People are afraid to say what they think about Obama

Been puzzling over this for some time. 

How can someone who has done such a poor job as President still have such a high “likeability” rating? It’s still high in all the polls, while his job-approval rating continues to slide into the 30s.  Usually the two go hand in hand.  But not with Obama. 

It defies logic.

The economy stinks.  Unemployment is still very high.  Stockholder equity in GM was wiped out and given away to the unions, which hurt a lot of small investors and pension funds.  Health care premiums have skyrocketed.  He wants to raise taxes, and will through ObamaCare.  His own party controls the Senate, which hasn’t passed a budget in three years, and every budget he’s submitted has been defeated.  Food costs keep climbing.  Gas prices are high.  And the deficit is ballooning. 

Fully 63% or more of the public think the country’s going in the wrong direction.  That’s 63% of everybody --  including Republicans, Democrats, independents, Libertarians, whatever.   

Under any other circumstances, he’d be a pariah.  People would be calling for his head.  But he’s apparently still really “likeable.”  At least according to the public opinion polls. 

So why?

It’s because he’s black.  And people are afraid to criticize him for fear of being labeled a racist. 

There, I’ve said what we all have felt.  People cut Obama a break simply because of his race. 

In reality, if he were white, Hispanic or Asian and as arrogant, condescending and superficial as he actually is, and had the track record he’s built so far, he wouldn’t get that kind of break.  His popularity would be in the toilet. 

However, many people – particularly whites – don’t want to call him out and lower the boom because they don’t want to be racist, or appear to be.  So when they are asked in a poll about his likeability as a person, they put their thumb on the scale.   

When it’s about his job approval – how well he’s done in his job as President – and not about him personally, the thumb comes off the scale and the numbers plummet.    

So I suspect his likeability is actually much lower than reported. 

Certainly African Americans will continue to support him.  Even though they’ve borne the brunt of his economic failures, and his support of gay marriage is anathema to many, they’ll support him for the same reason they voted for him the first time – he’s black. 

But they don’t have the numbers alone to keep his likeability up in the 50% and higher range.  They’re only about 13% of the total population.  Registered Democrats are only about 27% of the overall registered voters, and a lot of Democrats are already in the African American count. 

So the numbers don’t make sense.   You can’t get to 50+% likeability on his base alone.  There have to be a lot of others who respond that they really like him but he really sucks at his job. 

A little side note here:  It’s fascinating that those so desperately trying to avoid being considered racist by cutting slack for someone because they’re black are actually racists, by definition.  They’ve made a decision about someone solely based on race. 

This isn’t what Dr. King envisioned.  Remember “a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character” …

You can’t change human nature, especially when we live in fear of being labeled racists – which is about the worst epithet most white people can imagine.  And usually the most unjustified. 

Ignoring someone’s shortcomings because they are black, or Asian, or Hispanic is the worst, and most insidious form of racism.  It implies that you feel compelled to compensate for their race alone, rather than judge them on their merits; that somehow they need an extra edge not necessary if all else were equal. 

So it’s time for everyone to take their thumb off the scale for Obama.  The media.  Politicians.  The general public alike. 

The fact that he’s black is irrelevant.  Nor does it give him extra points.  He’s a grown up.  He’s gone to the best schools.  He’s been elected President of the United States. 

Let’s just judge him for who he is and what he’s accomplished.  Not his skin color.    

This election there’s a real choice

Every four years politicians say the Presidential election is a “critical turning point for our country” and the “stakes have never been greater.”

For once, it’s true. 

Unlike some past elections, where the candidates were virtually indistinguishable from the other except for a handful of issues and their party affiliation, this time there’s a real difference. 

For now, forget the nuances, the personal attacks, the fabricated outrage, and pouncing on every gaffe made by either side.  That’s all theater.  The media loves it while the public has mostly tuned it all out.  For all the negative ads and the hundreds of millions spent so far to air these, the race remains exceptionally close.

The core issues separating Obama and Romney, while profound, are not sexy.  They are not easily understood in 10-second sound bites.  Plus, most of the media are already unabashedly in the tank for the Democrats so they are not about to go deep on something likely to trouble possible Obama voters.  We see puff interviews with Barry and Michelle instead.

