first Republican to win the White House without Ohio. Unfortunately I do not yet see Romney winning either of those states yet though.
The first night of the Democratic National Convention provided liberals with a lot of Obam-like false hope for the reelection of their earth healing, sea slaying messiah. From Newark Mayor Corey Booker, Massachusetts Governor Deval Patrick and Maryland Governor Martin O’Malley, diehard Democrats were given plenty of red meat as they offered statistical half truths and downright distortions of history and the Obama record. Then there was the Lilith Fair section of the night where a cavalcade of hypocritical liberal women took to the stage to deliver a hypocritically anti-feminist message that essentially argued women are helpless without government in control of their lives and the lives of their families.
Then came the competitions.
While Republicans served up Hispanic speakers such as New Mexico Governor Susana Martinez, Nevada Governor Brian Sandoval, Texas Senate candidate Ted Cruz, Florida Senator Marco and other rising stars in their Party, Democrats did their best to upstage the G.O.P. with an even longer list of liberal Hispanic speakers. In addition to Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa who chairs the convention, the DNC featured the young Hispanic Mayor of San Antonio, Texas, Julian Castro.
On it’s own Castro’s speech was a solid statement of Democratic dogma which nailed the left’s dependency on government by mixing it with the American dream and making big government the source of that dream. For those on the left it was an inspiring articulation of their principles. But for those of us who believe that the American dream is based not upon government but rather upon personal freedom and liberty and an opportunity society, Castro’s speech was a watered down version of the speech Marco Rubio delivered last week when he introduced Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney at the G.O.P. convention in Tampa.
Both men focussed on the plight of their immigrant parents and grandparents but coming after Marco Rubio’s speech, Castro’s keynote seemed to simply mimic Rubio’s. The most notable occasion came when Julian Castro remarked that his mother held a mop so that someday he could hold the microphone that he was addressing convention goers from. On Thursday night Marco Rubio put it this way; “My father stood behind that bar in the back of room so that someday I could stand behind this podium at the front of the room.”
But after the DNC turned the night into a competition of which Party had leaders who came from poorer immigrant roots than the other, Michelle Obama took to the stage to deliver a speech that tried to take control on the market on which Party had the presidential candidate who was raised under the poorest conditions.
Last Tuesday, Ann Romney told listeners about how when she and Mitt were married they moved in to a small basement apartment where they ate off an ironing board that doubled as their kitchen table and how they sat at a desk that was a door which straddled atop two saw horses. Last night Michelle Obama told listeners a story about how when she was first married, Barack Obama’s best pair of shoes were half a size too small, and how in their first apartment the two of them sat in front of a coffee table which Barack found in the dump. She spoke of the two having a crushing college tuition debt and how in trheir first car she could see the tar of the road pass beneath them.
From the onset it became quite obvious that the Obama’s did not want people to think that the Romney’s were ever poorer than them. For the Romney’s the telling of the humble beginnings of their marriage was designed to convey a sense of a man who is self-made and who understands how people struggle with the responsibilities of life. It was a necessary move to humanize Mitt Romney in the face of a liberal class warfare strategy being waged by the President and his supporters. But the Obama’s were obviously threatened by Ann’s ability to portray Romney as a man who created his own wealth. So Michelle told Americans a story about an impoverished young man who picked himself up by his own bootstraps to become a champion of the poor.
In the wake of Ann Romney’s speech, the rekindled Obama narrative was so pronounced that it sparked a new hashtag specifically for jokes about how Barack Obama was. A visit to #BarackWasSoPoor on Twitter now show tens of thousands tweets mocking Michelle’s attempt to lay the groundwork for her husband’s next round of class warfare. There you will find such gems as “#BarackWasSoPoor He could only afford to date composite women”, and “#BarackWasSoPoor that he is making up for it now spending your money”. Another example of the creative spin on the theme came from LiberalsRdouchebags who wrote; “#BarackWasSoPoor he wants to turn America into a 3rd world country so he feels at home”.
The reaction which led to this new line of political humor was a direct response to the utterly ridiculous premise that Michelle tried to create for her husband regarding his background. Contrary to the Dickens-like portrayal we saw from the First Lady on Monday, both Barack and Michelle Obama were actually raised in conditions that were far from what could be described as impoverished. Michelle attended a magnate school for Chicago’s rich and famous called Whitney Young. At the same time, young master Barack was not exactly running around in the tough poverty riddled streets of Hawaii. Instead, back when his mother was earning a $160,000 a year salary, he was hidden behind the sheltered walls of Punahou, a private preparatory school comprised of Hawaii’s blue blooded elitists. That is hardly a convincing argument when trying to demonstrate how in touch with the average middle class American the President is. But they were also facts which were deleted from the First Lady’s speech last night.
Meanwhile as the spontaneous flow of the internet’s maze of social networks began to flood the web with a mix of negative and positive reactions to the introductory night of the Democratic National Convention, the mainstream media mainly gushed with praise of the entire first night of the convention. Few if any news outlets produced true news stories that lacked any spin or featured “fact check” headlines which clarified the First Lady’s mischaracterizations of some kind of less than humble beginnings that she and her husband shared. Instead what we saw from the lamestream media was unequivocal high praise for every word, distortion, and misleading message the left fed to voters.
The liberal dominated pre-fabricated news media even saw fit to attempt to proclaim that Democrats in Charlotte were much more enthusiastic and energized by their convention than Republicans who attended their own convention in Tampa.
CNN political reporter Peter Hamby, tweeted the following;
To which I replied ;
Other media outlets ranging from MSNBC and their merry masters of misinformation including Ed Schultz, Chris Matthews and Rachel Maddow echoed similar sentiments and so did those at Al Gore’s dyeing cable station Current, where disgraced former New York Governor Eliot Spitzer claimed the energy at the DNC far surpassed the energy level he believed that Republicans had at the RNC. No one is quite certain what those assertions were based upon other than the wishful thinking of demoralized leftists who are in desperate search of good news for the President’s reelection effort. But the truth flies in the face of wishful Democrats who would like us to believe that Republicans are not very enthusiastic about their presidential ticket. As usual the fact indicate just the opposite of what liberals propose to be true. Poll after poll has shown that Republicans are more enthusiastic about their presidential ticket than are Democrats with the Obama/Biden ticket.
