President Liar, Year One 2008-2009

By Alan Caruba

After years of hearing liberals tell us that any criticism of President Obama is because he is Black, it seems to me they ought to admit that he got elected because he is Black. In the interest of accuracy, he is half-Black and half-White. I say this because the media has now begun calling the shooter of Trayvon Martin a “White-Hispanic.”

Beyond that, it was apparent to anyone watching and listening to Barack Obama that a moron was running for office; one willing to say anything for five minute’s advantage. He literally lied his way into the Oval Office.

One need only revisit Obama’s campaign and his first year in office to grasp how audacious his capacity for lying was and is.

In June 2008 he was boasting that he was “the only candidate who isn’t taking a dime from Washington lobbyists” at the same time his fundraising team included 38 members of law firms that had earned $138 million to lobby the federal government. He had 79 “bundlers”, five of them billionaires, who tapped their personal networks to raise at least $200,000 each.

On October 24, 2008, Charles Krauthammer wrote “First, I will have no truck with the phony case ginned up to rationalize voting for the most liberal and inexperienced presidential nominee in living memory.” Columnist Patrick J. Buchanan, on October 31, 2008, wrote “If Barack Obama is not a Socialist, he does the best imitation of one I’ve ever seen.” So, yes, we were warned and, yes, a majority of voters refused to acknowledge the obvious.

An editorial in the January 8, 2009 Daily Mail, a British daily, characterized Obama’s ascent to power as a “Victory for style over substance, hyperbole over history, rabble-raising over reality” adding that it was a victory for Hollywood, for “a man who is no friend of freedom”, “a victory for those who believe the state is better qualified to raise children than family” and presciently, “a victory for social democracy even after most of Europe has come to the painful conclusion that social democracy leads to mediocrity, failure, unemployment, inflation, higher taxes and economic stagnation.”

Following his election Obama was being either ignorant or deliberately lying when he told a November 2008 Governor’s Global Climate Summit in Los Angeles that “Few challenges facing America—and the world—are more urgent than combating climate change. The science is beyond dispute and the facts are clear. Sea levels are rising. Coastlines are shrinking. We’ve seen record drought, spreading famine and storms that are growing stronger with each passing hurricane season.”

Not one single word of this was true and, a year later in 2009, a cache of emails between so-called climate scientists revealed that global warming was a hoax based on phony computer models Moreover, a perfectly natural warming cycle had already ended in 1998!

Is there anyone who does not know that Obama’s stimulus plan turned out to be a massive and costly failure? The answer is yes and some of them will vote for Obama in November. Lenin called them "useful idiots."

By February 2009, Bradley R. Schiller, a professor of economics, writing in The Wall Street Journal wrote “President Barack Obama has turned fear-mongering into an art form. He has repeatedly raised the specter of another Great Depression. First he did so to win votes in the November election. He has done so again recently to sway congressional votes for his stimulus package. This fear-mongering may be good politics, but it is bad history and bad economics.”

As voters ready themselves to vote in November, it would be wise to revisit the way Obama hid his true past from them in 2008 and since. His college records were sealed, his Indonesian adoption records were sealed, his passport file was sealed and, of course, his official birth records were sealed. He has since provided a birth certificate that an investigation by Arizona Sheriff Joe Arpaio recently asserted was a complete forgery. His first executive order in office was to put these and other documents off limits to public examination.

As 2009 came to a close, virtually all of Obama’s initiatives were in shambles, not the least of which was his foreign policy and, in particular, his Middle East policy. He alienated Israel and the Arab League refused to provide any kind of peace gesture. Despite efforts to soften the public perception of Palestinians, they are still shelling Israel with rockets from Gaza.

By the time 2009 was history, Obama had given the Queen of England an iPod preloaded with 40 show tunes, bowed to the King of Saudi Arabia, praised Marxists Daniel Ortega and Hugo Chavez, announced he would meet the Iranians with no pre-conditions, announced the termination of the U.S. space program the day after the North Koreans tested an intercontinental ballistic missile, wanted to try CIA agents on charges of torturing terrorists, wanted a civil trial for the mastermind of 9/11, and wanted to shut down Guantanamo. He put a card-carrying Communist and admitted tax cheats part of his administration, and that’s just the short list!

In lieu of the likelihood that Obamacare, to which he devoted his first year in office, will be struck down by the Supreme Court, his open microphone gaff in which he urged the Russians to wait until he is reelected so he can give them more U.S. missile technology secrets and reduce our nuclear arsenal, and countless other deceptions, Wall Street Journal columnist, Peggy Noonan, described  his tete-a-tete with Russian President, Dmitry Medvedev as “creepy.”

“What is happening is that the president is coming across more and more as a trimmer, as an operator who’s not operating in good faith,” wrote Noonan.

As millions of Americans still struggle with unemployment, the rolls of Food Stamp recipients grow, the mortgage crisis continues, gas prices increase, and much of the world holds Obama in contempt, the lies just keep coming, the class and race warfare is being ramped up, and media chatteratti continue to talk up his chances of being reelected.

© Alan Caruba, 2012

Closing Ranks, Winning the Election

By Alan Caruba

I am surely not breaking any new ground by suggesting it is time for Rick Santorum and Newt Gingrich to end their primary campaigns and to urge that the Republican Party close ranks behind Mitt Romney.

This needs to be said by anyone and everyone who wants to see Obama defeated in November.

It would be an act of patriotism for both men, Santorum and Gingrich, to end their campaigns. I make no mention of Ron Paul because he was always a sideshow.

In this week’s column, Ann Coulter spells out why Santorum is hardly worthy of support.

“Meanwhile, when he was in Congress, Santorum wouldn't even vote to eliminate federal funding for the National Endowment for the Arts. Santorum supported all sorts of big-government spending plans -- No Child Left Behind, prescription drug coverage for seniors and the "bridge to nowhere."


