by Bill Sardi
Recently by Bill Sardi: Nah, The Bureau of Labor Statistics Wouldn't Fudge Unemployment Numbers Right Before a Presidential Election, WouldThey?
On paper, how can anyone say Mr. Obama's Presidency is a failure? Come on, here is the heroic President who gave orders to shoot-to-kill the towel-headed terrorist Osama bin Laden, who passed "Obamacare," who brought us (via bailout money) "the Obama-car," who was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize. Four years ago rhetoric of "change" resonated so fully in the American population that all it took was a teleprompter-reading candidate to win. But in 2012 he has failed to create the same fervor as he did in the 2008 election.
Then Mr. Obama had a voodoo doll in GW Bush to stick needles in. He ran a successful campaign by appealing to an American population that was running away from its former President. But can he, or any subsequent President for that matter, ever run a successful campaign based upon his own record?
Which future President is going to say he has raised the American economy totally out of its $16 trillion of accumulated debt or its more than $200 trillion of future unfunded obligations for Medicare and Social Security?
Maybe some autocratic President can issue an Executive Order that all US companies cease manufacturing overseas and bring jobs back home, but then the President would have to deal with massive unrest and starvation in China and rising prices on goods at home (U.S. Gross Domestic Product is driven largely by household purchases. Bloomberg News reports consumer spending is now 70% of the nation's GDP). Fixing one problem creates another.
Raise interest rates on borrowed money so that interest on saved money rises and encourages more Americans to save and you end up having to pay higher interest rates on home purchases and the real estate market (what's left of it) crashes again.
Rigging numbers to get re-elected
The only way the incumbent President has held office today and hasn't been forced to resign or face impeachment is the news media is covering for a failed economy. When the nation's central bank, The Federal Reserve that issues money to banks, says the target rate of inflation is 2.2%, somehow that becomes the real rate of inflation. Economist John Williams shows the real rate of inflation is more like 9.3% (ShadowStats.com).
Pitting the masses against the classes redux
In 1980 President Jimmy Carter faced 21% interest rates on borrowed money, 13% inflation and zero economic growth. His strategy for re-election was to characterize Ronald Reagan as a tool of the rich (sound familiar?). Ronald Reagan won in a landslide with 489 electoral votes that year. Political commentator Pat Buchanan has said: "Looking back, what else could Carter do? Looking forward, what else can Barack Obama do?"
Polarized political reporting
The problem with election reporting today is that news services have polarized as much as voters have. You can fully anticipate The Huffington Post, Slate (issued the video of Romney saying 47% of the vote is already bought and paid for by welfare payments), Mother Jones, National Public Radio, and other liberal news sources to slant electoral vote projections towards the incumbent. These news sources and others defended the false unemployment numbers issued recently by the Bureau of Labor Statistics, figures that would have surely doomed Mr. Obama's re-election. Again, John Williams at ShadowStats.com shows real unemployment at ~22%.
Likewise, anticipate conservative news sources like Newsmax, FoxNews, Forbes.com, to say Obama's 4 years have been a "failed Presidency."
Undecided voters might get a more accurate picture of Mr. Obama's failings from overseas news sources. For example, the UK's Guardian says "Barack Obama's presidency u2018has not helped cause of black people in US'." But the African American vote is likely to stick with Mr. Obama as their only hope.
Bob Woodward, whose reports at The Washington Post brought down a Presidency (Richard Nixon and Watergate), has written a whole book on Mr. Obama's failings. Entitled The Price of Politics, Woodward's book is biting. He calls Mr. Obama "arrogant, aloof and hyper-partisan."
President predicted 1-term
In 2009 Barack Obama predicted his own one-term Presidency. USA Today quotes President Obama as saying he would be looking at a “one-term proposition” if the economy didn’t turn around during his first term.
Electoral vote projections tell all
In an attempt to get away from the slanted news reports, one might analyze the various electoral vote predictions. Regardless of the political slant of their sources, they are telling.
Projected Electoral Votes: Presidency 270 electoral votes needed to win
Electoral Projection
Mr. Obama
Mr. Romney
RealClearPolitics (Oct. 14)
201
191
RealClearPolitics (Sept. 27)
265
191
Huffington Post (Oct. 14)
253
206
CNN (Oct. 14)
237
191
Election Projection (Oct. 13)
294
244
Unskewed Politics (Sept. 21)
221
301
Now let's look at how many electoral votes Mr. Obama garnered in the 2008 election.
365
173 McCain
Do any of the electoral vote projections in 2012 approach Mr. Obama's 365 in 2008?
If electoral votes are an indicator of whether a newly-elected President has a public mandate to lead, Mr. Obama is in a world of hurt. He cannot lead a nation so divided this way. The answer to the question of whether Mr. Obama's first term is a failed Presidency is "yes" based upon any electoral vote projection you can find.
The end result: masses against classes?
This election is becoming memorable for pitting the masses (the so-called 47%) against the classes (the so-called 1%). A question arises. If Mr. Obama fails to win re-election, how will the masses take the loss? There is chatter that election results could cause massive civil unrest all over America. So who wins then?
America may be boxing itself into a corner.
Would the American public have rallied around a candidate who would have advocated an audit of The Federal Reserve and Ft. Knox's gold vaults? A candidate who would have cut military spending and pulled American troops out of Afghanistan and drones out of Pakistan and the torture chambers out of Guantanamo? Would Americans on both sides of the political spectrum have backed a candidate who would have pushed for currency reform and gold-backed money, and because of gold-backed money would have put a leash on bankers who have stretched credit and reserve ratios beyond a prudent point? And with a true mandate from the public would cancel every prior executive order issued by the White House, most which limit freedoms guaranteed in the Constitution. And this candidate would have likely demanded timely tax reform so that even the Secretary of the Treasury would know how to fill out his tax forms. I believe this candidate could have united the country.
That candidate was not given an opportunity to even present his platform of real change at the Republican Party national convention. And now America may pay a bitter price for that mistake.
