Wednesday, September 12, 2012

Countdown to Obama's Defeat

By Alan Caruba

“I don't consult polls to tell me what my principles are or what our policies should be.” -- Paul Ryan, Republican candidate for Vice President

I have a number of political pundits whom I admire, admittedly because they agree with my analysis of what’s happening. Those with whom I disagree keep telling me that Obama is doing just fine, he’s five points ahead here or there, he’s appealing to woman, Hispanics, blacks, et cetera.

No, Obama’s political base can be summed up rather easily. They are idiots.

The same kind of idiots that loudly booed the Democratic Party plank reinstating God and Jerusalem as Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Ramón Villaraigosa agonized through three votes until he decided “in the opinion of the chair” that the yeas were shouting just a tad louder than the nays. It would have more accurate if he had said “in the opinion of the chair, the Marxists have lost.”

Then there is the popular video going around in which DNC delegates were asked if it was a bad idea for corporations and other businesses to make a profit and most of them said—wait for it—yes. This is Obama’s base.

Over the years I have grown less confident of polls taken in the run-up to Election Day. This is especially true when they suggest that only a few points separate one candidate from another. A successful incumbent President should have a recognizable margin of approval and, if he doesn’t, that’s usually a sign he’s in trouble.

My mind keeps returning to the Carter-Reagan campaign and its outcome. Writing in Time Magazine on December 1, 1980, John F. Stacks reported:

“Reagan's landslide challenges the pulse-taker profession. For weeks before the presidential election, the gurus of public opinion polling were nearly unanimous in their findings. In survey after survey, they agreed that the coming choice between President Jimmy Carter and Challenger Ronald Reagan was "too close to call." A few points at most, they said, separated the two major contenders. But when the votes were counted, the former California Governor had defeated Carter by a margin of 51% to 41% in the popular vote—a rout for a U.S. presidential race.”

And now it’s someone’s turn say, “Yeah, but that was 1980 and Romney is no Reagan.” Suffice to say, there can only be one Reagan and, for that matter, only one Jimmy Carter. Does anyone find any correspondence between the 1979 Iranian Islamic revolution, along with a terrible economy, that finished off Carter’s chances for reelection and it is not the same Iranians making all kinds of threats against Israel to provoke their military response?

In 1979, Iranians took U.S. diplomats hostage in much the same way Egyptians in Cairo—on the twelfth anniversary of 9/11—scaled the walls of the U.S. embassy, tore down the U.S. flag, while in Benghazi, Libya they were killing our ambassador and his staff. The President’s response was a disgraceful, typically apologetic, lame statement in response. All this limp-wristed diplomatic talk does is invite more attacks.

Do not deceive yourself into thinking the Iranians are not following the U.S. campaigns and not doing their own calculations regarding whether the Israelis will attack their nuclear facilities before or after November 6. And, yes, the Israelis are making the same calculations that explain why they are demanding that the U.S. and the world draw some “red lines” that might deter Iranian nuclear aggression.

All Presidents are subject to events beyond their control. How they respond is the key to understanding whether they are leaders or merely politicians. Constantly apologizing to nations in which our embassies are under attack and our diplomats are killed is the very antithesis of leadership.

After 9/11, Bush43 bombed the hell out of the Taliban and al Qaeda in Afghanistan. There were no complaints at home. Should that have been sufficient? Probably yes. Afghanistan is a place where empires go to die. As for Iraq, well, bombs are still going off there as the Arabs conduct business as usual. The Arab Spring has been about swapping old despots for new ones dedicated to the Muslim Brotherhood and al Qaeda.

I tend to look for signs of the outcome of elections in places other than polls and one of them was reported in the September 10 edition of The Wall Street Journal. It turns out that the weekend’s box office for movies people plunked down money to see included “’2016: Obama’s America,’ the low-budget documentary critical of President Barack Obama, (that) remained in the top-10 highest-grossing films, earning $3.3 million on 2,017 screens. The $2.5 million film has now grossed $26.2 million since its opening.”

On Sunday, September 9th, New York Times columnist, Maureen Dowd, pretty much sacked Obama for blaming the people who elected him for his failure as President. Even Jon Stewart on the Comedy Channel took a shot right after Obama’s acceptance speech. The August 27th edition of Newsweek had a cover story, “Hit the Road, Barack. Why We Need a New President” by historian Niall Ferguson who eviscerated him with fact upon fact. Newsweek was among the most worshipful magazines in 2008 of candidate Obama.

And who has a huge campaign war chest and who has not? Hint: Republicans.

When noted liberals or liberal publications start looking for the exit door before the election, you have a pretty good indicator that even liberals have tired of Obama’s unfulfilled promises, not to mention the worst economy since the Great Depression.

© Alan Caruba, 2012

13 comments:

zossen said...

Great article Alan. I always agree with your analysis. I pray we are right in our assumption that we will soon be rid of the president that never should have been.

Bloviating Zeppelin said...

An excellent blog, sir.

I also have become bolstered in the last month, and I believe Mr Obama and his minions are in for a rather astounding result come November 6th.