And to add insult to injury for Obama boosters, political analyst Charlie Cook has demonstrated that Democrats are suffering from multiple enthusiasm gaps. The two most noticeable manifestations of this problem for the President exists among Hispanic and young voters, two of the groups most responsible for President Obama’s 7% margin of victory in the popular vote during the 2008 election. That spells trouble for Democrats and it also explains the need for leftists media mouthpieces to argue that Republicans are not as supportive of Romney as Democrats are of President Obama.
As Democrats kickoff their convention and try to make the case for President Obama’s reelection, Republicans have released a video reminding voters that they’ve heard it all before.
The video offers a compelling comparison of the words used by President Obama in 2008 when trying to explain why he should be elected and the words he is using now, four years later in his attempt to explain why he should be reelected in 2012. As it turns out, they are the same words.
It helps to emphasize the fact that with the President offering us more of the same rhetoric, is there any reason to believe that his next four years will offer us any results that are different from those which are different from the ones he achieved in the last four years?
Tell a joke like that and you can rest assured that the person who told it will not be a winning candidate for dog catcher, no less than President of the United States. And with good reason. It suggests that a woman’s place is in the home where she plays a subordinate, supportive role to her husband and family. In this day and age, women have stepped out of the shadow of such untrue and degrading gender based assumptions. They were assumptions which women from Joan of Arc, to Florence Nightingale proved wrong in days of yore and whose examples which contemporary women from Golda Mier, to more recently Margaret Thatcher and Condoleezza Rice continue to prove wrong today. These are all women who defied attempts by others to define them as helpless damsels in distress and stewards of the kitchen. They are women who didn’t even rely on men to achieve their own greatness. Thatcher, and Rice did not marry into power. They are proud self-made women who shattered the sick sexism of society without parlaying their husband’s last names and political careers into their own careers. They are perfect examples of strong women who have proven the shameful stereotypes perpetuated by the tasteless badinage of the aforementioned wisecrack to be utterly false and sublimely ignorant notions.
The recent Republican National Convention went to great and not so subtle, but natural lengths to demonstrate just how false those outdated stereotypes of women are. They featured women in their natural roles as leaders, self-made leaders who rose to power thanks to their own determination, talent and ingenuity. From Cathy McMorris Rodgers to Mia Love and Governors Susana Martinez and Nikki Haley, Senator Kelly Ayote , Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, and dozens of others, the G.O.P. convention allowed women to be themselves and make the case not just for those of their own gender, but for all Americans. But as Democrats gather to hold their convention in North Carolina, they are about to use women to exploit the very stereotypes they have fought so hard against. At their convention, Democrats will depict woman in a way that should make militant liberal feminazis like Gloria Steinem so violently ill that it causes them to burst into spontaneous episodes of painful, involuntary, heaving that produces dangerously powerful projectile vomiting.
Much like the Republican National Convention, women will be front and center at the Democratic National Convention. Well some women will be. The most powerful woman in the Obama Administration, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton will be out of the country and even out of the hemisphere as she embarks upon an apparently critical mission to the string of 15 small islands in the Pacific known as that Cook Islands. From there the President is sending her to Siberia. Really, he is.
But Clinton’s politically timed exile from the convention to the far reaches of Siberia aside, Democrats are gearing up to feature liberal women like House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi and Democratic National Committee Chairman Debbie Wasserman Schultz… two people who argue that unless the government finances the interests of women, woman can’t succeed. Other women they will feature include women’s rights activist Lilly Ledbetter, President of Planned Parenthood Action Fund Cecile Richards, National Abortion Rights Action League Pro-Choice America President Nancy Keenan, and the highly accomplished and well-known Georgetown Law School Graduate Sandra “Who” Fluke.
All of these women will try to have you believe that Republicans are trying to kill women. They will try to offer up tear jerking tales that depict women as helpless victims who are at the mercy of the hands of government… the big hands of big government.
Lilly Ledbetter will try to claim that the G.O.P. opposes a woman’s right to equal pay for equal work. She will highlight the bill named after her which was the first legislation President Obama signed into law. Ledbetter will claim that while it assured women the right to equal pay, Republicans opposed it. She will not mention that the bill actually simply extended the amount of time a woman had to sue an employer if they believed they were a victim of pay discrimination. She will not mention that it does not guarantee women anything ant that the whole Lilly Ledbetter law was merely a symbolic political attempt to make it look like Democrats were focused on helping women.
Cecile Richards will argue that Republican attempts to ban the tearing off of limbs of infants during late term abortions, or to ban the termination of a life because of its sex are cruel examples of some sort of Republican hatred of women.
Nancy Keenan will argue women want a President who believes that the only way they can make the personal, private medical decisions that are best for them and their families is if the federal government takes charge and makes those decision for them by increasing the size, scope, scope and cost of government.
And in what will perhaps be the most amusing argument of the entire liberal convention, Sandra Fluke, a truly inconsequential personality whose greatest accomplishment is that she graduated from law school without getting pregnant, will try to convince Americans that if the evil and heartless heartless Republican Party and its candidates had their way and stopped Americans from seeing their taxes pay for her birth control, she would be barefoot, pregnant and without a law degree.
Then on Thursday night President Obama will portray himself as a princely knight in shining armor who rushes in to save the stereotypically helpless fair maidens of America.
It’s a message that should have all women truly doubtful of how much respect Democrats have for them. Their characterization of women as a monolithic bloc of one issue voters who will support the failed liberals policies that we are all suffering under because of the liberal promise to hand out free birth control, is a narrative that should insult all women but especially the left wingers behind such liberal entities as Emily’s List.
Traditionally, liberal women’s rights groups like Emily’s List and similar organizations have touted the strength of women and celebrated their independence and endless abilities. But today, Democrat groups like those are hypocritically going out of their way to paint a much different picture of women. They are portraying women as helpless, lost souls with no self-control or capacity to stand on their own without a federal government that mandates their healthcare treatment and like a good husband, gives the little lady an allowance. In this case, a taxpayer subsidized federal allowance.
Gone from the liberal lexicon are the portrayals of women as leaders who have taken control of their own destiny and led themselves, their families, their towns, cities, states, and nation to a better life. Gone from the Democratic Party are the days when women had their own voice because according to today’s Democrat Party, government provides them with a stronger voice than their own.
The whole liberal inspired election strategy that claims Republicans are waging a war on women is akin to the telling of a bad joke about blonds. Their claim that women are helpless without government in control of their lives and the lives of their families, is as offensive as the President standing before the nation and quipping;
“How do you make a blonde laugh on Monday?”