Forget all that.  Let’s be really honest here.  By all objective metrics Obama’s been a failure. 

If he were a CEO hired to turn around a company, he’d be fired by now. 

He continues to blame others for his failures.  It’s George Bush’s fault.  It’s the Republican House’s fault.  It’s the fault of the rich.  It’s the fault of whatever and whomever.

He never sucks it up and says that maybe, just maybe, he’s at least partially to blame. 

Of course, he’s not solely to blame for all our woes.  But the economy is still in the crapper.  Unemployment remains above 8% nationally.  The true unemployment rate – including those looking for work, the underemployed, and those who’ve given up – is estimated to be as high as 15%.  Spending is out of control.  The deficit is soaring with virtually nothing to show for it.  We now own a big chunk of GM and Chrysler we’ll probably never break even on.  We’ve dropped billions on failed “green” initiatives.  And we have promised everything to everyone – including “free” healthcare – we have no way of paying for. 

The only folks really happy with the current administration are the media, unions, government employees, plus freeloaders who expect something for nothing.  And class warriors are positively thrilled there’s someone there who also thinks we should eat the rich.   

This is not a record to run on.  Nor is this a constituency to be proud of. 

So his campaign theme is “Forward.”  Presumably more of the same.  Or as it was reported, he’s asking for a second chance because he’s learned a lot in his first term. 

What’s his plan for the future?  Higher taxes on the rich.  More government growth.  Cutting defense to provide more money for social programs.  Expansion of entitlements.  Cutting over $700 billion from Medicare to help finance ObamaCare.  Reduced enforcement of immigration laws.  Investing more in green energy and reducing our reliance on fossil fuels.  Investing more in “infrastructure” to put American construction workers back to work.    

Clearly Obama wants to be loved.  By everyone. 

That’s a big problem.  Because he thinks the way to be loved is to buy that affection. 

Unfortunately we don’t have enough money – or enough people working and paying taxes – to afford to be so generous anymore.   

Romney doesn’t care about being loved.  He has a job to do – something he’s done many times in his career with great success – and being loved isn’t necessarily part of it.   

As a very successful businessman, he recognizes that the process of returning to basics, scaling back expectations, and reducing fat and waste can be painful, but at times essential for survival.   He’s playing a long game, where he hopes the ultimate results of his plans prove to be well worth the short-term pain.

Don’t be misled.  In the condition we’re in, there will inevitably be pain with either Obama or Romney. The only question is when do you deal with it and how much worse it will be the longer you delay. Obama is happy to let it ride until later. Maybe our problems will fix themselves.   

Romney wants to fix things now.  So the pain may be intense in short term, but lessen over time.  

His smaller government means fewer government workers through layoffs and attrition, maybe a consolidation of some agencies or the outright elimination of others, so fewer government services and more disgruntled government employees.  Expect a cap or possibly a freeze on government workers’ wages and benefits as well.  You can also expect a strike or two by public sector unions, and in return a move to decertify some of these.  Or if things escalate, to enact what Wisconsin did and make union dues voluntary.       

Cutting government spending means less money for pork projects and favored contractors, which will not endear him to Congress, K Street, or anybody else getting fat off government largesse.  It also means less Federal money to “invest” in R&D and grants to universities and think tanks.  Less for corporate welfare, too, because to balance the budget he’s going to have to slice into subsidies and special tax treatments a lot of big businesses and agribusinesses now enjoy and Congress protects.      

Reducing entitlements – probably through slowing benefit growth, tightening standards to qualify, and possibly by means-testing – will be very unpopular.  Raising the retirement age is one thing, but telling someone they have too much money to get Social Security or Medicare benefits, or that they don’t qualify for food stamps anymore, is quite another. 

Eliminating ObamaCare will affect the big drug companies, the AARP, hospitals, the AMA, the unions, the insurance industry and a host of others that sold their souls behind the scenes to get this passed.  There were a lot of hidden items and preferences tucked away in that bill that may go away; so years of planning and prep to reap the rewards will have to be revisited.     

