Obama still doesn't get it

Obama still doesn't get it
Democrats ought to consider looking for someone else to run in 2012
Sunday, November 07, 2010
By Jack Kelly, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette

Democrats who didn't drown in the Republican wave had to be dismayed by the news conference President Barack Obama held Wednesday before jetting off to India.

Particularly unhappy, I suspect, are the 12 Democrats in the Senate from states that voted Republican Tuesday who are up for re-election in 2012.

In essence, what the president said (in many, many more words) is that he heard what the voters were saying, but would ignore it.

"The election was above all a referendum on the president's policies, but his big takeaway was not to relitigate his agenda," noted Peter Wehner, who was an aide to President George W. Bush.

"He still just cannot admit that his radical policies and their effects on the economy are the cause of his devastating political rebuke," wrote the historian Victor Davis Hanson.

How devastating was the rebuke? Republicans gained at least 61 seats in the House. (At this writing, 11 races were undecided.) In the Republican landslide of 1994, the GOP gained 52 seats. In the Republican landslide of 1946, the GOP gained 55 seats. There will be more Republicans in the House in January than at any time since 1947.

"Get used to Republican control of the House of Representatives. It's going to stay that way for a long time," Jonathan Chait advised readers of the liberal New Republic.

Most congressional districts lean Republican because Democrats are concentrated in cities and university towns. And Republicans did spectacularly well in races for governor and state legislative seats. These are the people who will redraw congressional district boundaries next year.

"Partisan gerrymandering can be an extremely powerful tool, and combined with the natural geographic gerrymander can give Republicans an overwhelming advantage, if not an absolute lock," Mr. Chait said.

The bad news for Republicans is that Sen. Harry Reid, D-Nev., is still the Senate majority leader. His victory, coupled with an upset in Colorado, likely held the Republican gain in the Senate to "only" six. (At this writing, the race in Washington state is still unsettled. So is the race in Alaska, but that's a contest between two Republicans.)

On the other hand, the good news for Republicans is that Harry Reid is still the Senate majority leader. Mr. Reid was not effective when Democrats had a filibuster-proof majority, and he is nearly as unpopular as outgoing House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, who may be ousted as Democratic leader after the drubbing her troops took Tuesday. It's good for Republicans to have at least one figure Americans love to hate leading the Democrats in Congress.

Leading the Senate is like herding cats. Sen. Reid would have difficulty even if he were more competent. He has a sharply diminished majority in a body where 60 votes are required to pass anything substantive. And Democrats running in 2012 figure to be skittish about casting votes like those which cost so many of their colleagues their seats this year. Sen. Reid's control is more nominal than real.

But that nominal control is important, in a bad way for Democrats. Harry Truman was able to counter the Republican landslide of 1946 with a landslide of his own in 1948 by running against a "do nothing" Congress. With Democrats in control of the Senate, this would be hard for Mr. Obama to do even if he possessed Truman's political skills, which he does not.

With Mr. Obama willing to make only cosmetic changes to his agenda, we're headed for two years of gridlock. The House will pass bills to repeal Obamacare and reduce the size of government. These will be killed in the Senate or vetoed by the president.

But a clear choice will be established for 2012, for which the midterms were merely the preliminary bout.

The new electoral map is daunting for Mr. Obama as he contemplates re-election. Ohio, Florida and Wisconsin turned red, Pennsylvania and Michigan pink. It's difficult for a Democrat to be elected without carrying Ohio or Florida, impossible without Pennsylvania, Michigan and Wisconsin.

Perhaps the most significant contributor to the Republican landslide Tuesday was the defection from the Democrats of working class whites. If Barack Obama is the Democratic nominee in 2012, there will be little reason for them to return.

I suspect many Democrats think they'd be better off with someone else.


Read more: http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/10311/1101022-373.stm#ixzz14i2vl3Rk

 

From http://www.economicnoise.com/2010/11/04/obama-has-failed-and-everyone-but-obama-knows-it/

Obama Has Failed and Everyone but Obama Knows It
Posted by Monty Pelerin at 7:23 am Nov 04 2010.

I received the following piece from a reader not named Schuman. It is a devastating description of President Obama, written a couple of weeks before the election, by a Mr. Donald R. Schuman.

I have never heard of Mr. Schuman before, but he appears to have captured his subject rather well. Unfortunately I was unable to find a link to an article or website, either by author or title.

Several days before the election, I wrote in Obama – Lazy, Disengaged and Ripe for Political Cannibalism:

The next two years will be hard on Obama. As much as he is hated by freedom-lovers in the country, it is likely that he will be hated more by his remaining Democrats. The Party is in tatters. It is in danger of disappearing as a political entity as a result of following this false prophet. This Pied Piper, instead of getting the American people to follow, led Democrat politicians to their political death. The survivors will not forget, nor will they continue to march to the tune of this false savior.

We are about to witness politics at its ugliest. It will be Republicans against Democrats of course. But that will be less intriguing than the Democrats against Obama. Political survival trumps loyalty. If Obama is as ineffectual as I believe he will be, he will be devoured by angry Democrats anxious to avenge the political deaths of their comrades.

The pathetic Presidential press conference today only supported Mr. Schuman’s portrait and suggests this man-child is so self-absorbed that he is unable to even comprehend the magnitude of his rejection. That is truly scary! In order to save themselves and their party, Democrats will have to destroy their own “messiah” unless he comes to grips with reality.


