I heard today how it wasn't a great week for Obama. The economy isn't doing well, Scott Walker won his recall election in Wisconsin, Romney raised more money than he did in May, Bill Clinton and Ed Rendell went off message and needed to apologize.
Whatever.
I think the problem is that so far, Obama has no message for this campaign. Now maybe it's not easy to come up with one, but that's the job. I know what the Republicans are for and to me it's crazy. They want to lower taxes, destroy all government programs except for the military, and revert progress on social issue 50 years. And they think this will help the economy but I'm sure it won't.
What's Obama's plan? Is he for more stimulus? I haven't heard that. He wants to extend the Bush tax cuts on those making under $250,000 or under $1 million, I'm not sure which, while letting them expire for those making more. That's fine, but it won't do much. I still can't figure out if Dodd-Frank actually regulates wall street or allows derivates to be regulated at all. I know that Obamacare will kick in any year now if the Supreme Court doesn't pull it at the end of the month. I also know he spends time in meetings figuring out which individuals on the side of the planet to kill, even if they're American citizens. And he's not mentioned the climate at all.
He needs to take a stand. He needs to say what's he for and explain how the Republicans are blocking things using unprecedented power grabs. I think he believes the problems with the economy are on the demand side and we need the government to be the spender of last resort, at least I hope so. And I wish he would be pursuing legislation to make that happen and pointing out when Republicans block that and not just spending time compromising all his positions and then taking the blame for the failures. Sure, compromise to get stuff passed, but ensure that what gets passed is what you want to take responsibility for.
Without that we get crap like this:
Obama Backs Away From ‘Fine’ Comment. He got pounced on for saying the private sector is fine. Well that's mostly true as most unemployment is from the public sector because we keep laying off teachers and police. Maybe we should stop that.
Bill Clinton apologizes for Bush tax cuts comments. Clinton said the Bush tax cuts should be extended and apparently Obama opposes that. I think we're now arguing about only on the wealthy, but why isn't this clear? We've only been debating this for a couple of years now.
Ed Rendell: Obama ‘hurt by being a legislator only’ before presidency. Rendell said when Obama started he was a weak executive and regarding significant legislation “too much of it was left up to the Congress”. Now I'm sure no one is prepared when they first become president and I'm also sure that leaving things, particularly healthcare, up to the Congress was deliberate because they didn't want to repeat Hilary's mistake in the 90s. But fine, claim it already. Say he tried to work with Congress but they aren't cooperating, here's exactly what he wants to see happen and let them describe something different if they want.
Now we're seeing crap like this in the New York Times, Lobby E-Mails Show Depth of Obama Ties to Drug Industry. As if it's news that Obama conceded reimportation to get big pharma's support. But now Republican's are jumping on it and at least the times quote Robert Reich having to say: " “Republicans trumpeting these e-mails is like a fox complaining someone else raided the chicken coop,” said Robert Reich, the former labor secretary under President Bill Clinton. “Sad to say, it’s called politics in an era when big corporations have an effective veto over major legislation affecting them and when the G.O.P. is usually the beneficiary. In this instance, the G.O.P. was outfoxed. Who are they to complain?”"
Now I get emails from the Obama campaign that say, Romney raised more money than us, "If you just want to cut to the chase, you can donate to Barack Obama now." Seriously? You're not even going to pretend to stand for something?
Both Obama and the Democratic National Committee avoided the recall election. There had to be a petition to get the DNC to spend money on the recall. Obama apparently wanted to stay above the fray. And what a surprise big money won.
Robert Scheer wrote Democrats Failed in Wisconsin Because They Failed Wisconsin.
"Of course [the GOP] argument is a red herring. The budget crises of state and municipal governments were not brought on by excessive pay to firemen, cops and other civil servants, but rather by a banking meltdown that has enriched those who engineered it. Housing values, and the local taxes dependent on them, are down because of financial shenanigans that wrapped mortgages into collateralized debt obligations, and that is the root cause of government red ink. But the job security and pensions of government employees make terribly convenient scapegoats at a time when so many Americans are lining up at food banks.
The electorate in Wisconsin, and San Diego and San Jose, Calif., that voted Tuesday against public employee unions were not expressing a rational response to the crisis, but rather a tantrum stoked by the lavishly financed demagogues of the right. The voters bought their story because the opportunism of the Democratic Party leadership has left progressives without a believable alternative to the tea party’s narrative. Indeed, job creation became a bigger issue than collective bargaining in the Wisconsin race, and the dismal national unemployment figures that came out just days before the election didn’t hurt the Republicans’ cause."
Now I know that June polls are pretty worthless, but Nate Silver has released his first model forecast on the election and Obama is winning by hair. "The first look at the 2012 FiveThirtyEight presidential forecast has Barack Obama as a very slight favorite to win re-election. But his advantage equates to only a two-point lead in the national popular vote, and the edge could easily swing to Mitt Romney on the basis of further bad economic news."
Seriously, it's easy to expect bad economic news in the next four months. Obama needs a clear message both he and his supporters can stick to and that voters can understand and decide on. It shouldn't be too hard and it's clear it shouldn't be about a new kind of politics in Washington. It should be about doing the right thing to fix a lot of different problems we have.
More on that later.
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