Enforcing immigration laws will earn him enemies among immigrants as well as U.S companies that prosper on their low-cost – albeit illegal – labor.   The Catholic Church will excoriate him, the media will crucify him, and immigrant-rights groups will be in the streets nonstop.  Meanwhile, companies that now employ illegals will have to start paying realistic wages, so they’ll be pissed, too.     

Finally, approving more domestic drilling, the Keystone Pipeline, and pushing back on the EPA will give environmentalists apoplexy.  Especially when subsidies for solar, hybrids, electric cars and other green hobby horses are cut at the same time. 

Clearly, Romney’s not going to worry about being loved.  If he does all this, he’ll be lucky to survive one term in office. 

But maybe he is what we need.  Someone willing to put on the big-boy pants and tell us that we need to man-up and face reality: we’re out of money and we can’t keep going like this.  Things are going to have to change dramatically to get out of this mess.  And it’s going to hurt.   

This time there really is a choice. 

More hope and change.  Or a track record of proven business experience and success.

You can either pretend the pain will magically go away.  Or you can deal with the pain now before it worsens.   

Your call. 

Cutting defense spending means cutting jobs

There was a magic moment on defense spending when George H.W. Bush was President. 

He was in California being hammered by politicians there about when they were going to see the “peace dividend” from the end of the Cold War. They expected a lot more money to be available for social programs, since we didn’t need to spend so much on defense anymore.  

He responded, okay … which bases in California did they want him to shut down?

Not the answer they were expecting.  It was priceless to see their faces. 

Bush 41 nailed it.  If you want to cut defense spending you’re automatically going to cut jobs.

The only questions are where and how many. 

When you close U.S. bases, cut defense contracts, or eliminate defense-related work, the economic impact is huge.  Specialized high-paying, high-skill jobs disappear overnight.  Plants close.  A lot of smaller subcontractors belly up.  And a major source of tax revenues to the state and the local community evaporate.  As do corporate contributions to civic projects. 

That’s unfortunate, yet inevitable.  It’s always a nasty possibility of reliance on big defense department contracts.  When you sleep with the elephants, if they roll over you’re dead. 

The U.S. Army may decide the latest, greatest SuperWhamoGizmo is a piece of overpriced crap that at best functions only about 3% of the time.  It may then move to stop its production and deployment.  If the military is successful, the civilian contactors associated with it take a hit. 

Sometimes.  Sometimes not, if they have the right political connections.

Now everybody who has the good sense God gave a sweet potato knows there’s incredible waste and redundancy in a large part of our defense spending.   It’s what you’d expect when the numbers are so enormous, and so many politicians and lobbyists are involved. 

No one knows that better than Congress. 

Representatives and senators know full well that many of the defense projects they support and keep funding have very little impact on our military readiness or national security.  But they are important to their chances of getting re-elected in their home districts or states, and to continue to receive hefty campaign contributions from lobbyists for defense contractors.   

A good example is the current battle in Congress over the Abrams tanks.  The Pentagon doesn’t want any more of them, has a bunch mothballed already, and doesn’t see the need for these tanks – designed specifically to kill other tanks – when we’re not fighting against tanks anymore. 

Predictably, key members of Congress disagree, especially those from states where the Abrams tanks and components are manufactured.  They want to keep funding something the Pentagon doesn’t want or apparently need. 

As if a bunch of political hacks know more than the folks who run the most sophisticated and expensive military in the world every day … 

General Dynamics, the contractor building the Abrams, is greasing the palms of key allies in Congress to keep the funding flowing, and, not surprisingly, has built a solid bloc of support there.  So unless magic happens, it’s likely we’ll keep spending billions on tanks the military doesn’t want and doesn’t plan to use.  

Then there’s the move by the Obama Administration to require the military to use biofuels as part of its green initiatives, although they are claiming that it’s to reduce our dependence on foreign oil.  Yeah, sure. 

One problem:  the cost of biofuel for the military is running around $26 a gallon compared to conventional jet and marines fuels of about $4 a gallon, according to recent reports. 

Regardless of what a silly decision this appears to be, it’s attracted an almost perfect ménage à trois of political interest groups where the “green” folks are in bed with farm-state legislators who are in bed with the biofuels producers.  Consequently, despite the dismal economics, we’ll likely have the “greenest” military in the world at a highly inflated cost if this prevails, for purely political reasons. 

