Strategy

What’s New Today

Story #1 talks about Obama’s lies on taxes.  #2 looks at the controversy of Obama contention that businesses weren’t built by the business founder.  And finally #3 reviews what appears to be Obama’s campaign strategy. 

Today’s Thoughts

We are hearing condemnations of Michele Bachmann for her asking the State Departments IG to look into Huma Abedin and her family.  Ms. Abedin is married to Anthony Weiner and is a high level aide to Hillary Clinton.  It seems Ms. Abedin’s family has significant connections with the Muslim Brotherhood.  This does not seem to be an unreasonable request.

1.  Obama lied about taxes

When he was asking for our vote in 2008, then candidate Barack Obama famously promised the American people, “I can make a firm pledge. Under my plan no family making less than $250,000 a year will see any form of tax increase. Not your income tax, not your payroll tax, not your capital gains taxes, not any of your taxes.”   But as the Supreme Court has now authoritatively ruled, the Obamacare individual mandate, requiring workers to purchase the health insurance the government specifies each family must buy, is a tax.  And that tax applies to the middle class and working people.

CBO estimates that health insurance will cost $15,000 per year on average for families soon after Obamacare is fully implemented, rising rapidly from there.  That is the individual mandate tax on the middle class and working people.

Of course, Obamacare includes a whole new entitlement program (just what we need) providing health insurance welfare for families making up to $88,000 a year to start, rising to over $100,000 a year after a few years.  With that welfare, the net cost to families at different income levels is limited to 2 percent of income for people at 133 percent of poverty up to 9.8 percent of income for people at 400 percent of poverty.  But that in itself is still like a new payroll tax, or income tax surcharge…

http://www.forbes.com/sites/peterferrara/2012/07/19/obama-promised-he-wouldnt-raise-taxes-on-the-middle-class-he-lied/

Of course this is a tax and probably one of the most arbitrary taxes ever put on the American people.  It applies only to those who aren’t lucky enough to work for someone who already provides health insurance and won’t respond to the built in incentives to drop it. 

2.  Obama’s Rhetorical Blunder

…Checking for context before slamming someone for a single line in a speech is always a noble endeavor. But there’s a point when the “benefit of the doubt” becomes ridiculous. A prime example is the liberal argument that President Obama’s “you didn’t build that” comment wasn’t directed at businesses:

When he made the comment in Roanoke, Va. Friday, Obama was arguing that businesses needed infrastructure investment to succeed.

“If you were successful, somebody along the line gave you some help,” Obama said. “There was a great teacher somewhere in your life. Somebody helped to create this unbelievable American system that we have that allowed you to thrive. Somebody invested in roads and bridges. If you’ve got a business, you didn’t build that. Somebody else made that happen.”

The antecedent to “that” is not the business, but “roads and bridges,” as well as the “American system” as a whole.

To believe that Obama was talking about businesses, you only have to watch his speech in context and take it at its literal meaning. To believe Obama was talking about something else, you have to divine certain messages from his ambiguous body language, assume he mixed up his demonstrative pronouns, and concede that the context was structured oddly. Even then, it isn’t clear what exactly he’s referring to….

…For the past four years, liberals have tried to sell us on the idea that Obama is one of the greatest speakers of all time. Now they’re complaining that conservatives are taking his words literally and not cutting him enough slack. Which one is it?

http://www.commentarymagazine.com/2012/07/20/the-myth-of-obama-rhetorical-brilliance/

Obama’s rhetorical skills are akin to an anchorman on the news.  He can read his lines well.  But he is certainly no JFK or Ronald Reagan able to give and inspiring speech and able to think on his feet without a script and be clear in his message. 

3.  Obama Leans Hard Left

The usual strategy for presidential candidates is to appeal to the political center in hopes of broadening their support. President Obama isn’t doing that. He is tilting sharply to the left on issue after issue: immigration, religious liberty, welfare, gay marriage, the environment, race, the role of government. Why?

The simplest answer is that his bid for reelection is in trouble, and he’s going where he has the best chance of finding friendly faces. In fundraising, you rely on folks who’ve donated before. Obama is going after voters who’ve voted for him before.

But why focus his campaign on them? Didn’t Obama long ago lock up the various liberal elements and interest groups who make up the Democratic Party’s base? Yes, but their mere support is not enough. He needs them to swarm to the polls and vote in the same massive numbers they did in 2008. At the moment, that seems unlikely.

A poll in mid-July by Resurgent Republic found that Republicans are more enthusiastic about voting in the presidential election than either Democrats or independents. Sixty-two percent said they’re “extremely enthusiastic,” compared with 49 percent of Democrats and 45 percent of independents.

In truth, Obama has few alternatives to trying to jack up the Election Day turnout of his base… 

http://www.weeklystandard.com/articles/pandering-his-base_648830.html

I’m reminded of the scene in the movie An Officer and a Gentleman where the lead actor is being hazed by the drill sergeant who wants his resignation.  Finally after the Sergeant asks him why he won’t give it, Zak says, “I’ve got no place else to go.”  I think that sums up Obama’s situation.  It is Obama that is the long shot in this race, not Romney.