Posts Tagged ‘obama’

Obama’s campaign continues to push the narrative that they can win Arizona in November.  As a result, I have accused them of smoking crack.

Last week a couple polls came out that showed Romney and Obama basically dead even in Arizona.  There were breathless stories about how Obama was expanding the map.

To test against those polls, my firm commissioned a poll.  But this poll would be a big sample (900) and would be of likely voters (since the other two polls were of registered voters).

Rather than Romney and Obama in a dead heat, it’s Romney by three lengths.

Romney leads Obama 52 percent to 43 percent among likely voters, and 54 percent to 42 percent among motivated voters.

• 55 percent of respondents have an unfavorable opinion of President Obama
• 55 percent disapprove of his job performance
• 56 percent disapprove of the health care law

Romney is also up by nine percent among independents – 49 percent to 40 percent – and by four percent among women – 49 percent to 45 percent. (You can see the entire poll and cross tabs here.)

So Obama and his team can talk about winning Arizona until they are blue in the face… but it ain’t happening.

The Obama campaign’s calculation to repeatedly spike the football on Osama’s death appears to be working against them.

There is a growing chorus of former SEALS grumbling about the President continuing to take personal credit for the kill.

And now a group called Veterans for a Strong America has released a new ad.  Powerful.

The Obama campaign released a web ad today featuring former President Bill Clinton talking about how impressive it was that Obama made the decision to give the green light to an operation that led to Osama Bin Laden’s death.

President Obama is the Commander in Chief and deserves our gratitude for his willingness to make that call.

However, Obama’s ad then questions whether Mitt Romney would have made that same call.  The argument is beyond absurd.  That’s like questioning whether Al Gore would have approved the operation to capture Saddam Hussein – of course he would have.

Here is the Romney campaign response:

“The killing of Osama bin Laden was a momentous day for all Americans and the world, and Governor Romney congratulated the military, our intelligence agencies, and the President. It’s now sad to see the Obama campaign seek to use an event that unified our country to once again divide us, in order to try to distract voters’ attention from the failures of his administration. With 23 million Americans struggling for work, our national debt soaring, and household budgets being squeezed like never before, Mitt Romney is focused on strengthening America at home and abroad.”

Aside from questioning whether Romney would have made the same call, The Weekly Standard makes a great point:

This latest ad contradicts President Obama’s own pledge after he took out bin Laden. “You know, we don’t trot out this stuff as trophies,” Obama told CBS soon after the terrorist mastermind had been taken out. He added: “Americans and people around the world are glad that he’s gone. But we don’t need to spike the football.”

Part of the problem for Obama is that he can’t help giving himself credit for things that don’t only rely on him.

For example, this is an analysis about the difference in the speeches given by President Bush announcing the capture of Saddam Hussein and President Obama announcing the killing of Osama bin Laden.

Here is a synopsis of Obama’s speech on Osama bin Laden:

“Tonight, I can report . . . And so shortly after taking office, I directed Leon Panetta . . . I was briefed on a possible lead to bin Laden . . . I met repeatedly with my national security team . . . I determined that we had enough intelligence to take action. . . . Today, at my direction . . . I’ve made clear . . . Over the years, I’ve repeatedly made clear . . . Tonight, I called President Zardari . . . and my team has also spoken. . .These efforts weigh on me every time I, as Commander-in-Chief . . . Finally, let me say to the families . .. I know that it has, at times, frayed. . . ..”

Compare that with the speech given by George W. Bush on December 14, 2003:

“Good afternoon. Yesterday, December the 13th, at around 8:30 p.m.
Baghdad time, United States military forces captured Saddam Hussein alive.

He was found near a farmhouse outside the city of Tikrit, in a swift raid conducted without casualties. And now the former dictator of Iraq will face the justice he denied to millions.
The capture of this man was crucial to the rise of a free Iraq…

And this afternoon, I have a message for the Iraqi people: You will not have to fear the rule of Saddam Hussein ever again.

All Iraqis who take the side of freedom have taken the winning side.

The goals of our coalition are the same as your goals — sovereignty for your country, dignity for your great culture, and for every Iraqi citizen, the opportunity for a better life…

The operation was carried out with skill and precision by a brave fighting force.
Our servicemen and women and our coalition allies have faced many dangers in the hunt for members of the fallen regime, and in their effort to bring hope and freedom to the Iraqi people.