I won't forecast a staggering win; I will, however, suggest that Mr Romney wakens to a win on Wednesday.

Mr Obama is completely DISINTERESTED and DISENGAGED at this point.

He seeks a second term because to lose is to lose personal face.

Might I add your blog to my The Usual Suspects blogroll?

BZ

Harry Dale Huffman said...

One would expect the rational rats (like Maureen Dowd) to abandon the ship before it actually sinks. But there are the crazy ones, who attack the passengers and crew, that define this cycle for me. The crazy ones include those followers of the President who are now actually attacking Romney for very rightly pinning the tail on the donkey (Obama), in the little matter of the terrorist strikes on our Libyan and Egyptian embassies. Romney can't do anything right, for the crazy ones -- and they include Charles Krauthammer, who thinks Romney erred in making "just a comment", rather than laying out a courtroom case against Obama's Middle East policy of appeasement. There is plenty of time and opportunities to do that, Mr. Krauthammer (interviews, and presidential debates), but you also have to shoot fast and straight in the final weeks before a presidential election, not overload the electorate with your "learned discourse" -- which would just get you the derisive label of "irresponsible pundit" or "demagogue" from your competitor(s) anyway. I'm sick of supposed Romney supporters damning him with faint praise: "He is entirely right, but he should have...(nag, nag, nag)". None of them can be President, but they want the attention. Idiots all. And that's just the idiot Conservatives, never mind the Insane Left, with whom the American people are actually at war, whether the people know it or not.

By the way, before the embassy attacks, Charles Anderson calculated convincingly that, despite the poll reports yesterday, Romney actually leads Obama by 3-5%, if you do the math properly. Check it out. After the attacks, if the country was sane, Romney should be cruising ahead (and if this is a replay of 1980, he really is, but the media won't know it until the votes actually hit the fan).

Alan Caruba said...

@Bloviating. I would be honored to be added to your blogroll. Let me know the URL of your blog.

Alan Caruba said...

All. I just write what I believe based on what I read and hear while absorbing news from a very wide range of sources. Thank you.

Alan Caruba said...

@Harry: We are in substantial agreement. Truth is, I am not easily influenced by what the "pundits" have to say because I like arriving at my own conclusions.

TexasFred said...

Alan, BZ is one hell of a blogger, I have been associated with him for several years, longer than I have known you actually... He is linked in MY sidebar, and he always will be...

Regarding Obama's fan base being IDIOTS, you stepped up to the plate, set and swung for the fences, and took it out of the park!

Alan Caruba said...

@TexasFred: Thank you, Sir. It was grand talking with you last evening.

TexasFred said...

Indeed, I enjoyed it, a;ways do! Unlimited long distance is going to spoil me!

Rachel Pohli said...

Thank you for this article, Alan. It lifted my spirits and gave me some hope...I'm still going to be cautiously optimistic, but your observations regarding other evidence to consider besides polls is encouraging indeed. I was especially blown away by the Newsweek cover...that in itself allows me to breathe easier!

Rachel Pohli said...

Shortly after I commented here, I also posted the photo of the Newsweek cover and the article by Niall Ferguson along with your post, Alan, on my Facebook friend. A friend who is a liberal immediately posted a rebuttal article by some other guy filled with criticism and scrutiny of Ferguson's article, saying his facts were all wrong (or misleading). I began doing a little bit of research on this and realized that his article has generated a ton of scorn and criticism, saying his work was "shoddy" and Newsweek didn't check the facts, etc. Of course, all the yellers are from the left, but I was looking for an article in support of Ferguson's article and sadly, could not find one. What do you think of this? I really wanted to post some supportive article in response to my friend's "there's more to the story" article, but so far, no luck. If you find something, please send it to me. Also, do you think this controversy could hurt the anti-Obama case? Thanks for your thoughts...

Alan Caruba said...

Ferguson is an award-winning historian with a number of bestselling books to his credit. Do you really think he doesn't know how to amass and check his facts? It is up to his accusers to prove otherwise, not up to you.

Rachel Pohli said...

Yes, supposedly he is, but he certainly has garnered a lot of criticism over this article (to be expected, given the overwhelming left bias of the media). The one in particular that I read by Matthew O'Brien (for The Atlantic) went through Ferguson's article fact by fact, refuting it. Since I'm far from an economist, I can hardly understand what either of them is talking about, so I can't possibly know who is right & correct and who isn't. When I researched Ferguson's article, I found numerous criticisms of it (mostly from Politico.com) but couldn't readily find any in support of his facts. Newsweek has claimed that they "rely on their authors to check facts" and that they don't verify what their authors write. (wow, that's hard to believe) Ferguson wrote a rebuttal article on his blog and was torn to shreds over that also because he supposedly "selectively edited" something the CBO stated. It's all ridiculous nitpicking, from what I can tell...but I was just hoping to find something resounding to post in response to my liberal friend who so rapidly located an article that seemed to completely discredit Ferguson's article. Anyway...moving on, I guess...it's just that with the election drawing nigh, I grow in trepidation at the thought of that horrible man being president for another four years.