“Tell her a joke on Friday?”
It is a mocking and odious approach that does not address the real problems facing women; it simply operates under the false premise that women are gullible enough to believe they need someone to provide for them. And it is ultimately based on the real question that President Obama has been asking advisors… “How do I get women to vote for me and fellow Democrats on Election Day?”
For Democrats the answer to that question is “lie to them and hope that they don’t realize the truth till at least the day after the election.”
And the truth they hope that women will be too slow to understand in time for Election Day is that under President Obama, women have lost much of the parity in society that they have fought for over the past four decades. Under President Obama women have had to endure their highest rate of unemployment in over 17 years as they account for 92.3% of the jobs lost since he took office, an accomplishment that distinguishes President Obama’s record on women’s participation in the labor force as the worst ever.
These are not points you will hear Democrats talking about at their quadrennial celebration of liberalism. In fact at the Democrat’s convention there will be few if any direct and turthful references to things the President has actually done “for” women. The overwhelming result of his record on women is one which has done more to them than for them. But with the women’s vote in several key swing states being critical to Obama’s reelection, Democrats will continue to exploit women as helpless and reliant citizens married to the trough of government and they will continue to pray that their attempt to make women believe that Mitt Romney is The Boston Strangler and that Paul Ryan is Jack the Ripper takes hold.
A day ahead of the scheduled beginning of the Republican National Convention, Fox News Sunday anchor Chris Wallace aired a one-on-one interview with Mitt Romney, the soon to be official presidential nominee of the G.O.P.
The approximately 13 minute interview (see the complete interview below) provided viewers with a side of Mitt Romney that is not often seen…his more hard hitting side. In this interview, Mitt Romney was quite direct in his answers, specifically in the areas concerning such things as the President’s attempts to distract voters from the real issues in this campaign. Romney also offered very blunt but genuine responses to such questions as the practices used by those who have been in control of Romney’s blind trusts.
New Romney Ad Continues to Put Democrats on The Defensive Among Senior Citizens
As Democrats continue to try to turn Medicare into Medi-Scare, a liberal tactic designed to make senior citizens fear the Romney-Ryan economic plan, Mitt Romney has put out a new ad that continues to turn the tables on President Obama.
The newest ad called “It Ain’t Right”, (see ad below) uses President Obama’s own words to demonstrate how President Obama is the ultimate hypocrite. The thirty second spot takes a statement that Obama often repeated when he was campaigning for President in 2008, and compares it to the actions he carried out as President.
In 2008, then Senator Obama criticized Republican presidential nominee Senator John McCain for an economic plan that the left claimed would have cut $882 billion out of Medicare. Whether that figure and that characterization of McCain’s plan was true or not, Obama declared that making such cuts to Medicare “ain’t right“.
The newest Romney ad on this issue points out once again that as President, through the creation of Obamacare, his massive government takeover of healthcare in America, President Obama cut over $716 billion out of Medicare. The Romney commercial then goes on to ask what would candidate Obama say about President Obama’s cuts to Medicare? The answer is exactly what Senator Obama said about such cuts in 2008…..”It Ain’t Right“.
This Romney-Ryan commercial is just the newest one in a string of ads on the Obama Medicare cuts that the Romney campaign has aired ever since Paul Ryan was added to the Republican presidential ticket over two weeks ago. It is part of a successful strategy that has helped inoculate the G.O.P. from the traditional fear mongering that Democrats resort to in elections when they try to scare senior citizens in to believing that the G.O.P. will push Grandma off the cliff or force Grandpa to live on a steady diet of cat food.
But the newest ad also highlights the hypocrisy of the President and it does so in a way which slowly tries to set the stage for the Romney’s campaign’s ability to counter the future attempts by the Obama campaign to portray Mitt Romney as a flip-flopper.
The left will undoubtedly try to revive both Romney’s 1990’s conversion from being an abortion rights liberal Republican to a right-to-life conservative Republican and his opposition to the national Obamacare plan after creating Romneycare for Massachusetts. Ahead of those future accusations, the Romney campaign is offering their own examples of President Obama’s own flipping and flopping on the national agenda.
The President’s opposition to Medicare before making deep Medicare cuts of his own will be just one example of that. Another example will be based upon a 2008 quote made by then Senator Obama which White House 2012 stumbled upon and highlighted in the video below.
In that video, we see how President Obama claimed that the President Bush or his policies were “unpatriotic and irresponsible” because of the large debt that he accumulated. Four years later and President Obama is now in the position of having to explain to voters why his doubling of the debt accumulated by George Bush is not also “unpatriotic and irresponsible”.
No matter what excuse President Obama may try to offer in his defense, he has demonstrated a level of hypocrisy and a propensity for flip-flopping that gives voters good reason to doubt how deserving of a second term President Obama is. The new Romney ad on Medicare is just a two pronged attack that drives that point home while also turning the tables on the traditional liberal fear mongering of senior citizens who are now being forced to realize that it is President Obama and Democrats who are taking away their saftey net.
During a 10 AM press conference call, Romney Campaign Strategist Russ Schriefer announced that the convention will be having a video tribute to perennial presidential candidate, retiring Texas Congressman Ron Paul. (audio of the entire press conference call can be heard in the video below this post.)
According to Schriefer;
“Congressman Paul’s people came to us and said they would like to do a short tribute to him and we said absolutely, it would be a good time to do that.”
Schrieffer noted “that while Governor Romney and Congressman Paul certainly disagree on many issues” they have “a lot of mutual respect between the two of them”. Schriefer also stated that Senator Rand Paul will be speaking at the convention on Monday night and then made a point of stating that the Romney campaign looks forward to his speech.
With approximately 177 delegates and about twice as many when including alternate and unbound delegates, the often raucous and obnoxious Paul fanatics could try to disrupt the convention. Attempts to get the G.O.P. to adopt such things as their isolationist foreign policies and reckless cuts in defense strategies could cause delegates to stage various protests. So the Romney campaign’s willingness to show a tribute to Ron Paul is most likely a gesture to those delegates. But it will also help to leave the door open for tens of thousands of other diehard Ron Paul libertarians who up to now, have vowed to oppose Mitt Romney. By embracing the efforts of Ron Paul by paying honor to his decades in the House, the Romney campaign is giving at least tacit approval to many of the economic efforts the Congressman has been in the forefront of. And under Mitt Romney, the G.O.P. is seriously considering some of Ron Paul’s big ideas such as a comprehensive audit of the Federal Reserve, issues of Internet freedom, and even opposition to indefinite detention of U.S. citizens. Combined with Romney’s willingness to publicly credit Ron Paul for his contributions to the conservative movement, that may be enough to make discerning pauliacs who realize how disastrous a second Obama term would be, to consider casting their vote Romney instead of adding it to any anti-Romney vote total.
