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Thursday, September 30, 2010

The Obama Message

I have paid particular attention to the recent public appearances by President Obama now that he seems to be in full campaign mode. I wanted to see if I could distill his essential message to the voters. I believe I have succeeded, and here it is: First, Obama is saying that in the next two years the country will see more of the same things that it has seen from him so far in his term. Second, Obama is saying that Republicans are bad people who will not help the country if they get into power. That’s it, the entire message in a nutshell.
I am not sure why the President thinks that his message will resonate with the voters. After all, he has been in power for two years and the Democrats have been in power in Congress for four years. They get the credit or the blame for where we are as a country right now. High unemployment? That’s theirs. Low growth? That’s theirs. Huge deficit? That’s theirs. What more can one say? Why would any sane person vote for more of the same? And the slap at Republicans? So far we have been told that people who came to town halls to oppose Obamacare were evil mongers, Nazis, Astroturf and racists. Tea party members were teabaggers, right wing kooks and potential terrorists who were also racists and homophobes. Anyone who thought it inappropriate to put a mosque at ground zero was a xenophobic, Islamophobic, closed minded, racist degenerate. Anyone who opposed raising taxes in a recession was just a tool of the super rich. There’s more, but Americans know that they cannot listen to Obama and the Obamacrats tell us about the evils of their opponents. In fact, Obama uses vilification of his adversaries as his standard operating procedure.
It would be nice to have a president who actually transformed the debate in this country into a more civil discourse, one that could actually reach across party lines in a rational way to do what is best for the country. Obama promised that he would do that, but, of course, he ignored that promise and did exactly the opposite. There is more organized hatred coming out of the government than at any time I can recall since Nixon was in the White House.
It is important that the Democrats learn that hatred as a message will not work in America. The President and his people cannot attack the American people on a regular basis an expect to gain the support of those very same people who they are targeting. I think they actually believed some of those stories that said that Obama could sell anything to anyone. The sad truth is that the only one he has apparently sold anything to is himself and his cronies. Unfortunately, the country has been paying a high price for his delusion.

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