Voter's Remorse Over Obama

By Alan Caruba

I don’t recall when I first wrote about Obama telling lies, but it surely must have been early in his first term, if not even earlier in the 2008 campaign. So much of the information about his life was subject to question that it raised my concern.

The way Obamacare was reamed through a Congress that hadn’t even read the bill put me on full alert. No Republican voted for it.

When you have spent your early years as a journalist as I did you tend to develop a healthy skepticism regarding politicians. There are some very good people who go into politics, but they are vastly outnumbered by those who see it as an easy way to line their pockets. They are the “Eddie Haskell’s” if you are old enough to remember the unctuous character from “Leave It To Beaver.”  Glad-handers, back-slappers, and generally smooth talkers.

I was not surprised to read a February 19 article in the Washington Examiner by Paul Paulard. “Poll: Only 79% of Obama voters would vote for him again” was the title and my first response was surprise that that many would still vote for him. Only???

In the poll 71%  of the Obama voters now inclined to vote for someone else if they had the chance said they ‘regret’ their vote to reelect the President. So a majority of those taking The Economist/YouGov.com poll would vote for him again, but nearly all regret having done so.

This is a definition of stupidity. I think Obama and his cohorts counted on this high level of indifference to the facts about his first term.

Among the sample of those who would vote for someone else if they could, 100% of the Hispanics said they would and 80% of the whites said they would. However 61% of the blacks said they would still vote for Obama. It strikes me that many in the African-American community are quick to speak out against any perceived prejudice, but when it comes to electing Obama, skin color was a major factor. I suspect that many are unaware of how Obama’s policies have left the black community with soaring numbers of unemployed, far in excess of other racial groups.

Among women 84% said they would vote for someone else, but just 61% men agreed. The most surprising element of the poll was that 55% of Democrats—yes Democrats—wished they had not pulled the lever for Obama and 71% of independents agreed.

All second term Presidents achieve lame duck status at some point when their power to influence the Congress to support their programs kicks in. Arguably, Obama achieved that in 2010 when voters returned power in the House of Representatives to Republicans. The Senate’s response—mostly Majority Leader Harry Reid’s—was to deny any but a few of the many bills generated in the House an opportunity to be debated and voted upon.

The gridlock that resulted and which Obama endlessly decries was created by the Democrats in the Senate.

Efforts by Republicans were rebuffed along with all manner of charges that they were anti-women and anti-immigrant, among other absurdities. When the Republicans tried to get the insane borrowing and spending under control by shutting down the federal government as a response to raising the credit limits, they were portrayed as political cavemen.

Obama is a President who has made it clear that he considers the Congress as an obstacle to his transformation of the nation from a capitalist to a socialist economy in which Big Government functions as the redistributor of taxpayer funding with an emphasis on programs that, like food stamps, added millions to that handout.

It took the launch of Obamacare to make it abundantly clear how incompetent the Obama administration was and is. The impact on the stagnant job market saw jobs disappear or be turned into part-time, lower-wage positions. People discovered they could not keep their family physician or specialist. Even access to nearby hospitals was denied for some.

We are now being told that being unable to find work is an opportunity to pursue one’s hobbies. Denigrating working for a living is so un-American it is mind-boggling.

The media coverage of Obama’s first term and now the first years of his second protected him against the failure to revive the economy after the 2008 financial crisis. The scandals from Fast and Furious to Benghazi were shunted aside so that the passage of time would diminish their impact. Those who reelected him were not paying attention! Or they just didn’t care.

One can only hope voters are paying attention now and, in the November 2014 midterm elections, they will elect Republican candidates who will have an opportunity—particularly in the Senate—to limit the damage that Obama continues to inflict on the economy and in the area of foreign affairs.

Based on the poll, it took Obama voters over five years, going on six, to conclude they had made a bad choice—but 79% would still vote for him!

That members of Congress, pundits, and others now routinely call Obama a liar is a good sign because he is. But he is also still President of the United States of America and I suspect he doesn’t care what people say about him anymore.

© Alan Caruba, 2014