One Order of Optimism Please; Hold the Hemlock
It is right, and imminently fair, that we explore the comparative weaknesses of our presidential candidates. The arguments have been repeatedly raised here and everywhere with the possible exception of Paula Dean's cooking show. Many of us have become passionate advocates for one candidate over the others, spurring interesting and lively debates on an almost daily basis. Occasionally some of us become despondent over the current selection and lament that all may be lost, and that becomes the contrarian point of view.
Well, how's this for contrarian: I'm beginning to think that just about any of our guys can beat Obama. A USA poll shows that among swing state voters, Santorum leads Obama 50% to 45%. Nationwide, Santorum leads Obama 49% to 46%. Mitt Romney leads Obama 48% to 46% percent among swing state voters, and is tied with him at 47% each nationwide. Particularly noteworthy is Obama's poor showing despite the fact that he has no primary challengers to drag his numbers down.
And while I don't have polls on Gingrich's standing at my fingertips, his ideas seem to be picking up steam. Former economist for President Reagan, Peter Ferrara has looked at Gingrich's proposals, which include an optional 15% flat tax, elimination of the death tax and capital gains tax, the enactment of many of Paul Ryan's entitlement reform ideas, and announced that, "There's no doubt that Newt is the real supply-sider in this race," adding that, "…now that we have evidence the numbers actually add up."
Meanwhile, Obamacare remains unpopular with a plurality of the American people. As the President tries simultaneously to blame others for rising fuel costs, he has a difficult time running away from his own record of encouraging higher energy costs both in word in deed. In addition to a reset button on foreign policy that is setting the world on fire, he now bullies the Church, and seizes power to himself in an authoritarian fashion, breaching one Constitutional firewall after another. This guy is very beatable, and I suspect that whether our nominee is Romeny, Santorum, or Gingrich, they can best him in the general election.
So to take a different approach and look at our candidates' respective strengths, I wonder how they might exploit Obamas manifold weaknesses?
Mitt Romney has executive experience that serves to highlight the abject failure of a President who lets everyone else do the heavy lifting of policy development while he spirits from one golf course and vacation spot to the next. Romney not only has an understanding of what it takes to turn a sinking economy around, but the temperament and discipline to do it. He has so exhaustively promised to repeal Obamacare that it would be suicidal to demur. His approach to illegal immigration is sound, and he would reverse the gutting of our national defense that is projected under Obama.
Rick Santorum, like the others, has promised a robust reversal of Obama's economic policies. He would certainly put a stop to federal bullying of religious institutions. He can speak to the societal rot that a culture of relativism and collectivism has brought to the country with a conviction that anyone who sat the pews of Jeremiah Wright for 20 years could never match or refute. As with the others, he has promised to drive a stake through the heart of Obamacare, and restore our nation's defense.
Newt Gingrich, ever a fount of ideas combined with an ability to articulate them concisely and convincingly, would routinely upend the premises of the left and expose the decay and despair they conceal. Even if Obama were to cower from debating him, he would take the debate to him through the press who can be relied on to make Obama's arguments for him.
Against each of these candidates, Obama's only option is to go ugly since he can't run on his record of high energy costs, high unemployment, high taxes, high debt, ballooning government, and a Constitutional crisis. He will have to paint Romney as an evil Wall Street tycoon, Santorum as a theocrat, and Gingrich as personally flawed. But ultimately, I don't think it would work, as each of these candidates have become well versed at puncturing these charges and more. As in previous elections, this one is about the incumbent. I think each of these three have unique advantages that can carry the day. What say you?
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Jun '10
Re: One Order of Optimism Please; Hold the Hemlock
Jeez, Dave, are you trying to ruin our days with all of this optimism? Any of the three would run well against Obama? That screws up the narrative.
I'm willing to be cautiously optimistic that we can successfully make this election about Obama's abject failure as a president. Housing: prices still going down. Gas: prices going up. Jobs: anemic progress at best. Afghanistan: we don't kill Taliban anymore, we capture them so that we can apologize to them. Religion: he pokes a finger in the eye of believers. Etc. etc, ad nauseum.
Edited on February 27, 2012 at 9:36pmApr '11
Re: One Order of Optimism Please; Hold the Hemlock
I won't believe it until I actually see it. I am a pessimist by nature.
I worry especially that Virginia is becoming a blue state. Our routes to 270 are being closed off; when Virginia goes, we may not be able to make it up anywhere else.
Re: One Order of Optimism Please; Hold the Hemlock
You know me, Dave. I'm an on-the-record pessimist about November. But you just might be changing my mind....
May '10
Re: One Order of Optimism Please; Hold the Hemlock
Romney has to survive the aloof rich guy tar brush, Santorum has to survive the theocrat moniker, and Gingrich has to avoid the chubby little mean , unloved, and unguided missile trap.
All three have positives, and these are the three respective gotchas. The key is how strong each is in overcoming that single negative.
Aug '10
Re: One Order of Optimism Please; Hold the Hemlock
I agree with you, Dave, that there are reasons for optimism but I also feel this will be a very ugly battle - Obama will not give up power easily!
I do think that many on our side are being too negative right now because all these poll numbers are coming in the midst of a vigorous primary fight which - although not any worse than past pimary battles - surely hurts the numbers on our guys.
The party and the base will rally around whomever the nominee is, of that I am confident.
May '10
Re: One Order of Optimism Please; Hold the Hemlock
Don't get carried away. This is even harder than selling a 100 episode series, and that is when half of the party hasn't promised to drop out if their guy isn't nominated.
