I originally wrote this piece during the run-up to the 2012 presidential reelection campaign, however, as the Congressional midterms heat-up this year, the President and the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee have revived their “warrior for the middle class” campaign. Nevertheless, just as in 2012, their policies and policy proposals actually undermine the American middle class. Below is an older article that is relevant again during another campaign season.
Yesterday Obama’s campaign architect held forth on the Administration’s reelect strategy, as he made the rounds on the Sunday talk shows. David Plouffe, largely credited with the President’s electoral victory in 2008, laid out a plan for President Obama’s reelection campaign that is full of lies and distortions.
In an effort to obfuscate the President’s abysmal economic record, the campaign seems content on painting the GOP as obstructionist and, once again, playing the victim. Should Americans expect anything else from a President and Administration that has attempted to make all Americans victims dependent on Washington?
Plouffe is working overtime to set-up an argument that it’s the Tea Party vs. America, apparently forgetting that the Tea Party is made up of Americans.
The talking point is that thirty Tea Party Republicans in Congress are holding up progress for three hundred million Americans. To me, this is just laughable. I believe that most Americans, as indicated by virtually every poll conducted by every pollster, don’t see that there’s been any progress since the Obama Administration took over in 2009. In fact, the economic stagnation has worsened as a result of these misguided, misappropriated “stimulus” bills and other massive government programs that have held back innovation more than they’ve spawned new industry. Still, sticking to the talking points, the President and Plouffe run around telling people that the Tea Party is responsible for the economic environment in which we live. They forget that the Tea Party came as a result of this environment; therefore, it cannot be the cause of it (logic is too tough for them).
A simple sampling of statistics quickly refutes the President’s claim to be a “warrior for the middle class.” The cost of food and gasoline, two of the biggest budget items for middle-income Americans, has skyrocketed over the past two years. This dramatic increase in prices is due largely to misguided energy policies that cater more to hard line environmentalists than to the public-at-large, and spending policies that have led to the printing of $ trillions of dollars, spurring inflation. This combination of craziness has led to a squeeze on the middle-class not seen since the Carter days. Our country, for the first time since in decades, knows the pain of rising costs coupled with falling wages. That’s why I don’t believe the American people will buy into the smoke-and-mirrors of “hope and change” again next year.
Talk is cheap, but the pain is real.
David Plouffe can tell us all day long that the President is trying to turn it all around, but we all know that he had over two years before any so-called “Tea Party obstructionists” were ever elected. That reality is what, for the Obama Administration, constitutes “an inconvenient truth.” We need a President who believes in America again, not in his ability to control every aspect of its existence. That would give us real hope, and that would be welcome change.