A Portrait of Arrogance
By Donald R. Schuman, Jr 10/18/10

It is a short trip from the penthouse to the outhouse. From Michael Vick and Eliot Spitzer to Tiger Woods and Mel Gibson, we are still amazed when people self-implode. Maybe because of our American spirit of optimism and can do attitude, we appreciate a success story. We sometimes become emotionally invested and more times than not, we bet long, when knowing human nature, we should sell short. We all love the ‘feel good’ movie with the Disney ending. Barack Obama was supposed to be the feel good political story of our lifetime. He was a young, smart, cool, black man. His hope and change promised to be the salve for a weary and needy nation. While he did not feel our pain, he inspired hope in many and promised change to all. Well, he was certainly half-right. Now his most ardent supporters have turned on him like a tiger tired of taking orders from a guy named Roy . The way the wheels have come off this ‘Big Wheel’, you would think he wandered on to the set of COPS and drove over a spike strip.

Like George Bush before him, he gave Robert Woodward white house access for his eventual book, ‘Obama’s Wars’. At first, I thought he was having an LBJ moment. When Johnson was asked why he kept J. Edgar Hoover in power he replied, ‘I would rather have him in the tent pissing out, than outside pissing in’. (Perhaps a precursor to a famous Godfather line?) Obama knew Woodward’s history. However, Obama felt and still feels supreme in his charm offensive. It never occurred to anyone in the administration, that he would not be viewed in a positive light. His maniacal ego makes it impossible for him to be wrong. Don’t believe me? As a senator, Obama gave the keynote speech at the 2004 Democratic convention. When he walked off the stage he said, ‘I am LeBron, I can play at this level’. When Arkansas Congressman Marion Berry complained that ObamaCare was HillaryCare reincarnate, Obama replied, ‘Yeah, but this time you have me’. He told Richard Wolfe for an upcoming book, ‘I actually believe my own bulls**t.

Once Woodward gave an account of an administration, and a president in particular, that was distant and indecisive; the journalistic gloves came off. The way the mainstream media took their cue from Woodward would embarrass real journalists. The pope of Washington ‘s investigative reporting would easily serve as their cover, protecting their precious access. The day the book hit the stands even MSNBC had some untoward remarks. Keith Olbermann, Rachel Maddow, and Howard Fineman spoke ill of the president for the first time. From what I understand, the three people who were watching, told another three people, and those people told another three’.well, you get the idea how this could spread like the jaws of life. Time Magazine now calls the president, ‘insular, incompetent, and clueless’ as if it were common knowledge. Pat Caddell, a Democratic operative for the last 40 years, said this about the administration: ‘These are naive idiots who’ve come out of academia and have never done anything real in their lives, and they are actually in power. These are the people we never let in the room when we had serious business to do. Now they’re running the country.’ That’s going to leave a mark!

Desperation has set in like epoxy. There are boogiemen and straw men to fight. After 21 months of blaming Bush, he is now picking fights that truly diminish the office. His constant harangue on people and businesses shows his utter lack of respect for the office we hold so dear. He blamed Minority Leader Boehner, by name, for his failed policies. He blamed Fox News by name. He then blamed Karl Rove, again, by name. He blamed the United States Chamber of Commerce because they accept foreign money. The man is crazed and confused. Imagine George Bush blaming CBS or James Carville? The foreign money that the chamber accepts is legal and is in the form of dues. It is about $100,000. The chamber’s advertising budget is north of 200 million dollars. Has Obama forgotten about ‘The Center for American Progress’, one of many such organizations funded by everybody’s favorite currency trader, Hungarian George Soros? The man who has visited the white house the most times is Andy Stern, former president of the Service Employees International Union, SEIU. I should probably mention that he stepped down from his position, now that he is under investigation by the FBI. Obama talks about the right trying to ‘steal democracy’. Given the chance, he will steal America. With unemployment in double digits, does he not know that this might not be the best time to pick a fight with the Chamber of Commerce? People might see that as dysfunctional government with Obama putting party ahead of country. The country’s economy is in the toilet and he is openly vilifying the Chamber of Commerce. I am glad the media is available to keep reminding me how smart he is.

Bill Clinton, with a Republican congress knew enough to move to the center and let the Republicans save his presidency. The Republican congress gave him the political cover to govern as a moderate. Obama may very well be in the exact same situation. However, for as brilliant as everyone says he is, he will be 100% clueless. As the quarterback, he knows only one play, ‘student body left’. He is convinced that if he keeps lecturing us, that sooner or later, sometime down the road, in a galaxy far, far away, even we will understand.

The country has a severe case of buyer’s remorse. Unfortunately, we cannot return the source of our remorse for two more years. Yes, I understand we have a receipt, but no refund will be forthcoming. This is not a test drive and we are way beyond kicking the tires. We are in the middle of a four-year lease and the best we can hope for is better mechanics to make the ride tolerable. As Jerry Seinfeld said to Kramer, ‘I don’t return fruit. To me, fruit is a gamble.’ Well, call it sour grapes if you like, but we will have to pucker up for two more years before we can return this lemon. Hopefully, we will use our collective melons, to cherry pick a top banana, who is as American as apple pie. How sublime."