Their work continues, and so do the risks.

Today, on behalf of the nation, I thank the members of our Armed Forces and I congratulate ‘em.
I also have a message for all Americans: The capture of Saddam Hussein does not mean the end of violence in Iraq.

We still face terrorists who would rather go on killing the innocent than accept the rise of liberty in the heart of the Middle East…

Two different approaches.  It will be interesting if Obama’s approach works as the political message he has made it.

There is a great irony to the scandal surrounding the General Services Administration and their Vegas soiree in which nearly a million dollars of taxpayer money was spent for an alcohol-fueled party weekend that included clowns and mind-readers.

In February 2009, Obama said this about bank executives:

“We’re going to do something to strengthen the banking system,” Obama said. “Your are not going to be able to give out these big bonuses until you pay taxpayers back. You can’t get corporate jets. You can’t go take a trip to Las Vegas or go down to the Super Bowl on the taxpayers’ dime. There’s got to be some accountability and some responsibility.” 

So Obama tells bank executives shouldn’t go to Vegas, but his own agency – whose stated mission is to “foster an effective… and transparent government for the American people” – can go blow nearly $1 million?

American Future Fund has a web ad putting a fine point on this issue.

If there was any doubt that there is a war on women, Democrat advisor Hilary Rosen proved it continues to rage: liberals loathe women who stay at home to raise their children.  Just read what Rosen had to say about Mitt Romney’s wife, Ann:

“Guess what, his wife has actually never worked a day in her life,” said Rosen, who was being interviewed by CNN’s Anderson Cooper about the “war on women.”

Not only did Ann debut on twitter with a response (“I made a choice to stay home and raise five boys. Believe me, it was hard work.”) but even the Obama campaign realized it needed to distance itself from this misogyny:

“I could not disagree with Hilary Rosen any more strongly. Her comments were wrong and family should be off limits. She should apologize,” Obama campaign manager Jim Messina said in a tweet.

Top Obama campaign strategist David Axelrod also tweeted his disapproval: “Also Disappointed in Hilary Rosen’s comments about Ann Romney. They were inappropriate and offensive.”

I suspect that Messina and Axelrod only disagreed because Rosen made these comments in public.

Rick Santorum had a heck of a run.  He has done the right thing, for the right reasons, by stepping aside and allowing Republicans to focus on the most important goal in 2012 – saving the country from a “more flexible” second term Obama.

Yes, I’ve been harping on how this race was over for more than two months, and I’ve expressed frustration with Santorum on occasion, but at the end of the day he has made Mitt Romney a better candidate and better prepared to face Obama in November.

While maybe that isn’t enough to provide Santorum with sainthood, he has been an important part of the debate.

Can’t say the same for Newt Gingrich.

These remarks by commentator Charles Krauthammer are too good to not share. He said this:

“Here’s the president talking about respect for the law and implying there’s partisanship if the law is overturned. We all were witnesses to the oral hearings in which Obama’s case for the constitutionality of the law was utterly demolished to the point where one liberal observer called it a ‘train wreck.

“It’s perfectly natural for a majority of the Court to side with the side that actually won the argument intellectually. That’s not partisanship, that’s logic. What is partisanship is when the four liberal justices are in such lockstep with the administration that they end up supporting the case that’s been utterly destroyed in an open argument and be humiliated.

“Second, the president talks about the deal as unprecedented. What’ he talking about? Since 1803, our system has been one in which the Supreme Court in the end, judges, whether the law is constitutional or not. And in this case, he talked about the law passing by majority. He had a strong majority, with 75 Democrats outnumbering Republicans in the House. Obamacare passed by seven votes. It was a very narrow majority. It wasn’t a broad of a majority that he implied.

“On every count he doesn’t have an argument. This is liberals in shock over watching their side being demolished in oral argument and trying to bully the Supreme Court into ending up on their side in a case which they clearly lost intellectually and logically.”

Candidate Obama campaigned as Mr. Everyman – the down-to-earth affable guy who could relate to real people.

President Obama is an arrogant elitist who believes – really believes – that he is a force of nature to which everyone must respond.  Take his remarks regarding the Supreme Court’s oral arguments of the health care law.

“I’m confident that the Supreme Court will not take what would be an unprecedented, extraordinary step of overturning a law that was passed by a strong majority of a democratically elected Congress.”