But you'd think we would at least have Santorum's vote against federal funding for pornographers and deviants. Alas, no.


The NEA, you will recall, uses federal taxpayer money to subsidize crucifixes submerged in urine, photos of bullwhips up a man's derriere, poems celebrating the Central Park jogger's rapists, photos of amputated human genitalia, vomit, mutilated corpses and dead fetuses. (And that was just the children's wing of the museum!)


But Rick Santorum voted against cutting funding for the NEA every time a vote was taken both as a representative and a senator -- in 1991, 1992, 1993, 1994, 1997 and 1998. These weren't accidental votes. Each one was deemed a key conservative vote on which members of Congress would be graded by the American Conservative Union.”

I have long been on record in my support of Mitt Romney and my view that Newt is unqualified for as long a list of reasons as Coulter offers regarding Santorum.

Because they failed to receive the support of voters and secure funding, Michelle Bachman, Rick Perry, and Tim Pawlenty dropped out of the race what seems like an age ago.

Santorum continues and, in doing so, is saying things that make no sense even to those barely paying any attention to him at this point. He has never been in serious contention even in the few states where he has been credited with a win. The 2012 election will be won on the basis of economic, not social issues.

Newt’s percentages have been dismal, but Newt continues because he loves the spotlight and has a single deep-pockets financial backer that allows him to fly around recommending Moon colonies and other fanciful notions.

It is March 2012 and Republicans need to coalesce behind a single candidate, donate to him and the Party, volunteer, and do all the things necessary to defeat Obama. Otherwise, four years from now, if Obama is still President, he will be presiding over a nation whose exceptionalism, economy, and world power status will be a thing of the past.

© Alan Caruba, 2012

Why Obama Will Lose in November

By Alan Caruba

I received a campaign letter from Michelle Obama the other day. This is especially surprising because I am a registered Republican; hardly a likely prospect to contribute to her husband’s reelection efforts.

“Every day I learn about the challenges and the struggles—the doctor bills they can’t pay or the mortgage they can no longer afford,” said the text. The “fairness” theme, a socialist meme, was expressed. “American prospers when we are all in this together, when hard work pays off and responsibility is rewarded, when everyone—from Main Street to Wall Street—does their fair share and plays by the same rules.”

The fact is, however, America has not been prospering for the last four years during which Barack Obama has been President. And everyone knows it. The U.S. sovereign debt rating was downgraded for the first time while he occupied the Oval Office. Federal spending (25% of GDP) is the highest since World War Two. Federal debt (67% of GDP) is the highest since just after the end of World War Two, and the nation has experienced, not only the longest recession, but the highest unemployment since the 1930s.

In the first nineteen months of his time in office, Obama added more federal debt than was amassed by all U.S. Presidents from George Washington to Ronald Reagan.

I have two theories about the November 6 election. (1) That it will be an overwhelming defeat for Obama or (2) that it will be so close we could see a situation comparable to the Bush-Kerry election in 2004. Had Kerry won, the vice president would have been John Edwards who was carrying on an affair during that campaign and who currently faces jail for misuse of campaign funds.

Obama’s Achilles’ heel is, of course, Obamacare. As Robert Bluey of The Heritage Foundation notes, recent polls indicate that 53% of Americans favor repeal and more than half (57%) say that the Supreme Court should strike it down as unconstitutional. Fully 60% of physicians believe the law will have a negative impact on overall patient care.

The Congressional Budget Office revisited Obamacare this past week and concluded that 20 million Americans could lose their employer-sponsored health benefits and 49 million more Americans could become dependent on government-sponsored health care. Projecting through 2022, Obamacare could cost as much as $2.134 billion and the employer-mandate penalties could hit $221 billion.

There’s another reason why Michelle Obama was writing to me last week. As Karl Rove noted in a Wall Street Journal March 14 commentary, “Many of Mr. Obama’s 2008 donors are reluctant to give again” to his campaign. “As the Obama campaign itself reported, fewer than 7% of 2008 donors renewed their support in the first quarter of his re-election campaign, well below the typical renewal rate.

The Obama campaign and the Democratic National Committee are burning through current donations so fast that the White House has told this year’s congressional candidates that they will not receive any funding support for their campaigns because Obama needs all the money.

While Obama’s 2012 campaign is already showing signs of stress, other issues will impose great pressure. Unemployment affects most American families either directly or because some member of the family or a friend is unemployed. Even the unemployed vote!

The price of gasoline continues to rise and there is nothing the White House can do to reduce it. Releasing oil from the Strategic Petroleum Reserve that exists for use only in an emergency will not do it and Americans are well aware that this administration has opposed or thwarted every effort to drill for more oil on federal lands. The failures of “green energy” companies that have cost Americans billions in loan guarantees are well known. A President who hypes “algae” as an energy solution will be seen as a fool and/or a complete charlatan.

Recent polls indicate how close the 2012 election may be. Obama has lost ground among female voters. In a head-to-head match-up with Mitt Romney, women voters back Obama 49%, but that is seven points lower than 2008. A Rasmussen poll found that 59% of likely voters asked whether Obama is more liberal or more conservative than they are answered that he was more liberal. Of these likely voters, 65% who are also union members thought Obama was more liberal than themselves.

Polling firms have been asking Americans to self identify themselves as conservative or liberal for decades. In February 2012, Gallup polling revealed “that in every single state with the exception of Massachusetts” conservatives outnumbered liberals. The Battleground Poll conducted by George Washington University in collaboration with Democrat and Republican polling organizations found that 58% of Americans described themselves as “very conservative” or “somewhat conservative”, while only 37% described themselves as “very liberal” or “somewhat liberal.”