According Schriefer;
“We feel we’re in a good place. We know that not everybody is going to agree with us all but we know that as the Republican Party, we’re going to unite and beat Barack Obama in November.”
During the press conference call, Schriefer outlined what he hoped the overall accomplishment of the convention would be and the sub-themes of each day and how they will drive a complete messages by the time the convention is over. Monday will discuss how Americans can do better by addressing the failures of the Obama Administration over the past four years and the things that Mitt Romney will do to make things better. Tuesday will carry the theme “We Built It”. That involves showcasing the fundamental philosophical differences between President Obama and Mitt Romney which is that while President Obama believes in government, Mitt Romney believes in entrepreneurship and the individual.
The third night of the convention will operate under the theme ” We Can Do Better”. That theme will focus mainly on what Mitt Romney will do as President and the final night will tell Mitt Romney’s story under the banner of “We Believe In America”. Schriefer states that on Thursday night, Romney’s story will be told in a way that will convince Americans that Mitt Romney is uniquely qualified to take on the problems that this country is facing at this time.
Earlier today, the Romney campaign released a new ad entitled “Nothing’s Free”. The 30 second spot continues to belabor the point that President Obama and his fellow Democrats raided Medicare by taking $716 billion out of it to pay for Obamacare. But the ad also shatters the President’s rhetoric regarding his committment to insuring that the middle class does not get hit with any new taxes.
For months, liberals led by the President have lied about their desire to only raise taxes on those making more than $250,000 a year. It has been a part of their divide and conquer strategy of class warfare. In one recent campaign stop, Mitt Romney summed up the strategy this way;
“His campaign strategy is to smash America apart and then cobble together 51 percent of the pieces.”
Well in this latest ad, the Romney-Ryan Team shed light on the numerous tax increases that President Obama and his Party raised on families earning less than $120,000 a year. They are largely taxes that were hidden in the nearly 3,000 pages of legislation that make up Obamacare.
The new Romney ad, focusses largely on the taxes that Obamacare places on medical supplies, but the truth is Obamacare creates 20 new taxes that hit those who Democrats describe as the poor and middle class.
Taxes that took effect in 2010:
1. Excise Tax on Charitable Hospitals (Min$/immediate): $50,000 per hospital if they fail to meet new “community health assessment needs,” “financial assistance,” and “billing and collection” rules set by HHS. Bill: PPACA; Page: 1,961-1,971.
2. Codification of the “economic substance doctrine” (Tax hike of $4.5 billion). This provision allows the IRS to disallow completely-legal tax deductions and other legal tax-minimizing plans just because the IRS deems that the action lacks “substance” and is merely intended to reduce taxes owed. Bill: Reconciliation Act; Page: 108-113.
3. “Black liquor” tax hike (Tax hike of $23.6 billion). This is a tax increase on a type of bio-fuel. Bill: Reconciliation Act; Page: 105.
4. Tax on Innovator Drug Companies ($22.2 bil/Jan 2010): $2.3 billion annual tax on the industry imposed relative to share of sales made that year. Bill: PPACA; Page: 1,971-1,980.
5. Blue Cross/Blue Shield Tax Hike ($0.4 bil/Jan 2010): The special tax deduction in current law for Blue Cross/Blue Shield companies would only be allowed if 85 percent or more of premium revenues are spent on clinical services. Bill: PPACA; Page: 2,004.
6. Tax on Indoor Tanning Services ($2.7 billion/July 1, 2010): New 10 percent excise tax on Americans using indoor tanning salons. Bill: PPACA; Page: 2,397-2,399.
Taxes that took effect in 2011:
7. Medicine Cabinet Tax ($5 bil/Jan 2011): Americans no longer able to use health savings account (HSA), flexible spending account (FSA), or health reimbursement (HRA) pre-tax dollars to purchase non-prescription, over-the-counter medicines (except insulin). Bill: PPACA; Page: 1,957-1,959.
HSA Withdrawal Tax Hike ($1.4 bil/Jan 2011): Increases additional tax on non-medical early withdrawals from an HSA from 10 to 20 percent, disadvantaging them relative to IRAs and other tax-advantaged accounts, which remain at 10 percent. Bill: PPACA; Page: 1,959.
Taxes that took effect in 2012:
9. Employer Reporting of Insurance on W-2 (Min$/Jan 2012): Preamble to taxing health benefits on individual tax returns. Bill: PPACA; Page: 1,957.
Taxes that take effect in 2013:
10. Surtax on Investment Income ($123 billion/Jan. 2013): Creation of a new, 3.8 percent surtax on investment
income earned in households making at least $250,000 ($200,000 single). This would result in the following top tax rates on investment income: Bill: Reconciliation Act; Page: 87-93.
