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Townhall...
The New Desperation
of Team Obama
By Lurita Doan
6/27/2011
Team Obama is looking more desperate these days. The signs of
desperation are clearly visible—Obama playing to a half-packed house in
Miami, Obama using increasingly shrill arguments that his job creation
efforts are working, Geithner’s threats regarding the debt ceiling and
the Democrat-influenced mainstream media’s increasing criticisms of the
Republican slate of presidential primary candidates. If Obama’s
policies are so successful and if the country is doing so well, why do
Americans see this growing desperation in Team Obama?
Team Obama’s desperation seems to stem from a fear of the unknown—how
will it be possible for them to win congressional seats and keep the
Presidency in 2012 when many Americans are seeing through the Obama
Administration’s promises and the illusions of “hope and change”.
The five hundred promises made by Obama during his first presidential
campaign have not been implemented. The economic philosophies of
Democrat-led states, that high taxes and increased government spending
will create prosperity, have proven to be a failure. Just look at
states such as California, Michigan and Illinois. And, the
state that most clearly implemented a Republican, capitalist, free
market approach to governing, Texas, is thriving and growing.
Yet, even this failure of ideology is not what is creating the growing
desperation among Democrats. These ideological failures are just
emblematic of much larger issues, and the root cause of Team Obama’s
growing desperation.
It may well be that Democrats are growing more desperate because they
no longer have ACORN to ensure success at the polls in November 2012.
Think about it. In recent elections, Democrat party success has
depended, in a large part, upon an uninformed electorate and an
entitlement-heavy electorate showing up at the polls to vote.
Any, but the most die-hard sycophants now realize that Obama’s
ideological policies have been failures, so Democrats need to ensure
that the message of failure doesn’t reach voters and that more and more
of those beholden to the entitlement-rich policies of Obama show up to
vote.
In the past, ACORN seems to have performed a valuable function for the
Democrat party. They helped to swell the ranks with anyone
willing to vote for Democrat candidates. ACORN was hugely
successful too and was able to register millions of new voters, some
living, some not. Moreover, when even ACORN ran short of new
voters to register, it seems they made up fictitious names (the
starting line-up for the Dallas Cowboys for example) to further pad the
voting rolls for loyal Democrat votes.
But that jig is up and the question now is where will Democrats go to
recruit, or invent, a new crop voters?
Clearly, modern economic demographics give Democrats a huge
edge. A 2009 and 2010 “Index of Dependence Government”
survey of voters that voted in the last presidential election shows
that almost 50% were dependent upon the federal, state or local
government. In addition, studies have now show that almost 50% of
Americans do not pay taxes, so they have no incentive to vote to lower
taxes and every incentive to vote for candidates promising increased
entitlements. Not too surprisingly, these folks make up the core
of support for Obama. The obvious problem here is the folks
actually paying for the government are now outnumbered by the folks
that do not.
Democrats have thus learned that the trick to eternal electoral success
in congress is to keep promising more entitlements and expansion of
government services, safe in the knowledge that fewer and fewer of
their supporters will ever be required to pay the added taxes that an
expanding welfare state requires. And that is why ACORN served
Democrats so faithfully by expanding the rolls even more to include
more and more “voters” that are dependent upon the continued expansion
of government.
With ACORN exposed, Democrats and Team Obama are going to have a more
difficult time cobbling together an electoral mass. It is obvious
to nearly everyone (save the ACORN Voters) that Obama’s economic
policies are making the nation less competitive, more indebted, and
less prosperous.
But the stakes are high so expect Democrats to find innovative ways to
push as many ill-informed and dodgy voters to the polls as possible,
even without ACORN. After all, federal, state and local
government are big business—accounting for almost $7 trillion dollars
spent annually. With a GDP just a bit over $14 Trillion, it is
clear that the government controls or indirectly influences almost 50%
of the nation’s economy, either directly, through its spending or its
regulatory overreach.
ACORN was an easy vehicle to which Democrats could funnel funds that
could be distributed as get-out-the-vote money and other incentives to
advance the Democrat agenda. Now that ACORN is gone, the void is
vast, the stakes are high, and Democrats have no guarantee that they
can induce an uninformed electorate to vote in November 2012.
What Democrats have fallen back on is paltry in comparison—the three
Ds—decry, demagogue and divert.
First, Democrats decry—using the blame game (blaming George Bush for
all ills) despite Obama’s 29 months in office. Second, Democrats
resort to demagoguery—portraying honest efforts at reining in
out-of-control spending, such as Paul Ryan’s budget cutting proposal,
as insensitive and un-American. Third, Democrats divert attention
from their failed policies by fear-mongering among an uninformed
electorate—whether the end of the world unless “green policies and
jobs” are implemented or whether it’s the end of the nation unless the
debt ceiling is raised and entitlement spending is increased, or
whether it is scaring elderly citizens about Medicare/Medicaid
entitlements.
Decrying GOP efforts, demagoguing GOP efforts and diverting attention
via fear-mongering is designed to divert attention away from the
failure of the Obama Administration to grow the economy, their failure
to create the jobs promised and the Administration’s failure to bring
the hope and change promised.
FDR said we have nothing to fear but fear itself, which is why
Republicans need to be very careful about what Democrat-led desperation
will resort to next.
Read it at Townhall
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