A conservative campaign message will win in 2012 and this explains why the Republican primaries are all about candidates striving to describe themselves as a “true conservative.”

Even the mainstream media show indications of less Obama support. When even The Washington Post rejects Obama’s lies about U.S. oil reserves, as it did on March 15th, it suggests there may be a growing, wider level of disenchantment with the man they embraced in 2008.

Obama will lose in November. It may be a very close election or it may be an overwhelming rejection, but the polling numbers and the state of the economy will be the deciding factors.

Memo to Michelle Obama: The “fairness” message is not working. The appalling failures—“stimulus” anyone?—of Obama’s first term will ensure that there will be no second term.

© Alan Caruba, 2012

The Primary Marathon

By Alan Caruba

I have a suspicion that most people have lost interest in the Republican primaries beyond getting a quick update of who won, who came in second, third, and the usual question of why Ron Paul is running at all.

The primaries are a marathon that requires the men who want to be president to endure physical and emotional challenges that would likely kill anyone who lacked the will power and stamina to travel from state to state, give the essentially same speech over and over again, and be interviewed from early morning to late evening, responding to the same questions ad infinitum.

Running a primary campaign is a major business enterprise and, at this point, the only man with experience in the world of business and finance appears to be winning the delegate count needed to challenge the President.

If you’re sick of hearing about the outcome of primary elections, here’s what lies ahead:

March 17 – Missouri
March 18 – Puerto Rico
March 20 – Illinois
March 24 – Louisiana

April 3 – Washington, D.C., Maryland, Wisconsin
April 24 – Connecticut, Delaware, New York, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island

May 8 – Indiana, North Carolina, West Virginia
May 15 – Nebraska, Oregon
May 22 – Arkansas, Kentucky
May 29 – Texas

June 5 – California, Montana, New Jersey, New Mexico, South Dakota
June 26 – Utah

And then! There’s the Republican National Convention August 27-30 in Tampa, Florida.

All this provides employment to everyone involved in the campaigns, everyone in the media who provides news coverage, and scores of vendors who will produce all the paraphernalia we associate with elections.

At the center of the vortex will be the candidates and surrounding them will be the endless questions of who’s ahead and who may drop out, et cetera, et cetera.

I do not know why we select our candidates in this fashion. I assume the process has evolved over the many years of the republic. No one seems to have come up with a better way of doing it, but in the end we are selecting a man to lead the nation (and the world) who will wield more power—for good or ill—than can be imagined.

It is a cliché to say that this will be the most important election of our lifetimes, but it is true.

If Barack Obama remains in office the financial destruction of the nation will be completed, the reduction of our military power will continue, the government takeover of critical elements of our economy will continue, and the America that lives in our hearts and imagination will cease to be.

There is no mystery to ending the recession we entered after the 2008 financial crisis; the longest since the Great Depression in the 1930s. Any economist will tell you how to do it. Anyone who runs a business, large or small, will tell you.

There is no mystery to reducing the flow of regulations that throttle innovation and expansion. Entire government departments and agencies need to be eliminated and Congress must be “encouraged” to stop passing massive bills it has not read! Show them the door!

There is no mystery to getting Barack Obama reelected. Republicans and independent voters just need to stay home.

The primary elections are a test of the resolve of American voters to get the real change they need and want.

It is a political IQ test.

They are the marathon we all must run if we are to reclaim and renew the America we love.

© Alan Caruba, 2012

Too Close to Call

By Alan Caruba

It often seems to me that Americans are as divided today as they were in the run-up to the Civil War. In those days the issues were states rights and slavery. These days, we are moving ever closer to the concept of nullification in which states refuse to enforce Obamacare and other federal mandates such as No Child Left Behind.

The most obvious example of the divide among voters are the elections in which a handful of votes decide the outcome. Try to imagine if Al Gore had won the 2000 election. We know now that he is the face of the greatest hoax of the modern era, global warming, but one shudders to think how he would have reacted to 9/11 or how many crippling “environmental” regulations and laws he would have imposed on the nation; not unlike the current President.

The collective memory of the voters when it comes to assessing the present primary election battles is slim indeed. Previous primaries were filled with as much rancor and strife among the candidates as the present ones; the trials by fire through which the remaining Republican candidates are passing.

Once again, the outcomes have been deemed “too close to call” by the pundit class and once again their conventional wisdom is a repeat of the past. If one listens closely to the hours of discussion among the various “experts” it is apparent that, with the exception of Fox News’ Karl Rove, they have little idea of the dynamics at work.

In a recent column, “Reagan Was A Sure Loser Too”, Wall Street Journal columnist William McGurn compares the present campaigns with those of the not distant past and how similar they have been. McGurn reveals how wrong past pundits were and, in the present quest for a paragon of conservatism, that even the iconic Ronald Reagan as Governor of California “pushed through the largest tax hike” in that state’s history, “had signed one of the nation’s most liberal abortion laws…and presided over the doubling of the state budget over his eight-year tenure…”

Republicans have been deeply divided in the past as have national voters. The close election results demonstrate that.

My fear is that emotions determine election outcomes, not facts.

The results of the Super Tuesday elections, however, show a clear trend toward a Romney nomination as GOP voters begin to focus on who among the remaining candidates can defeat Barack Obama in November.

We will hear that every election is too close to call. We will hear that the November elections are critical to the future of the nation. Both are true.

It is folly to assume that the incumbent President will be reelected.

It is folly to assume that GOP candidates who clearly fell behind in Tuesday’s elections will pull a rabbit out of a hat to surge ahead of Romney.

It is folly to believe there will be a huge delegate fight when Republicans gather in Tampa for their convention.