11. Hike in Medicare Payroll Tax ($86.8 bil/Jan 2013): Current law and changes; Bill: PPACA, Reconciliation Act; Page: 2000-2003; 87-93
12. Tax on Medical Device Manufacturers ($20 bil/Jan 2013): Medical device manufacturers employ 360,000 people in 6000 plants across the country. This law imposes a new 2.3% excise tax. Exempts items retailing for <$100. Bill: PPACA; Page: 1,980-1,986
13. Raise “Haircut” for Medical Itemized Deduction from 7.5% to 10% of AGI ($15.2 bil/Jan 2013): Currently, those facing high medical expenses are allowed a deduction for medical expenses to the extent that those expenses exceed 7.5 percent of adjusted gross income (AGI). The new provision imposes a threshold of 10 percent of AGI. Waived for 65+ taxpayers in 2013-2016 only. Bill: PPACA; Page: 1,994-1,995
14. Flexible Spending Account Cap – aka “Special Needs Kids Tax” ($13 bil/Jan 2013): Imposes cap on FSAs of $2500 (now unlimited). Indexed to inflation after 2013. There is one group of FSA owners for whom this new cap will be particularly cruel and onerous: parents of special needs children. There are thousands of families with special needs children in the United States, and many of them use FSAs to pay for special needs education. Tuition rates at one leading school that teaches special needs children in Washington, D.C. (National Child Research Center) can easily exceed $14,000 per year. Under tax rules, FSA dollars can be used to pay for this type of special needs education. Bill: PPACA; Page: 2,388-2,389
15. Elimination of tax deduction for employer-provided retirement Rx drug coverage in coordination with Medicare Part D ($4.5 bil/Jan 2013) Bill: PPACA; Page: 1,994
6. $500,000 Annual Executive Compensation Limit for Health Insurance Executives ($0.6 bil/Jan 2013). Bill: PPACA; Page: 1,995-2,000
Taxes that take effect in 2014:
17. Individual Mandate Excise Tax (Jan 2014): Starting in 2014, anyone not buying “qualifying” health insurance must pay an income surtax according to the higher of the following
1 Adult
2 Adults
3+ Adults
2014
1% AGI/$95
1% AGI/$190
1% AGI/$285
2015
2% AGI/$325
2% AGI/$650
2% AGI/$975
2016 +
2.5% AGI/$695
2.5% AGI/$1390
2.5% AGI/$2085
Exemptions for religious objectors, undocumented immigrants, prisoners, those earning less than the poverty line, members of Indian tribes, and hardship cases (determined by HHS).Bill: PPACA; Page: 317-337
18. Employer Mandate Tax (Jan 2014): If an employer does not offer health coverage, and at least one employee qualifies for a health tax credit, the employer must pay an additional non-deductible tax of $2000 for all full-time employees. Applies to all employers with 50 or more employees. If any employee actually receives coverage through the exchange, the penalty on the employer for that employee rises to $3000. If the employer requires a waiting period to enroll in coverage of 30-60 days, there is a $400 tax per employee ($600 if the period is 60 days or longer).Bill: PPACA; Page: 345-346Combined score of individual and employer mandate tax penalty: $65 billion/10 years
19. Tax on Health Insurers ($60.1 bil/Jan 2014): Annual tax on the industry imposed relative to health insurance premiums collected that year. Phases in gradually until 2018. Fully-imposed on firms with $50 million in profits. Bill: PPACA; Page: 1,986-1,993
Taxes that take effect in 2018:
20. Excise Tax on Comprehensive Health Insurance Plans ($32 bil/Jan 2018): Starting in 2018, new 40 percent excise tax on “Cadillac” health insurance plans ($10,200 single/$27,500 family). Higher threshold ($11,500 single/$29,450 family) for early retirees and high-risk professions. CPI +1 percentage point indexed. Bill: PPACA; Page: 1,941-1,956
But who cares about all those silly facts, right?
While the new Romney ad doesn’t get in to all those taxes in a simple 30 second spot, it does successfully drive home some basic points;
The President raided Medicare
Obamacare is nothing but a series of massive tax increases’
The President does raise taxes on those making less than $120,000 a year
Nothing is free, not even the government handouts that liberals are so generous with
One other subtle point worth noting about this commercial are the red and blue pills that are seen at the beginning of it. In a speech once offered by the President, he spoke of two pills, a blue one and a red one. He then urged Americans to take the blue pill. The problem with the analogy was that thanks to the movie The Matrix, in pop culture, the blue pill is the one that keeps you in the fantasy world. For many it was an indication of the President’s true hope that most Americans would ignore the realities of his expensive, tax-hiking, and choice-limiting legislation.
The newest ad on Obamacare and increased taxes comes on the heels of another ad which the Romney campaign released over the weekend, after Paul Ryan campaigned on Medicare reform in Florida at The Villages, the world’s largest retirement community.
The commercial is called “Our Generation’s Time” and uses quotes from Ryan’s speech at his campaign stop at The Villages to drive home the point that while Democrats and the President have raided Medicare, the Romney-Ryan Team will preserve Medicare.
“Medicare should not be a piggy bank for Obamacare. Medicare should be the promise that it made to our current seniors. Period. End of story”, says Ryan in one quote used in the ad.
Both ads mark a pleasant change in the history of political campaigns. For the first time since Democrats began using their scare tactics against senior citizens with Ronald Reagan in the 80’s, Democrats are now finally being held accountability for their damaging deeds regarding senior citizens and as such, are now on the defense when it comes to Medicare.
Under the theme of “A Brighter Future”, Republicans are preparing to participate in a national celebration of their conservative principles that will culminate in the nomination of Mitt Romney for President but as Democrats prepare to respond with their convention the following week, an effective reelection theme seems to elude them. Afterall, what appropriate themes could there possibly be for an effort to reelect a President whose Administration has cast a shroud of doubt and despair over the nation that is second only to the days of malaise brought upon us by Jimmy Carter in the late 70’s?
While Republicans prepare to dedicate an entire night of their convention to contradict the President’s “You didn’t build that…. Government built that” ideology, Democrats are left with having to come up with a competing theme that tries to reconcile President Obama’s past record of failures with a pitch for a better future that is based on forging ahead with the same failed policies that got to where we are today.
Currently the Obama campaign has adopted the slogan “Forward.” as their tagline. The unoriginal and intentionally ambiguous tag line is a very uninspiring rehash of the theme Democrats tried to adopt in 2010, right before they suffered landside defeats at the ballot box. Below is an ad in which Democrats briefly used the “moving forward” theme in August of that historic election cycle.
It didn’t work.
Following that ad American’s rejected Democrats in historic numbers and gave control of the House of Representatives to Republicans by wide a margin. In 2010 Americans did not want to move “forward” with Barack Obama’s policies and they made that quite clear. So why Democrats believe that two years later, Americans would want to move “forward” with Barack Obama is a little hard to understand it makes it quite clear that with their convention fast approaching, Democrats need some help.
So we at White House 2012 would like to give them some help by having you offer your own suggestions regarding the theme that Democrats should adopt for their convention. Just pass along your suggested theme in the comments sections of this post or post it on Twitter @ #DEMTHEME .
We will put the 5 best proposed Democrat convention themes will be put up for a vote in a public poll here on White House on Thursday, August 30th, once the Republican National Convention has concluded. And the creator of the winning theme will receive a free gift from the White House 2012 Campaign Store.