So on one hand, you have a push by many in Congress and the Obama Administration to cut military spending; on the other you have a never-ending effort to milk the military budget to  satisfy politicians and their constituents. 

You can’t have it both ways.  Cutting defense spending means cutting jobs, regardless of whether you’re cutting fat or muscle.  It’s a fact of life.  And if you put a lot of people out of work here as a result – not just those directly employed, but the thousands employed indirectly – you’re adding to domestic unemployment. 

Not to worry; most of the proposed cuts will never happen.  They almost never do.  It took years and a lot of political gamesmanship to close unneeded facilities and bases in the U.S. And as one base faced closure, another base expanded in most cases. 

In this election year there will be a lot of political theater about the need to cut, cut, cut, which will be offset by the clamor to spend, spend, spend on projects and bases in key Electoral College states and in the backyards of powerful Congressional members. 

If we were really serious about cutting defense spending, we’d let the military alone decide what it needs and what it doesn’t.  It would also be up to the military – not some politicians – to make the final decisions of where to cut if we needed to reduce their budget.

After all, they are the ones tasked with being ready to defend us when and if bad things happen in the world.  They are the ones on the line.  Literally.  

It just makes sense that they’d have a better handle on what’s required.  What’s nice but not necessary.  And what’s a complete waste of tax dollars.  They know the difference.    

You have to believe they’d make better, more rational decisions than people in Congress who treat the military budget as a personal piggy bank to reward friends and contributors.        

Obama for me

Just saw that on a bumper sticker yesterday afternoon.  That was all it said. 

Parse out what that sticker states for a second. 

Now doesn’t that just about sum it up? 

Romney’s pitch is “Believe in America.”  Obama’s followers promote “Obama for me.” 

That’s where the Obama supporters are coming from.  It’s all about “me.”  They exist in a world where “Me the people” replaces “We the people.”

There is no “we” in their world.  It’s all about “me.”  They are a society of one. 

What they want matters.  What they believe is real.  What you want and believe… not so much. 

They talk about “social issues” but vote exclusively for their own self-interest.  Even at the expense of others.  They see absolutely nothing amiss with that.  

In fact, they truly believe everyone should vote that way; base everything on what it means for you personally – others be damned.  So …

If you’re in a public sector union, only vote for someone who will maintain and expand your pay and benefits, even if that bankrupts your local or state government. 

If you’re in a private sector union, only vote for someone who will create rules that always favor you, even if that means driving your employer out of business. 

If you’re using birth control, only vote for someone who will make your employer provide that for free, even if it violates their religious convictions. 

If you’re not paying any Federal income tax, but get a lot of Federal benefits, only vote for someone who will keep it that way and expand those benefits by taxing someone else more heavily to pay for them.

If you don’t want to work, only vote for someone who tells you that’s okay and offers to subsidize your choice, even if you really could work … but just don’t feel like it. 

If you could afford your own healthcare but don’t want to pay for it, only vote for someone who promises to pay for all your health needs, even if means higher costs for everybody else, rationing when you get older, and probably fewer doctors in the end.  

If you don’t want to be responsible for putting food on the table for you and your kids, only vote for someone who’ll pick up the tab for that, too.   

Yep.  These are the “Obama for me” folks.  They think he’s the guy who can deliver whatever they want.  Free.  They aren’t worried about what it costs.  What the consequences are.  Who is paying for it.   All that’s irrelevant and beneath their interest level. 

All that economic, budget and deficit stuff is boring.  So’s the personal responsibility stuff.  And stepping up and pulling your own weight?  Who wants to listen to that?  Certainly not them.   

But when Obama talks about free this and free that, they perk right up.  He’s got their vote.

Remember when he was elected?  And that priceless clip of the woman who said that now she didn’t have to worry about putting gas in her car or paying her mortgage? 

That’s an “Obama for me” person.  She has a lot of friends who think the same.  

And now they have bumper stickers. 

You’ll see these proudly displayed on late-model cars.  Probably the ones they got with their free money from the “Cash for Clunkers” program.

Years ago someone said that we might end up as a nation divided into two camps:   Those who work for a living; and those who vote for a living.  

We're there.