It is, however, national suicide to leave the future of the nation in the hands of a man who has equaled and exceeded the policy and judgment failures of Jimmy Carter. The novelty of a Black President has long since worn off.

It isn’t a beauty contest. It isn’t a talent contest. It is not “American Idol” or “Dancing With the Stars.”

It is about your future and that of your children and grandchildren.

It is about the economy.

It is about the dangerous world we share with other nations.

It is about our obligation to participate in the primary elections and in November’s.

Let's make sure no one has the chance to say it is too close to call.

© Alan Caruba, 2012

Religion and the 2012 Elections

By Alan Caruba

The one thing that Presidents from Washington through to modern times have held in common was the belief that religion was a central component of the life of the republic.

Calvin Coolidge, President from 1923 to 1929, said “Our government rests upon religion. It is from that source that we derive our reverence for truth and justice, for equality and liberality, and for the rights of mankind. Unless the people believe in these principles they cannot believe in our government. There are only two main theories of government in our world. One rests on righteousness and the other on force. One appeals to reason, and the other appeals to the sword. One is exemplified in the republic; the other is represented by despotism.”

Ronald Reagan echoed this view saying, “Freedom prospers when religion is vibrant and the rule of law under God is acknowledged.”

For Barack Obama, Sundays have often been devoted to playing golf. A self-declared Christian, there are widespread concerns that he was and is a Muslim, given his childhood as the adopted son of an Indonesian Muslim, his mother’s second husband. In the 2008 campaign, he managed to overcome the fact that his spiritual mentor, Rev. Jeremiah Wright, led a Chicago church with a doctrine of Black Liberation theology that was frequently highly critical of America.

When John F. Kennedy ran for office, the question was whether his being Catholic would play a role in whether he could be elected. He put that question to rest. Obama had to sever his ties with Rev. Wright in order to seek and win election.

As Mitt Romney closes in on the Republican nomination some liberals are already sniping at his Mormon faith. while Rick Santorum’s emphasis on the strictures of his faith has played an unknown factor in his fluctuating fortunes.

The Gallup organization began systematically tracking religion in 1948, asking Americans to name the major religion with which they personally identified. Back then, two percent (2%) of Americans volunteered “no religion” and another three percent (3%) had an otherwise unidentified religious identity. By the 1970s, the number of Americans with no formal religious identity began to increase, reaching eleven percent (11%) by 1990.

By 2010, sixteen percent (16%) said they had no religious identity or had an otherwise undesignated response. A Gallup analysis noted that “Lack of identification with a formal religious group does not necessarily mean religion is irrelevant in a broad sense in a person’s life. One can remain quite religious, or at least spiritual, while at the same time eschewing attachment to or identity with a formal religion or denomination.”

The Gallup polling demonstrates that eighty-four percent (84%) of Americans, a huge majority, do identify themselves as affiliated in some fashion, formal or not, with a faith of choice.

Drawing on two surveys, the General Social Survey and the National Congressional Study, Mark Chavez, a professor of sociology, religion, and divinity at Duke University, author of “American Religion: Contemporary Trends”, concluded that traditional belief and practice is relatively stable, but that confidence in religious institutions has declined more than confidence in secular ones.

In a March 3rd, Wall Street Journal commentary, Peggy Noonan wrote, “The other day in a seminar at a university, a student of political science asked a sort of complicated question that seemed to be about the predictability of human response to a given set of political stimuli. I answered that if you view people as souls, believe that we have souls within us, that they are us, then nothing political is fully predictable, because you never know what a soul will do, how a soul will respond, what truth it will apprehend and react to.”

The current firestorm over the Obamacare mandate that contravenes personal conscience, a pillar of all religions, has ignited a debate over the separation of church and state. The Constitution specifically forbids “the establishment” of a state religion and, by extenstion, forbids the federal government from coming between an individual’s spiritual beliefs and its demands.

Coolidge also said “We do not need more intellectual power; we need more moral power. We do not need more knowledge; we need more character. We do not need more government; we need more culture. We do not need more law; we need more religion. We do not need more of the things that are seen; we need more of the things that are unseen.”

Religion is hardwired into humans. From the Stone Age onward, we have created religions as a means to cope with an often dangerous and indifferent world, and to peer into what Shakespeare called “The undiscovered country from whose bourn no traveler returns.” Consciously or not, three years into President Obama’s term, millions of Americans are reexamining their religious beliefs and I suspect this will play an important role in the outcome of the 2012 elections.

Americans may have grown more secular in their general outlook, but there is still that inner voice, their relationship with the faith into which they were born or they embraced—their soul—and the historic distrust of big government that will shape the outcome of the election.

The Founding Fathers believed that only men of “virtue” could lead America and only citizens who practiced virtue in their lives could preserve and protect the republic. They were right.

© Alan Caruba, 2012

Grand Funk GOP

By Alan Caruba

“In negotiation, ‘yes’ is the worst word. It just betrays a fear of failure and a fear of losing this deal, and it primes you to please the other side, to rush ahead, to compromise early and often to come to a deal, any deal. ‘No’ is the best word. It’s what you want to be prepared to say and to hear. ‘No’ will liberate you and protect you.”

The above is the opening paragraph of the introduction to a book by my friend, Jim Camp, “No, The Only Negotiating System You Need for Work and Home” and, for the forthcoming election, Americans or at least a majority of the voters have to say “no” to four more years of Barack Obama.

Camp, the creator of the Camp Negotiation Institute, has more than twenty years of experience and these days is coaching people from America to Brazil, China to Italy, Argentina to England, France to Russia, Sweden to Iraq; all of whom are seeking to become certified negotiators using his system.

Camp emphasizes the role of emotion in negotiations and what I am witnessing these days is a totally dispirited and depressed Republican and conservative voter community when, in fact, it should be energized by the dreadful prospect of a reelected Obama.