About a year ago the G.O.P. seemed to be in an endless and desperate search for a presidential nominee that had many wondering if Republicans would ever be able to find someone they could enthusiastically get behind. The political world was still a buzz over Michele Bachmann’s victory in the Ames Straw Poll which resulted in Tim Pawlenty ending his candidacy and withdrawing from the race. We were also talking about the potential of Texas Governor Rick Perry who announced his candidthe presidential the day before Pawlenty dropped out of it.
Yet many Republicans were still holding out for someone else to surprise us with their candidacy and win us over. The media’s talking points were that Bachmann was too nuts, Santorum and Cain were too dangerous, Romney would not be able to overcome his creation of Romneycare, Newt Gingrich was too extreme and undisciplined, Perry was to closely associated to George W. Bush, and the others were just not known or liked enough to be in serious contention. So many Republicans were looking for a White Knight. We had urged people like John Thune and Mike Pence to run but Thune decided to forego the race and Pence decided to run for Governor of Indiana. Some were urging names like Sarah Palin, Mitch Daniels, Haley Barbour, and Chris Christie to come forward and save the day. Others, including myself, were urging House Budget Committee Chairman Paul Ryan to run.
“I sincerely appreciate the support from those eager to chart a brighter future for the next generation. While humbled by the encouragement, I have not changed my mind, and therefore I am not seeking our party’s nomination for President. I remain hopeful that our party will nominate a candidate committed to a pro-growth agenda of reform that restores the promise and prosperity of our exceptional nation. I remain grateful to those I serve in Southern Wisconsin for the unique opportunity to advance this effort in Congress.”
Just days before this announcement, word was out that Ryan had been giving a run for President some serious consideration and many fiscal conservatives were buoyed by the prospects. In one post entitled ” Heavy Hitters Urge Paul Ryan to Run for President“, White House 2012 detailed the high praise being offered for Paul Ryan’s potential candidacy from such political luminaries as Mitch Daniels, Jeb Bush, Bill Bennett and Scott Walker. And in that same post I wrote;
“If Paul Ryan were to be our Republican presidential nominee, he will begin a national dialogue that will consist of tough truths and sellable solutions, not bumper sticker slogans and hapless hyperbole. If Paul Ryan runs, the question will not be is he ready to do the job, the question will be is America ready for Paul Ryan. We already know that the guy who currently has the job was not ready for it. But I know Paul Ryan is.”
On this day a year ago, Paul Ryan released an announcement that put an end to all the speculation. He would not be a candidate for President. But a year later even though Ryan is not not running for President, his vice presidential candidacy is doing exactly what I indicated his presidential candidacy would do. He has changed the narrative of this election by getting us away from the dialogue of distractions perpetuated by the left and President Obama, and thanks to his expertise, and credibility on matters of fiscal responsibility, Paul Ryan has gotten us to talk instead about those sellable solutions on the economy that he is now promoting on the campaign trail quite well.
In just one year the road to the White House has seen more twists and turns than England’s famous Longleat Hedge Maze. Names like Huntsman, Gingrich, and Bachman have become faded footnotes of a nomination contest that few remember with great detail. Few recall the promise of the Perry candidacy that petered out within a moment of his momentary memory lapse. Faded memories of the derailment of the Cain train over unproven sexual harassment charges have left most Americans asking “Herman who?” And the past’s surpise surge of Santorum which was rolled back by the consolidation of support for the slow but steady momentum of the Romney campaign has people now wondering if the nomination contest was ever really close. Now, one year ago to the day that Paul Ryan declared he would not be a candidate for President, Mitt Romney has taken that momentum he had in the primaries and increased its pace by getting Paul Ryan to run for Vice President.
See Ryan’s Complete Speech at The Villages in the Video Below This Post.
With no limits to the depths that Democrats will go in an attempt to maintain control of the behemoth federal bureaucracy that they seek to transform our nation with, the left has made the use of scare tactics a signature part of their election efforts. Liberals have targeted the elderly since the 1980’s when they tried to campaign against Ronald Reagan and Republicans by trying to convince older voters that Reagan and the G.O.P. were going to destroy Social Security . According to liberal’s the policies of Reagan and his fellow evil Republicans were going to force granny into such economic dire straits that she she would be placed on a steady diet of cat food. The same attacks were used against George H.W. Bush in 1988 and ’92, Bob Dole in ’96, George W. Bush in 2000 and 2004 , and now Mitt Romney and Paul Ryan in 2012.
On many occasions Democrats experienced varying degrees of success with that strategy. In 1982 and agin in 1986, they did exceptionally well among seniors by exploiting the fear of our oldest and most vulnerable goldenagers. But that success was in part due to the G.O.P.’s poor political responses to those scare tactics. But in 2012, that doesn’t seem to be the case. Some thirty years after liberals began warning us that Republicans were going to kill our grandparents, people of my age have seen Grandma and Grandpa survive the Reagan years and the Administration’s of both Bush presidencies and not once was Fluffy forced to share her can of 9 Lives with them. That real life experience alone has taken a bit of the edge off the sword of lies leveled by liberals regarding senior citizens but in 2012, what really hurts the left is the addition of Paul Ryan to the Republican presidential ticket. With Ryan onboard and upfront, the G.O.P. and Mitt Romney have a silver bullet that is aimed right at the heart of this now old and tired liberal line of attack.
Ryan’s mastery of economics and matters of budget combined with his Kemp-like passion for conservative economic theory and principles makes him the preeminent voice for fiscal responsibility in the nation. When discussing his economic beliefs, Paul Ryan demonstrates an innate enthusiasm for his ideas that conveys a wonderful sense of vitality for our nation’s future. And no one can explain those ideas as well as Paul Ryan can.
Whereas Jack Kemp, the conservative giant who actually sold Reaganomics to Ronald Reagan, often spoke about conservative economic policies in technical terms that seemed to make his audience’s eyes glaze over, Paul Ryan’s approach to explaining economic growth and fiscal responsibility tends to generate the same type of enthusiasm for those ideas that he conveys when discussing them. This makes it hard for the left to discount Paul Ryan’s strengths on the issue but making it even harder for them this is Paul Ryan’s personality and image.
For Democrats the problem with trying to make senior citizens fear Paul Ryan and the ideas of the Romney-Ryan Team is that when senior citizens look at and listen to Paul Ryan, they have a hard time visualizing Paul Ryan as the demonic figure whose hands are pushing Grandma off the cliff in her wheelchair. When seniors see and hear Paul Ryan they don’t quite see him as the kid kicking their walker out from under them before running away and laughing. Instead what they see is a smart, respectful, thoughtful, well spoken, humble, handsome, young man with a beautiful young family, and some pretty good ideas. What they see in Paul Ryan is their own grandson, or at least what they wished their grandsons was more like.