Dec '10
Re: One Order of Optimism Please; Hold the Hemlock
Gallup's employment survey suggests that the U3 unemployment rate for February 2012 will show an uptick, from 8.3 percent in January to as much as 9.0 percent in February. If that comes to pass, it will throw a lot of sand in the gears of the Obama re-election machine. It will take the unemployment rate farther from the 8.0 percent "ceiling" that Obama's economic team promised the Porkulus would put in place.
That still leaves the unemployment reports for March, April, May, June, July, August, September and October. If those paint a picture of unemployment declining steadily (if not monotonically) down towards or below 7 percent, Obama may be able to sell the voters on the notion that his policies are finally working after a delay. If they paint a picture instead of job stagnation or even worsening unemployment, it will be hard for voters to swallow the idea that Obama knows how to get the economy back to robust growth, and they'll be predisposed to turf him out and give a Republican a chance.
Re: One Order of Optimism Please; Hold the Hemlock
Duane Oyen
Don't get carried away. This is even harder than selling a 100 episode series, and that is when half of the party hasn't promised to drop out if their guy isn't nominated. · 22 minutes ago
And in fairness, you get to write the entire script for a Hollywood series, right? Obama will make a vigorous attempt to write at least a portion of November's script,..but I think each of our guys are uniquely situation to expose Obama's shabby narrative.
Sep '11
Re: One Order of Optimism Please; Hold the Hemlock
Quite right, Mr. Carter. In spite of all the nasty back & forth, the country seems to sense, without quite articulating it, that the modest improvement we have seen in recent months has been purchased at an unsustainable amount of pump-priming ($1 trillion + annual deficit, etc.). We have been borrowing capital rather than creating it, and the American people know it. We look at Greece (and what could be coming in Italy, Spain, etc.) and instinctively know that it is no longer impossible that something similar could happen here. We must continue to persuade the American people that we can and must choose a different path, rather than get caught up in despair.
May '11
Re: One Order of Optimism Please; Hold the Hemlock
While this comment is not nearly as serious as those above, I have to mention that in reading the URL under the lawn sign above, I mistakenly read it as http:// DAVE-Carter-looks-good-by-comparison.com It was just too true.
Mar '11
Re: One Order of Optimism Please; Hold the Hemlock
Dave, you see more of the country than most of us, so you probably have a better feel for the mood of the country than we do. However, I feel a general weariness when I talk to people around the country (which I do on a daily basis); it's the same sense I get in April after a particularly harsh winter. There's a lot of pent-up emotion that is dying to be let go of, and I think it's going to translate into a trampling come November. I don't have any polls to back me up, and I know I can be accused of wishful thinking. But it's starting to smell like Spring.
Re: One Order of Optimism Please; Hold the Hemlock
Yes. Remember the feeling in the air before the November 2010 election? As I said at the time, the people I met were positively jazzed about the chance to vote the party of Obamacare out of office. I take nothing for granted,..but I get a similar sense these days.
Mar '11
Re: One Order of Optimism Please; Hold the Hemlock
Thanks Dave. I've been in a funk about the election for weeks now. I've been feeling the way Casey Stengel must have been feeling in the '64 Mets dugout: "Can't anybody here play this game?"
Re: One Order of Optimism Please; Hold the Hemlock
I understand, but if memory serves correctly, we've been successful whenever we've been able to put the opposition into the far left corner. In this instance, the opposition is doing it for us!
May '10
Re: One Order of Optimism Please; Hold the Hemlock
I'm a perennial optimist, so take this with whatever quatity of salt you think necessary. I have felt that Obama is toast for quite some time. Sure there is a lot of the "my guy or I stay home" talk. But when push comes to shove, I think that people will realize that 4 more years and 2 or 3 more SC appointments will be a disaster, and the only alternative is the Republican guy. And for this reason, I think it is incumbent on us to put up the best, most ideologically conservative, most articulate defender of the constitution we can. He will be, after all, the only alternative to Obama. Personally, I think that is Newt. But I'm an "Anybody but Obama" guy in the final analysis. thanks for the encouragement, Dave.
Apr '11
Re: One Order of Optimism Please; Hold the Hemlock
FWIW, Dick Morris is saying Obama can't win:
Jul '10
Re: One Order of Optimism Please; Hold the Hemlock
Dave Carter, you rock. And Grendel rocks, too.
Oct '11
Re: One Order of Optimism Please; Hold the Hemlock
Got an OOps bumper sticker today. I remain a pessimist, but you make a fine case, Dave. That's a good place to leave it, g'night. Maybe I'll dream about taking the Senate.
Oct '10
Re: One Order of Optimism Please; Hold the Hemlock
Here's another view from Rasmussen
RASMUSSEN POLL: Obama Approval at 45%, Lowest in Month -- Falls Behind Romney, Paul...
Romney 45% Obama 43%...
Paul 43% Obama 41%
Obama 45% Santorum 43%
Obama 49% Gingrich 39%...
Jun '11
Re: One Order of Optimism Please; Hold the Hemlock
I'm used to getting funny looks from people when I say that any Republican candidate will win in November. I'm used to it because I've been saying it for over a year now. Despite the disappointment that anybody I actually wanted as the R nominee either ducked the race or dropped out, I still believe it's true as long as it's essentially a two person race. (If there's a strong 3rd Party run all bets are off.)
The President is a failure. More importantly, the majority of voters outside of Manhattan, Santa Monica, and Marin County know he's a failure. Sure, Republicans could still screw this up. They're good at that. But I'm betting that The O will be a one termer.