Regarding the conduct of negotiation Camp says, “’No’ will liberate you and protect you.”

Part of it the Grand Funk GOP that is occurring is unquestionably tied to the lengthy primary process, the fluctuations between the rising and falling fortunes of the candidates, and the horse race coverage by the mainstream media.

Camp emphasizes that “’No’ requires a solid, ironclad mission and purpose.” Can there be a single purpose greater than ridding the nation of the worst President in its history?

And isn’t every election a negotiation between the candidate and the voter?

Last week’s results of the polling by the Rasmussen organization found the following:

# 60% say that the U.S. economy is in Recession.

# 52% favor candidates who would raise taxes on the rich.

#46% say it’s possible for any American to find a job.

#46% say America’s best days are in the past.

In short, Republicans and other voters are all over the place trying to figure out what is happening and what may happen in the future. They are bouncing back and forth between emotions that are either pessimistic or unrealistic.

“Before you make a decision,” says Camp, “your emotions rage all over the place. Then when you make a decision, you set about rationalizing it.” This is a perfect description of what I hear from people trying to make up their minds about who the Republican nominee should be to lead the party.

The fear in the hearts of too many Republicans is driving them to seek the perfect candidate, something that never was and never will be. All politicians seeking the nomination arrive with all manner of baggage from their years in office. Some are conservative and some are too conservative.

After what was arguably the best President of the modern era, Ronald Reagan, Republicans failed to support George H.W. Bush, allowing him to be defeated by Bill Clinton. In 1996, they supported a lackluster Bob Dole and Clinton won again. Then George W. Bush came along and Republicans had their man in the Oval Office for eight years.

By any rational standard, a completely unknown candidate should not have defeated John McCain, but Barack Obama offered not policies, but pure emotion based on “hope and change.” In the midst of a financial crisis, it worked.

The same fear that drove the 2008 campaign is now driving the 2012 campaign, but Obama has little to campaign upon. Rationally, we know he has mired the nation in debt that threatens an economic collapse.

We know his “stimulus” program and its promise of higher employment has been a total failure. We know that millions are still unemployed. Millions are on food stamps.

We know that Obamacare is now less popular than when it was passed against much vocal opposition; the first time that has ever happened to a piece of social legislation.

So why are Republicans in such disarray, in such a great funk over the process by which we pick nominees? EMOTION.

Republicans need to ask themselves who will say “no” to Obama and “no” to the nation-crushing changes he and his administration have imposed on us. Republicans, independents, and all conservatives have to get over their funk and get into the fight to save America.

© Alan Caruba, 2012

Election Year Reality and Insanity

By Alan Caruba

There is something about an election year that seems to bring out the worst in a lot of people. Having settled on a candidate, they defame the opponents and the motives of those that support them. This is greatly aided by the charges that fly backward and forward among the primary candidates themselves. It’s not pretty, but it is the way a democracy works.

A conspiracy theory I keep hearing and reading is that Obama will create “an emergency” and declare martial law, putting himself in complete charge. I keep telling people that the nation is filled with millions of people who have taken an oath to protect and preserve the Constitution and they run the gamut from everyone who ever served in the military to law enforcement personnel, to members of the Secret Service. The likelihood that all would stand aside and let Obama have his way is, to my mind, very small.

All this is testimony to the growing fears about Barack Hussein Obama and there is ample evidence for concern as he seems to have very little regard for the Constitution and a decidedly Leftist approach to politics and governance.

By contrast, I have seen so much factual information; hard cold data, to suggest Obama not only won’t get elected, but will likely suffer a historic defeat. To keep the insanity at bay, it would be a good idea to get familiar with some of it.

Over at Big Government.com, Wynton Hall authored “It’s the Math, Stupid! Devastating Facts About 2012."  With a great big hat tip to him, here they are:

1. Every day, the U.S. government takes in $6 billion and spends $10 billion. This means that every day the federal government spends $4 billion more dollars than it has.

2. The real unemployment rate is a jaw-dropping 11 percent.

3. Every fifth man you pass on your way to work is now out of work.

4. College graduates are now 34% less likely to find a job under Obama than they were under President George W. Bush.

5, Every seventh person you pass on the sidewalk now relies on food stamps.

6. The ravages of the Obama economy now mean that more Americans live under the federal poverty line than at any time in U.S. history since records have been kept.

7. Under President Barack Obama, every fifth child in America now lives in poverty.

No one gets reelected with that level of misery extent in the nation. The days of Franklin Delano Roosevelt are long gone. This is the age of Fox News and the Internet.

Karl Rove, whom George W. Bush called “the architect” for his political acumen, took note of Obama’s inclination to link himself to FDR and to Truman. “In many ways,” Rove wrote in December, “his situation is significantly different than that of his Democrat predecessors. For one thing, a year out from the 1948 election, Gallup measured Mr. Truman’s job approval rating at 54%, whereas Mr. Obama’s is 43%--substantially lower than any president who has won re-election.”

Let me repeat that. “Substantially lower than any president who has won re-election.”

Obama may run against a “do-nothing Congress” as Truman did, but today’s House of Representatives, controlled by Republicans, has been active enough to produce 29 bills intended to spur economic growth. Of those pieces of legislation, 21 remain stalled in the Democrat-controlled Senate

Indeed, voters may well wish that Obama had done a lot less. After comparing himself to Johnson, FDR and Lincoln in a “Sixty Minutes” interview, even a casual look at his stimulus package has falling flat with voters, 62% of whom, according to an Ipsos/Reuters November poll, believe that they did little more than create more debt. Obamacare is even less popular.

Blue-collar Americans took notice when Obama delayed the XL Keystone pipeline that would have generated 20,000 construction jobs and an estimated 118,000 spin-off jobs.

