Mitt Romney has had a bad couple of weeks. After eliminating those towers of intellect pretending to be Republican Presidential candidates, he gained steadily against the President. You may remember how many people were convinced that he’d never win the nomination and spoke as though his competition actually had Presidential credentials.
Now the President seems to be winning with a message of class war and lying commercials – his commercials are from his campaign, not the PACs. [I can’t see the difference between President Obama’s rhetorical nonsense and that of Trump, Bachmann, Cain, Perry or Gingrich. Luckily for the President, nobody is listening.] Romney is cooperating in the current decline by arrogantly refusing to release more of his tax returns and being stupidly unable to explain capitalism – these guys knew all this was coming.
Here’s a digression that epitomizes how I feel about both Parties and the quality of the people we are selecting for government in general. Romney knew he’d have to release his tax returns; it’s just the way it is. But how’s this for hypocrisy?
“Rep. Nancy Pelosi was emphatic. Mitt Romney’s refusal to release more than two years of his personal tax returns, she said, makes him unfit to win confirmation as a member of the president’s Cabinet, let alone to hold the high office himself.
Sen. Harry Reid went farther: Romney’s refusal to make public more of his tax records makes him unfit to be a dogcatcher.
They do not, however, think that standard of transparency should apply to them. The two Democratic leaders of the Senate and the House of Representatives are among hundreds of senators and representatives from both parties who refused to release their tax records. Just 17 out of the 535 members of Congress released their most recent tax forms or provided some similar documentation of their tax liabilities in response to requests from McClatchy over the last three months. Another 19 replied that they wouldn’t release the information, and the remainder never responded to the query.”
Most Members of Congress Keep Their Tax Returns Secret
By Kevin G. Hall and David Lightman – McClatchy Newspapers
July 17, 2012
These people have no honor but Romney still has to release his tax returns. There is right and wrong and there is politics.
So now we have to listen to all the experts tell us that Romney will lose and that the President’s despicable and un-American campaign message resonates with the nation’s voters – the latter thought makes me want to hurl. But it’s summer and the talking heads have nothing else to talk about except who should be Veep. There is a counter argument to all this which is why the President has gone negative rather than run on his record.
Wayne Root is an opportunist catering to the lunatic fringe like so many other political entertainers – Glen Beck, Keith Olbermann, Sean Hannity, Chris Mathews, et al. But when you scrape away the gratuitous rhetoric from this opinion piece, I very much like the argument. Allow me to summarize.
Root predicts that the Presidential race between Obama and Romney will be very close until Election Day. But that on Election Day Romney will win by a landslide similar to Reagan-Carter in 1980. He says that 32 years ago at this moment in time, Reagan was losing by 9 points to Carter [in November, Reagan won by 10 points]. Romney is right now running even in polls.
Root’s premise is that nobody who voted for McCain in 2008 is now going to vote for Obama but many millions of people who voted for an unknown Obama four years ago are now angry, disillusioned, turned off, or scared about the future. Here is his analysis of some voting blocks that matter in U.S. politics:
Black voters. Obama has nowhere to go but down among this group. His endorsement of gay marriage has alienated many black church-going Christians. He may get 88% of their vote instead of the 96% he got in 2008.
Hispanic voters. Obama has nowhere to go but down among this group. If Romney picks Rubio as his VP running-mate the GOP may pick up an extra 10% to 15% of Hispanic voters (plus lock down Florida). [I do not buy any argument that a Veep can help a candidate though many picks could hurt in the way Palin did.]
Jewish voters. Obama has been weak in his support of Israel. Many Jewish voters and big donors are angry and disappointed. I predict Obama’s Jewish support drops from 78% in 2008 to the low 60’s. [Many wealthy supporters don’t like being demonized nor do they like an American President that wages class war and seems to disparage capitalism.]
Youth voters. Obama’s biggest and most enthusiastic believers from four years ago have graduated into a job market from hell. Young people are disillusioned, frightened, and broke – a bad combination. The enthusiasm is long gone. Turnout will be much lower among young voters, as will actual voting percentages.
Catholic voters. Obama won a majority of Catholics in 2008. That won’t happen again. Out of desperation to please women, Obama went to war with the Catholic Church over contraception. Now he is being sued by the Catholic Church. Majority lost.
Small Business owners. At least 40% of small business owners in my circle of friends, fans and supporters voted for Obama four years ago to “give someone different a chance.” Four years later, I can’t find one person in my circle of small business owner friends voting for Obama. Not one.
Blue collar working class whites. Do I need to say a thing?
Suburban moms. The issue isn’t contraception…it’s having a job to pay for contraception. Obama’s economy frightens these moms. They are worried about putting food on the table. They fear for their children’s future. This is not good news for Obama. [And they don’t like being pigeon holed as automatic lefties.]
Military Veterans. McCain won this group by 10 points. Romney is winning by 24 points.
I find this logic persuasive.
There is a counter-counter argument that runs this way:
1. Obama is not Carter.
2. Romney is not Reagan.
3. There are no hostages in Iran.
Fair enough; but personally, I’m not so sure about arguments one and two. Romney should get back to beating up big government that is bankrupting the nation while telling us how to live.
Here’s my last digression; the most discouraging thing I’ve heard about the race came from one of my kids over kool-aids last week. His view was that Obama should win because Republicans are idiots – nobody can argue with the latter. As I see it, the President has to lead the Congress and the nation toward the light and Obama has not only failed to do that he blames his failure on his customers – I hate excuse makers. The President thinks voters have been too dumb to get it and that the opposition has been stubbornly and unfairly uncooperative – who’d have expected that? I say simple accountability demands that the incumbent be fired and the next one too if he fails.
But if the rest of the nation’s pillars of our community think like this young man in his prime then it’s Obama by a landslide. Romney cannot control Republicans any more than President Obama can control Biden. I still think common sense will prevail in the end.
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