Seriously?  This from a man who was a constitutional law professor?  There have been hundreds, if not thousands, of laws passed by Congress and state legislatures that have been overturned by the Supreme Court and even lower courts.  This is a doctrine of legislative review established more than 200 years ago in a case called Marbury v. Madison.

Obama’s assertion that the law “was passed by a strong majority” is revisionist history.  It ultimately passed the U.S. House on a 219-212 vote – in which all Republicans and 39 Democrats voted no.

Let’s review how it got to that point, because it’s a story that belies this notion that it was “passed by a strong majority of a democratically elected Congress.”

The first real floor action on health care reform happened in November of 2009 when the Democrats in the House passed their version that included a “public option” which was essentially a full government takeover of health care.  That vote was 220-215 with one Republican (Joseph Cao of New Orleans, who won the seat of Democrat William Jefferson after Jefferson was caught stuffing his freezer with cash from bribes) voting yes and 39 Democrats voting no.

Because at least eight Senate Democrats were on record opposing a public option, the Senate drafted it’s own bill and used the Christmas holiday as the leverage point to get it passed.

It passed the Senate with the 60 votes (the minimum required to end debate on legislation) on Christmas Eve 2009 after some rather outrageous giveaways were promised to Sen. Ben Nelson of Nebraska – “Cornhusker Kickback” – and Sen. Mary Landrieu of Louisiana.

Then a funny thing happened on the way to the Capitol – so to speak.  Outrage at how the Senate had managed the passage of the health care bill manifested itself in the special election in Massachusetts to fill the Senate seat left vacant as a result of the death of Sen. Ted Kennedy. In what must be one of the most shocking political upsets of all time, Republican Scott Brown defeated Democrat Martha Coakley, thus becoming “41” – that is, the 41^st Republican in the Senate, and breaking the 60-vote supermajority of the Democrats.

At that point, passage of Obama’s health care bill looked doomed.  But then-Speaker Nancy Pelosi decided that they would force the House to vote on the Senate-passed bill by a legislative trick called “reconciliation.”

I won’t bore you with the reconciliation process, but suffice it to say, the House took what was essentially a draft bill (remember, the Senate pushed through their bill on Christmas Eve with deals being cut hours before, and what officially passed the Senate was language that included handwritten edits, notations and references) and passed it into law, because under reconciliation no language could be changed.

This is why Nancy Pelosi was being honest when she said, “We have to pass the bill so that we can find out what is in it.”  The Senate version (which was never intended to become the final law) left huge swaths of decisions to the Secretary of Health and Human Services because they hadn’t come to agreement on most of the implementation points.

Most damaging in the long run to Obama’s law was that the Senate version did not include a “severability clause” which is routine in bigger pieces of legislation.  Severability is normally included so that if some portion of a bill is found to be unconstitutional, it doesn’t take the entire bill down.

The severability issue brings us back to Obama’s claim that it would be unprecedented for the Supreme Court to overturn a law.  If it had never been done, why would Congress ever put a severability clause into legislation?

I am astounded at the blatant disregard for the truth that the President of the United States employs.  Does he really think that “warning” the Supreme Court is smart, let alone appropriate?  For him to equate overturning this horrific law to “judicial activism” is to turn the world upside down.  Striking down a law because it violates the constitution is not legislating from the bench.

Obviously, Obama is very worried about what might happen to his signature accomplishment.  But his outrage is misguided and he isn’t handling this in a very Presidential way.

Mitt Romney’s huge victory in the Illinois primary has effectively ended the GOP nomination process. Regardless of what Rick Santorum and Newt Gingrich say, there is no path to the nomination remaining for them.

I have been predicting since January 22nd that Romney has secured the nomination. Back then I wrote that April 24th was his true firewall – and tonight proved that wrong. March 20th will go down in the history books as the moment that Romney secured the nomination.

Now let’s get to the business of a head-to-head between Romney and Obama.

It appears that the hypocrisy of the left is starting to catch up with them.  David Axelrod – President Obama’s political guru – was scheduled to appear on Bill Maher’s show and has abruptly canceled.

I’m guessing it has something to do with the exposure of Maher’s outrageous and misogynist outbursts, particularly those captured in web videos like this one on RejectMaher.com.