Kimberly A. Stossel who writes Potomac Watch for The Wall Street Journal, noted in November that, mostly due to the Environmental Protection Agency’s efforts, “the Obama administration has done more to kill working-class industries than any modern predecessor, adding that “Among the reasons the GOP regained control of the House in 2010 was the fact that “the white working class surged to give the GOP a record 63% of their vote.”

As Rove noted, “America is not a nation of amnesiacs.” And neither should you be. Keep the facts cited in mind.

Remain calm and come together behind whoever the GOP selects as its candidate.

No desertions.

No faint hearts.

No conspiracy theories.

No third parties.

Just the defeat of Barack Hussein Obama.

© Alan Caruba, 2012

How Not to Go Crazy in 2012

By Alan Caruba

Election years tend to create a level of frenzy concerning the selection of the nominees and the outcome. The media feed this in order to keep readers reading and viewers viewing. The history of American elections has always been one of vituperation between the parties, so there is nothing new about this. Indeed, since so much depends on it, the political free-for-all is a healthy exercise.

It can, however, make for a difficult environment in which to go about one’s life; the air filled with charge and counter-charge, polls going up and down, and a general sense that something is very wrong with the way the government functions.

On the bright side, a gridlocked Congress may bring a measure of relief to everyone. Writing about gridlock in January 2011, Marcus E. Ethridge, a professor of political science at the University of Wisconsin, noted that “By fostering gridlock, the U.S. Constitution increases the likelihood that policies will reflect broad, unorganized interests instead of the interests of narrow, organized groups.” In 2011, we saw what happens when advocates of “renewable energy”, wind and solar power, or electric cars, get priority over the needs of most Americans for reliable energy and transportation.

At the heart of the 2012 election will be the recognition that the economy is still not recovering, that government is seeking to extend and expand its control over our lives, and, even among former supporters of Barack Obama, that he has been a failure of historic proportions.

A Friday Rasmussen Reports said that “Voters right now give the edge to Republicans when asked which political party is likely to win the White House and control both the House of Representatives and the Senate in next November’s election”, adding that “a lot of voters are undecided.” Those voters may actually wait until entering the polls to cast their vote.

Another bad piece of news for President Obama is a new comparative analysis of current voter registration data in key electoral states of Nevada and North Carolina. According to the Center for Information and Research on Civic Learning and Engagement, there has been “a drastic drop from 2008 levels when a record-high proportion of young Americans turned out overwhelmingly to cast their votes to elect Barack Obama as President.” This is significant because more than two-thirds of young voters supported the Obama/Biden ticket in 2008.

The President had a low moment following the passage of Obamacare that transformed itself into the Tea Party movement and an even worse one in 2010 when it propelled a large number of Republicans into the House of Representatives, causing its control to change hands. He has had, in fact, only one truly high moment and that occurred when he announced the killing of Osama bin Laden in May 2011. At the time, he typically took complete credit. In a speech at Fort Bragg to returning troops from Iraq, the word “victory” was never spoken.

Americans are not unmindful that the downgrade of the rating of the nation’s sovereign debt, the first in the nation’s history, was announced on Obama’s watch. The rate of "official" unemployment has receded to 8.6% but most Americans are well aware that it is far closer to 11% or more. America continues to experience that longest period of long-term unemployment since the 1930s.

For these and a myriad of other reasons, there is little reason to conclude that President Obama has any chance whatever of being reelected. The widespread contempt for Congress is also a hopeful sign for change. These are reasons to remain calm amidst the din of electioneering in the months ahead.

There is, however, all manner of troubles brewing in the world. Europe will have to find a solution to what will happen if its southern tier of nations elects to default on their sovereign debt. Cracks in the European Union are evident. If it falls apart, it will be very messy, but Europe existed before the EU and would if it disbands.

The Middle East is in the midst of a huge struggle between its fanatical Muslim faction and a population unhappy enough with former dictators to have forced out several in 2011 with the prospect that Syria’s Bashar Assad will fall in 2012.

Iran remains the wild card and its nuclear dreams will likely end with a well-timed and well-executed attack by Israel. Israel saved the world from a nuclear Iraq in 1981 and a nuclear Syria in 2007. An attack on Iranian nuclear and military facilities could trigger an internal movement to overthrow the mullahs.

There are other wild cards in the Middle East. The Palestinians show no indication of giving up their dream of destroying Israel. That will not happen. Without Iranian support, both Hezbollah in Lebanon and Hamas in Gaza will be set adrift. Muslim atrocities in nations such as Nigeria where Christian churches were bombed on Christmas Day will contribute to a growing movement against Islamic terrorism. It will not happen overnight, but it will happen.

Even the Russians show signs of tiring of their post-Soviet ruling class led by Vladimir Putin.

America faces a long period of restructuring the socialist programs that began in the 1930s and reached their peak in the 1960s. Should the GOP gain control of Congress and Obama is defeated, real change will occur.

Two other factors signal better times ahead. They are the failure of the global warming hoax and the disdain the “Occupy” movement engendered.

In 2012 Americans will take steps to end the scandals and deprecations of the Obama administration.

We shall ignore the anticipated shouts of racism.

We shall see the Supreme Court disembowel Obamacare or set in motion its repeal by a GOP controlled Congress.

We will select a President and a Congress to put things right.

© Alan Caruba, 2012

Caruba's Crystal Ball: 2012 Election Predictions

By Alan Caruba

It is time my friends to take my crystal ball out of its velvet-lined box, dust it off, and prognosticate. I have gazed deeply into its refracted light regarding the November 2012 elections and the Republican candidates. Here is what it tells me.

