Oldgringo wrote:Unless the Repubs come up with a viable candidate and a viable platform PDQ, Barack Obama will continue to be the POTUS after the November 2012 elections...and that's a fact, Jack. Am I the only one who sees this...
Bashing Obama on this forum ain't gonna' change nothing! It's up to the opposition party (GOP) to give the American voters a realistic and believable choice come election time. Otherwise, it'll be 2016 before there's another POTUS. Just out of curiosity, how old will you and your offspring be in 2016?
NO, you are not the only one who sees this. I was merely pointing out that the AP poll on which this "60%" figure is based is severely flawed.
But, Obama is NOT invulnerable. He can easily be hammered on immigration/border control. The "facts" he trotted out in his El Paso speech are not facts at all, as anybody who actually has to live along the border and deal with the issues knows. He may be entitled to his own opinions, but he isn't entitled to his own facts.
Obama can be hammered on his conduct of the war in Afghanistan. The MSM allows to go unmentioned that there have been approximately 1,500 American combat deaths there since the invasion in 2001. Of those deaths, approximately 1,000 have occurred
since 2009. He gets points for killing Bin Laden. He loses points for taking all the credit and for his mismanagement of the aftermath. At least half the country knows this.
He can, without a doubt, be hammered on the economy. Reagan famously asked during the campaign against Carter, "Are you better off today?" The answer was a resounding "NO!" Whoever runs against Obama ought to drive that point home relentlessly. It works.
The Tea Party movement is going to surprise the pants off of a lot of people this go 'round.
They got a republican elected governor of New Mexico last year, for cryin out loud! Given the disparity between democrats and republicans in New Mexico, that had to have been largely
democrat voters rejecting the last 8 years of Bill Richardson's policies.
The dilemma that the republican party faces is that, with few exceptions, they can't get anyone elected dog-catcher at this point in time
without Tea Party support. The problem is that with the war, the economy, and immigration at the forefront of voter concerns in this election cycle, pushing social conservatism is not going to fly, and it will serve as a distraction from those
winning issues. And I say this as a died in the wool, hard core, social conservative. So the horns of that dilemma upon which the party finds itself hung is in finding the candidate who can: A) successfully pound home those crucial points; and B) refuse to get dragged into a mud-pit over his/her personal social beliefs—in the face of an unsympathetic media which will pound that home anyway.
That is sad, as I personally believe that social conservatism, practiced as personal rectitude by people who are concerned with virtue, and not just fiscal conservatism alone, is what will actually save this country. But, there are enough voters who know no shame, who are personally infested with the demons of the sin of pride, who place more importance on what The Situation is going to say to Snookie than they do on the future survival of their nation, who are morally lazy and who don't believe in doing a
good job at anything simply for the sake of doing it well, that a socially conservative candidate who indirectly beats up on voters for their lack of personal integrity cannot win this election.
This is why I actually don't have a problem so much anymore with Newt Gingrich as a possible candidate. I don't think that most Americans
care about his divorce or about his mistresses. I do care personally, but I would rather see him in office than have to live through another 4 years of Obama.
I am a small business owner who started his company in May of 2008. For the first 6 months, my business ran like gangbusters. Then followed the longest, hardest two years of my life. Four more years of Obama's economic policies will kill my business off. I am willing to accept as president a candidate who may not meet with my personal ideals of moral rectitude, but who will provide strong leadership (a quality which Obama severely lacks) and fiscal sanity (which he also lacks) and guide the nation back toward the good path of reliance on our Constitution as our foundational principles, and not merely a set of suggestions.