That unavoidable impression makes it impossible for Democrats to find any success in the application of their now traditional senior citizen scare tactics. In fact, this time around, their fear mongering will likely backfire.
Today’s senior citizens are not the same ones that Democrats tried to make fearful of Ronald Reagan. The senior citizens who were voting during the Reagan and George H.W. Bush years, were of a generation that once voted in big numbers for Franklin Delano Roosevelt, a political hero of their generation. But the senior citizens voting in 2012 are of a different generation. An increasingly large number of today’s seniors are the same people who voted in big numbers for Ronald Reagan, the political hero of their generation. That also dilutes the left’s attempt to scare today’s senior citizens.
And it is part of the reason why the Romney/Ryan team’s bold decision to make many of the budget problems that lie at the heart of our national economic crisis, a main focus of the presidential campaign is being well received. The Republican ticket’s willingness to address the entitlement programs which under their current structures require more to be paid out than the government takes in, strikes at the heart of the issue that should be in the forefront of this campaign….fiscal responsibility. And instead of resorting to fear tactics and the pursuit of a political strategy of distractions and shallow political platitudes, Romney and Ryan have decided to elevate the campaign and its dialogue to that of a substantive, adult conversion that forces Americans to confronts our problems. In doing so, this past Saturday, the Republican presidential ticket sent Paul Ryan to discuss the issue of Medicare at The Villages in Florida.
The Villages is an age-restricted, master-planned, retirement community that sprawls across the counties of Sumter , Lake, and Marion in the battleground state of Florida. The Villages is a retirement community for people 55 years of age or older and according to the 2010 census figures, it boasts a population of 51,442 residents. Given the demographics of that community, sending the liberal’s poster boy for senior genocide to The Villages to discuss aggressive reforms on Medicare might seem to be more like throwing Daniel in to the lion’s den than a campaign stop, but as seen in the video below, Paul Ryan proved that today’s senior citizens are driven more by a desire for changes that lead to real solutions than they are by some fictitious fear of the solutions that Democrats are hoping for.
In what can only be described as a well received explanation for both the need of Medicare reform and the reforms proposed by the Romney/Ryan ticket, Paul Ryan went to The Villages and offered an inspirational call to arms that demonstrated his generation’s need to preserve Medicare for the generations that precede it and follow it . His speech also ushered in the end of an era, the end of the era of successful fear mongering of senior citizens by Democrats. Paul Ryan’s ability to have American’s rationally discuss the issue of entitlements reforms actually takes that particular liberal scare tactic away from Democrats and finally forces them to be held accountability for their unwillingness to deal with such issues effectively. As a result, where liberals once may have been successful at scaring old people, with the seniors of today when people like Debbie Wasserman Schultz, Nancy Pelosi, Joe Biden and even President Obama, jump out of the bushes to scream “boo”, all they will succeed at doing is making themselves look foolish.
Paul Ryan deserves a high-five. Why? Oh, by simply pointing out that Obama cuts $700 billion from Medicare. That, of course, changes Medicare into a positive for the Republicans. That’s right, Medicare is now an attack issue for Republicans.
Can it be? After all, how many decades have Democrats relied on the Medicare-hammer to pound Republicans like nails? Two? Three? Perhaps more? Whatever the answer, it’s been a long time with plenty of bruises.
So, take a moment, let it sink in. It’s not everyday politics changes this dramatically.
Say it. Come on, you can do it. Ready — Obama cuts $700 billion from Medicare to fund Obama-care.
Feels good, yes?
Republican Connie Mack IV, a recent primary winner in Florida, got in on the act. “In the state of Florida you’re gonna have the presidential election … and you’re gonna have a Senate election. There’s only two people in those races that have voted to gut Medicare, and that’s Barack Obama and Senator Nelson. They took $700 billion out of Medicare to pay for Obama-care.”
Doc Barack cuts Medicare for Obama-care. Mm, mm, delicious.
Say it again, you might as well, it helps the cause. If word gets out — and it better — Democrats may never get another senior vote. They can’t say it nor can they defend it. Obama cuts $700 billion from Medicare to fund Obama-care. We can pile on, too. Let us not forget, Obama-care is the largest tax increase in the history of history, too.
Mack continued, “I think President Obama and Sen. Nelson are kind of living in glass houses right now and playing catch with rocks.”
Think back to the ugly days during the Obama-care debates, Democrats sensing they were losing the fight, claimed Obama-care wouldn’t be a monstrosity. Do you recall the accounting trick of collecting Obama-care taxes (revenues) for a decade but providing services (expenses) for just six years and Democrats saying ‘see, it saves money’? Do you recall the double-talk — ‘it’s a tax, oops, sorry, it’s a penalty, no it’s a tax, no it’s a penalty’.
The gimmicks and word-play are coming back to haunt Democrats now.
The Romney/Ryan plan makes no changes to Medicare for people 55 years of age or older. Meanwhile, Obama and the Democrats are stealing $700 billion from Medicare to fund Obama-care.
We know Obama-care is a bad thing for myriad reasons. And we know with his controversial ruling, Chief Justice Roberts told us to solve our own problem. He tied Obama and Obama-care to the same fate. If you want to rid yourself — and your children and their children — from Obama-care, you must do away with Obama. It is that simple.
And now we know something else.
If you want to explore this further, there’s a good article at the National Review.
And you can watch Rich Lowry engage liberal commentator Rachel Maddow regarding the reality of the Medicare cuts. She’s left stammering and stuttering.
Doc Barack steals $700 billion from Medicare to fund Obama-care.
It’s got a nice ring to it, yes? And the best part is, it’s true.
Today marks another historic milestone in the presidency of Barack Obama. After more than three years of prices at the fuel pump steadily rising, this past month saw prices spike a whopping 9% and bring the national average of a gallon of gasoline up to $3.61 a gallon for the year, 10 cents more a gallon than it cost in 2011. All of this adds up to what will be the most expensive year for drivers in history.
Now to be fair, the truth is that Presidents and Congresses have only a certain amount of control over the price. But they could have a a dramatic effect on stabilizing costs. Fuel prices are largely established through the price set for crude oil on the world market. Oil, regardless of what nation it comes from is thrown into one big economic bucket and stamped with one price throughout the world. That is something which many, including Republicans often ignore when they argue for the need for the United States to increase domestic drilling.