Texas Governor Rick Perry will be an August entry into the field of candidates and just blow everyone else out of the race. He has a hell of a track record in the Lone Star state where he became the first governor since WWII to reduce spending using a line item veto to scrub $3 billion from the budget. He has done many other things that conservatives just love and independent voters, shell-shot from Obama’s crazed assault on America, will support. He has never lost an election!

Gov. Mitt Romney is Mr. Flippity-Floppity; a political disaster waiting to happen. His poll rankings are due mostly to name recognition. John McCain beat him out for the nomination last time around and these two RINOs should taking up quilting or some hobby other than politics.

Rep. Michelle Bachman is the Tea Party flavor of the month, but will generate little fervor beyond the patriot legions. My crystal ball says America is not ready for a woman president and that includes Sarah Palin who, in case no one has noticed, is not running. If that makes me sexist, then so be it.

Gov. Tim Pawlenty is toast after the Iowa primaries which will tilt heavily toward Ms. Bachman because she was born there and because Iowans love mavericks. Pawlenty is just too “nice” at a time when voters want a candidate who exudes a more aggressive persona.

Rep. Rick Santorum or as we say around here, “Rick Who?” has no traction at all. He will be gone by Iowa and New Hampshire.

Herman Cain has personality to spare, but after four years of Obama, many voters are going to be wary of voting another Black American into the Oval Office. (I would vote for Rep. Allen West in a heartbeat.) Meanwhile, Cain will be offered the job of Secretary of Commerce in the Perry administration.

Rep. Ron Paul will be remembered as the Harold Stassen of this generation of voters. The original Stassen ran for the GOP nomination for president eight (8) times between 1946 and 1992! A Libertarian, Paul has a few good ideas and a lot of bad ones. On television he comes across as everyone’s angry grandpa.

Newt Gingrich, former Speaker of the House, was deserted by virtually his entire campaign staff weeks ago. He needs to officially retire from the race and go back to doing commentary for Fox News. Even Mike Huckabee had the good sense to stay put there.

Lastly, there’s some guy called Jon Huntsman who nobody has ever heard of except the immediate members of his family. He was Obama’s ambassador to China. No need to say anything more about Jon.

For those who actually think Obama will be reelected, relax. He’s already political road kill even though he will get the Democrat nomination.

Obama’s lost his mojo. Lots of people have someone like him in their family and, as often as not, they’re a crack addict, a mental case. The aura of the office and all its trappings will do nothing for this moron. He will do worse than George McGovern did in 1972 against Richard Nixon or Walter Mondale in 1984 against a former California Governor named Ronald Reagan.

And, yes, there are a lot of GOP candidates. By contrast the Communist Democratic People’s Party has only one.

© Alan Caruba, 2011

Time to (Officially) Start Worrying About the Next Election

By Alan Caruba

It seems nuts even to a political junky like me, but I am already worrying about the November 2012 election now that Obama has made it official that he is running.

I think Obama can be easily defeated for all manner of reasons that include the way he has begun to lose his liberal Democrat base thanks to the Libyan non-war and the more general electorate thanks to Obamacare, the bailouts, a soaring national debt, unemployment, and gas prices.

What does bother me is what appears to be a fairly lackluster group of expected GOP candidates for the presidency currently gearing up to announce their candidacies. They are not generating a lot of enthusiasm at this point, but there is a lot of time for one of them to catch fire if they make a real case for themselves and against Obama.

Many people are understandably focused on present economic fears and November 2012 seems a long way off. There’s an unrealistic disappointment in the performance of the new batch of Republicans in Congress. Members supported by the Tea Party have barely been in office, but some are beginning to assert themselves.

Within the Republican leadership, there seems to be the view that they need only let Obama and the Democrats hang themselves as the national debt and deficit continues to skyrocket, along with inflation, rising gas prices, and a lingering high unemployment rate.

Republicans are understandably reluctant to be blamed for shutting down the government if they cannot get the White House and Democrats to agree to more realistic budget cuts. The Democrat strategy is to brand them as “extremists” in a shutdown. The mainstream media will reflect this. Some 25-30% of liberals will accept this, but that still leaves a majority of Americans who will not.

The fact remains, even with a Republican majority in the House, the majority Democratic Senate is a major roadblock to solving the financial problems of the nation and the White House can still wield a veto. However, keeping the government going with continuing resolutions based on cutting a few billion from a $14 trillion dollar debt is beginning to look lame.

It is, however, the presumptive Republican candidates that are my concern at this point and, it will surprise those who have read my criticisms of him, but I think Mitt Romney may emerge is the leader of the pack.

The surprise for many who hear him is that Mitt Romney is a dynamic throwback to Ronald Reagan, espousing the same values. When he addresses Republican audiences these days, he makes a lot of sense, particularly when he dissects Barack Obama and when he discusses the role of business in American life. He does so without Tele Prompters and with real passion. If America can elect a black President, they can elect a Mormon. I can remember when fears were expressed about JFK’s Catholicism.

Forget about Newt Gingrich. Too much baggage from his personal life and an opposition research file on him a foot thick means he is not a viable candidate against the likes of Obama.

Former Gov. Tim Pawlenty strikes me as a nice fellow who says the right things, but few know who he is and those that do can’t figure out why he wants to be President or should be. Too much of what he says comes out sounding bland. The same can be said of Gov. Mitch Daniels. Both are good men, but neither offers a compelling reason to pay them much attention.

Haley Barbour has a ton of political expertise and a good record as Mississippi Governor, but the problem is that he is from Mississippi. He’s “too southern” and, in a presidential campaign, his opposition would show up at every rally waving the Confederate flag and so would some of his supporters!

