Time For Conservatives to Put Aside Documents and Focus on Obama's Performance in Office

by Steve McCann

Many conservatives are playing into the hands of the Obama re-election machine, falling for the trap of making themselves easily mocked by a sycophantic mainstream media attempting to turn Obama into a victim.

The President cannot defend his record, and in order to win re-election he must rely on the extraneous factors of sympathy, guilt, and cultural status combined with the inherent power of the White House to dominate and skew the news to his benefit.

The re-election crusade of Barack Obama is in full campaign mode (his every action and utterance should be regarded the same as any activity two months prior to an election). The basic strategy: a relentless effort to browbeat and overwhelm any potential competition by appearing invincible and marginalizing the opposition through the media as the Obama machine anticipates that any challenger will have a limited ability to respond or gain traction in today's celebrity driven cultural environment.

A major aspect of the marginalization will be to portray the President as a victim of racism and right-wing paranoia. They will do this by forcing any prospective Republican candidates to constantly defend themselves against those charges, as the Democrats and the media will portray all conservatives as racist loons thus diverting attention from Obama's overwhelming failures.

Therefore the conservatives must understand this strategy and not allow themselves to be easily manipulated. Emotion should have no place in the upcoming campaign. In order to make these tactics moot it is time to put the issue of Obama's birth certificate, college grades, and all manner of personal questions on the sidelines and concentrate on making certain he is defeated based on his record.

That is not to say that there may indeed be some validity to these issues; but they cannot be proven with absolute certitude between now and the fall of 2012. Placing any attention on these matters will not succeed in helping defeat Obama as long as the mainstream media is a wholly owned subsidiary of liberal deep-pocket benefactors and the Democratic Party with their access to taxpayer money.

Donald Trump has forced the Obama team to release the birth certificate long before it would have been politically useful to do so during the last months of the campaign. It is now time to focus on the fact that the United States under Obama's watch has gone to hell in a hand basket and the nation cannot run the risk of his re-election if the country is to survive as we know it.

President Obama's schizophrenic foreign policy has greatly diminished the stature and security of the United States and ObamaCare will destroy the best healthcare system in the world. However just the failure of his economic policies alone since the inauguration on January 20, 2009 would be enough to defeat any other president in the country's recent history. Not since the Great Depression has the nation experienced such devastation in the first two-plus years of a president's term.

What makes this failure all the more remarkable was that the country had entered into a recession nearly 12 months before the inauguration, and as the historical record (since 1945) indicates the average length of a recession had been 9.8 months; therefore the economy should have been poised to begin a significant expansion. However, thanks to Obama, the opposite has happened and according to the vast majority of economists there will be no measurable improvement before November 2012 and the probability that matters will get worse rises by the day.

The economic reality of the Obama years is as follows:

Employment: As of January 2009 there were 142.0 million American employed out of a total civilian noninstitutional population of 234.0 million or a percentage of 60.7%. Today out of a total civilian noninstitutional population of 239 million, just 139.8 million are employed or 58.5%. Just to get back to the level of employment on inauguration day (which was near the worst point of the recession) 3 million jobs should have been created.

Government Spending and Debt: As of January 2009 the total national debt was $10.6 Trillion; as of today it is $14.3 Trillion, a phenomenal increase of $3.7 Trillion (or the total debt of the United States from 1789 to 1988). By the end of the Obama term it is estimated that the debt will have increased by $5.4 Trillion (an average of nearly $1,350 Billion per year as compared to the average of $319 Billion per year from 1988 through 2008). The United States is now faced with the very real possibility of losing of its AAA credit rating.

Economic Growth: As of January 1, 2009 the nation's Gross Domestic Product on a per capita basis stood at $48,300.00 as of January 1, 2011 it was $47,400.00 a drop of 1.9%. On the other hand America's two major trade competitors, also buffeted by the worldwide financial crisis of 2008, experienced the following: China, an increase of 19.4% and Germany, an increase of 2.0%.

Standard of Living: Nothing erodes the standard of living for the average citizen more than inflation and the loss of personal wealth. One of the major expenditure for the majority of households is food and energy. The massive deficits accumulated by this administration combined with the reactive monetary policy of the Federal Reserve has resulted in the Commodity Price Index rising from 102.0 on January 20, 2009 to 198.95 today (an increase of 95%).

The most important element in the wealth of Americans is the value of their homes. Since January 1, 2009 the median price of existing homes in the United States has declined a further 9.3% after a drop of 15.3% between 2007 and 2008 and the collapse of the housing bubble.

Erosion of the Dollar: As a result of the Obama policies the dollar has experienced one of its greatest deteriorations in history over a 27 month period. Since inauguration day 2009, the US Dollar has dropped: 40% against the Australian Dollar; 27% versus the Swiss Franc; 26% against the Canadian Dollar, and 11% versus the Japanese Yen (despite the devastation of the recent earthquake). There is open and active discussion of replacing the Dollar as the world's reserve currency which would be a ruinous blow to the American standard of living and position of global economic dominance.

Concurrent with this precipitous drop; the price of silver has increased 326% and gold by 86% since January 2009.

The mood of the nation: On January 20, 2009 after four years of the media vilifying George Bush and the financial crisis of October 2008, the Rasmussen polling data on the direction of the country showed 62% of likely voters stating that the country was on the wrong track. Today that same poll shows 72% believe the country is on the wrong track. Despite the much ballyhooed selling of "hope and change" the best number Obama has achieved in that polling data is 55% thinking the country is on the wrong track (May of 2009).

It is difficult to comprehend that a president having left such wreckage in his wake could be re-elected if he had truly aggressive and tenacious opposition who would never allow the American people to be distracted from the facts.

The president cannot avoid responsibility for the devastation he has created unless it is made easier for him to do so by the other side expending time and energy on personal issues that will enable his campaign to claim victimhood status and enable him to pummel his potential opponent in a cultural and media setting that works to his advantage.

So while it may not be popular to say within some conservative circles, the time has come to put the obsession with birth certificates, college transcripts, Social Security numbers, and other extraneous issues away for another day and focus that same determination and energy on evicting the most philosophically radical and dangerous person to ever occupy the office of President utilizing on the best available weapon: his record.

Conservatives cannot acquiesce to the inevitable left-wing calls for civility. They must be unafraid to relentlessly tell the narrative of how this President has potentially destroyed the future of the country. Barack Obama and his allies know he can only win re-election if the campaign is conducted on their terms; do not accommodate them.

Source: http://www.americanthinker.com/2011/05/time_for_conservatives_to_put.html

Steve McCann

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