While augmented domestic drilling is certainly a wise policy, it would not necessarily solve all our problems or drastically reduce the price of gas. However; by tapping into the vast wealth of natural, domestic, energy sources like crude oil, the United States would certainly have a stabilizing effect on the energy market and the price of oil.
The high price that we are seeing at the pump now is, despite a sluggish and troubled economy, a direct result of the fact that worldwide demand is up and supplies are coming from increasingly unstable and even dangerous locations of the world; i.e.: the Middle East. This means that if the United States which consumes most of the world’s oil supply, happened to increase its production of domestic oil it would help to stabilize the world oil market by increasing the number of stable, secure, and reliable locations that are contributing to the world market, thereby adding a boost to the supply side of the supply and demand dynamic that is causing the unsettling run-up in fuel costs that we are now experiencing.
But President Obama and the liberal lock that Democrats have on Congress through their majority in the U.S. Senate, refuse to take advantage of our ability to exploit domestic natural resources. It is a policy that not only continues to put undue pressure on the world oil market, it also denies Americans jobs, something which more rational political leaders would see as a necessary initiative at a time when our nation is experiencing its 40th consecutive month of unemployment in excess of 8%.
In this tough economy, while our federal government should be doing everything that is possible to get the economic engine of our nation moving again, it is clear that President Obama and his fellow liberals will be of no help on this issue. Since coming to power, the only discernible efforts they have taken in the area of energy have been on the mishandling of the 2009 Gulf oil disaster that saw hundreds of millions of gallons of oil gush into the Gulf of Mexico for several months, and feeble attempts to prop up misguided alternative energy efforts such as the one involving the unfolding Solyndra scandal.
And as the average price of a gallon gas is predicted to reach as high as $3.90 a gallon by year’s end, Democrats, including President Obama happen to be missing in action on the issue.
As Democrats gear up to re-nominate their messiah for President, a deafening silence has fallen over the liberal lala land that the left occupies.
There are no complaints from limousine liberals over the price of gas or even the high unemployment rates which could be reduced by incorporating an all-of-the-above strategy into our national energy policy. This newfound silence of the left offers a stark contrast to the reaction that liberals had to the high cost of gas in 2006 when it briefly spiked to point in excess of $3.00.
At one point, as Democrats were gearing up for the 2006 midterm elections and gas prices were reaching their highest of the Bush years, Chuck Schumer held a press conference and stated;
“Well, we knew this was going to happen. Prices are now back up to over $3.00 a gallon again. If we do nothing, within all too short a time prices they’re going to be at $4.00 a gallon and $5.00 a gallon. And there’s going to be a giant hole getting bigger, and bigger, and bigger, in every consumer’s pocketbook or wallet.
Back then, The New York Times, the now tarnished, Gray Lady of liberal propaganda, proudly extolled;
“Democrats running for Congress are moving quickly to use the most recent surge in oil and gasoline prices to bash Republicans over energy policy, and more broadly, the direction of the country.”
Six years later and the soaring price of gas is something the left is now seemingly trying to keep a secret. But in the words of Harry Reid, “the word is out”.
That genie is out of the bottle and at the moment, Democrats don’t seem to have any way to put her back in the bottle or to explain her escape. No matter how many distractions the left concoct, no matter how much President Obama and his campaign henchmen try to defame Mitt Romney, and despite all the attempts to divide Americans and then piece together a majority of the vote for the President’s reelection, far too many Americans are uniting together under what are becoming very negative campaign ads for Democrats —- the signs which contain the high price for gas that the Obama energy policy is forcing Americans to pay.
Back in 2006, under the direction of Senator Schumer who was the Chairman of Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee and in charge of getting liberals elected to the Senate, made bashing Bush on the high price of gas a mandatory theme for candidates to run on. Fast forward to 2012 and Democrats are not running on the price of gas, they are trying to run as far away from those prices as many Democrats who are up for reelection are running as far away from the democratic National Convention as they possibly can.
It’s just another sign of the liberal hypocrisy that forms the foundation of liberal logic but in the meantime, our President has once again made history. In addition to making history as the first President to win a Nobel Peace Prize for simply getting elected, other historic firsts include his success in putting nearly a third of the U.S. economy under government controlling by delivering socialized healthcare to our shores, the accumulation of a total debt that greater than the sum total of all previous presidents, his capping of salaries in the private sector, the first downgrade of the U.S credit rating, and the longest sustained period of unemployment in excess of 8%. Now he has achieved the historic honor of presiding over the most expensive year for motorists ever. The problem is, I am not sure how much more of the President’s historic achievements Americans afford?
Together, the Romney/Ryan ticket’s concentration on their proposals to put our nation on a path to prosperity will force voters to have a national discussion on the economic crisis we are currently struggling through and the cataclysmic economic cliff we are close to falling off of. As seen in the video below, that discussion will make it impossible for President Obama to avoid being held accountable for his actions and his words.
The message in that video focuses on several incontrovertible points;
In 2008, Senator Barack Obama called George W. Bush “irresponsible” and “unpatriotic” for accumulating a debt of nearly 4 trillion dollars.
In 2008 that debt amounted to $30,000.00 owed for every man, woman & child in the nation.
In 2012, President Obama has accumulated more debt than all 43 Presidents before him, combined.
Now, in 2012, president Obama’s accelerated creation of debt places a tax burden of more than $50,000.00 for every man, woman and child in the nation. That’s $20,000.00 more than under Bush.
Those undeniable points must force every voter to ask themselves whether or not they truly believe that in the next four years, President Obama’s liberal tax and spend policies will produce results that are any different than the results they achieved during the past four years.
It also forces President Obama to have to explain whether or not he holds himself to the same standards that he holds other to and if he does, can he explain exactly why voters should not conclude that his reckless accumulation of more debt than any President in history is anything but “irresponsible” and “unpatriotic”?
And while he’s at it, could President Obama please tell us exactly why in the name of all that is decent and good, Americans should reelect a President who is “irresponsible” and “unpatriotic?
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The Romney campaign’s latest ad entitled ‘Many Americans” is rather simple but in its simplicity lies the degree of persuasiveness that could sway the very independent swing voters from in the very swing states that Mitt Romney needs to win in if he intends to be elected president. (see video below this post)
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