Then there are what I call the weird candidates, Sarah Palin, Mike Huckabee, and Donald Trump, none of whom have come out and said they are running for the nomination. Palin excites the far right because the woman is never boring. That, however, is not a criterion for running the country. Former Gov. Huckabee is making a ton of money with his popular Fox Channel and likely knows he’s better off there.

Donald Trump has been playing the media and getting tons of exposure by hinting he might run. He is a combination of real estate mogul, television star, and a celebrity who agreed to be roasted on the Comedy Channel. He’s smart enough to know that being president would be a demotion and cut in pay. He wouldn’t be able to tell Congress “You’re fired!”

Rep. Michele Bachmann, a Tea Party favorite, is a smarter version of Palin. Both Paul Ryan and Marco Rubio, serious minded Congressmen, are too young and too smart to get into the race at this time. Forget about Herman Cain, a pizza magnate; a good man for sure, but not now, probably not ever.

These candidates, individually and in aggregate, probably account for the reason why the name of New Jersey Governor Chris Christie keeps coming up despite his denial that he will run at this time. If the GOP convention were a Hollywood movie, one could see it turn to Christie after a deadlock and draft him to run, but it isn’t and that is not going to happen.

Ronald Reagan had been Governor of California for two terms. He gained political credits when he ran against then President Jerry Ford for the nomination and, after four years of Jimmy Carter, he looked very good. Even the Bush’s, father and son, had the political credentials to run and win, though we need to recall what a squeaker that first George W. election was when we came within a hair’s breath of having loony Al Gore in the Oval Office.

Whoever is chosen to carry the party’s banner had better be willing to tear into Obama and the Democrats because, if he bores us to death, Obama will destroy the nation in a second term.

© Alan Caruba, 2011

Caruba's Crystal Ball: The 2012 GOP Presidential Nominee

By Alan Caruba

If the Republican Party nominates a RINO (Republican in Name Only) like John McCain in 2012 it will lose and, assuming the Democratic Party clings to its suicide pact with Barack Hussein Obama, he will win.

It is doubtful that Obama will not be re-nominated for the 2012 race. As the Wall Street Journal’s Kimberley A. Strassel pointed out, “History doesn’t inspire optimism. Over the past 100 years, every time a president two years into his first term lost Congress, he went on to be re-elected: Truman in ’48, Eisenhower in ’56, Clinton in ’96.”

What we do know is that independent voters will decide whoever will be elected in 2012. There were no Tea Parties in those earlier elections and a lot depends on what the GOP does over the course of the next two years. While they control the House, they have limited options beyond a declared intention to repeal Obamacare, cut government spending, etc. Twenty-three very nervous Democrat Senators up for election in 2012 may prove cooperative. Obama will not.

So, let the speculation begin! Rasmussen Reports polled likely primary voters to find out who Republicans favored at this early point and released a November 4 announcement that three ex-governors, Mitt Romney of Massachusetts, Mike Huckabee of Arkansas, and Sarah Palin were in a dead heat.

My crystal ball says that none of these politicians will be on the ticket.

Romney is a RINO who brought an early version of Obamacare to Massachusetts when he was governor. Huckabee plays well on television and should stay there. Palin has a cult following, but is a political anomaly who could be defeated in a general election.

Many Republican women candidates did not fare well in the midterms. None of these early potential candidates should be considered serious contenders for the presidency at a time when many Republicans are looking for new faces, not failed earlier contenders.

Others to ignore in this category include Governors Bobby Jindal and Haley Barbour, as well as Tim Pawlenty. All are good governors, but none have the star power it takes to be president.

There are Republicans who are already making appearances in Iowa, New Hampshire, South Carolina, and other early primary states and, of these, Mike Pence, an Indiana Representative who won a recent presidential straw vote at a “values summit” in September looks like a viable contender. There’s some buzz for John Thune, a handsome Senator from South Dakota, but Thune has not geared up for the campaign and few voters know anything about him.

Marco Rubio, the newly elected Senator from Florida, is a bright young, articulate face of the new GOP, but he needs to get a full term under his belt before running. He needs his name on some piece of legislation that gains attention. He is, for sure, a rising star.

Newt Gingrich may want to be president, but he is likely to conclude that being the party’s “elder statesman” is the role in which he is most comfortable. I do not think he will run for the nomination. For all his virtues, Gingrich is no Ronald Reagan.

The 2010 midterm elections were unique in that they were all about rejecting Obama’s actions in his first two years and the growing suspicion that he is a few cards short of a full deck. He can be depended upon to pursue the same policies that led to his rejection.

It is worth noting the way even some Republicans in Congress who had been there a long time got swept from office and the way some people with no political resume were elected. A “wave” election, the midterms were also in many ways an anomaly or, as Wall Street would call it, a correction.

My crystal ball tells me that the Republican Party could likely embrace Governor Chris Christie of New Jersey.

A lot depends on whether Christie will campaign for the presidency and he seems determined to serve out his first time. In two years he will look even better having already demonstrated that his endorsement is golden and he is a great campaigner whom audiences love. One day after the midterm elections, the respected political pundit, Stuart Rothenberg, addressed a group of D.C. insiders His pick? Gov. Chris Christie.

Gov. Christie says he wants to stay in New Jersey to address its need to reduce its burden of debt and shake loose the civil service union’s grip, but few serious politicians can or would ignore their party’s call to run for the presidency. Gov. Christie has enormous personal appeal on many levels and just the right values for a large segment of independent voters who have demonstrated they want to “clean house” in D.C.

One mistake the Republican Party must not make is the expectation that it can “co-op” the Tea Party. The GOP needs to cooperate and be responsive to it. It’s not a third party. It is a movement.

While potential candidates begin to maneuver for a shot to be the Republican Party choice, I think the time for the familiar faces has passed and the demand for real change based on rediscovered conservative values favors a new face.

© Alan Caruba, 2010