President Obama

Biden Versus Ryan: Defense is the Best Offense (October 9, 2012)

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Following a somewhat unusual Presidential candidate debate last week, featuring possibly the most futile moderation in history from PBS’ Jim Lehrer (I’m still puzzled by Lehrer’s good-natured laugh in response to Romney’s vow to cut funding from the public broadcasting network as a method of balancing the Federal budget), liberal voters are left to anticipate this week’s Vice-Presidential throw down between current office holder Joe Biden and GOP hopeful Paul Ryan. The event is being positioned by both parties as a clash between the old and new guards of American politics.

Team Biden is promoting the debate as the definitive choice between experience and wisdom versus youthful, brash ignorance. On last Sunday’s edition of Meet the Press, NBC’s Political Director Chuck Todd cautioned those who might expect a fumble from the foot-in-mouth-prone VP, “Everybody talks about the gaffes on the trail, but he won most of the Democratic primary debates in 2008.”

Joe Biden, a man with a lifelong penchant towards shooting from the hip, is not the bumbling caricature of Gerald Ford comically delivered by Chevy Chase in the Saturday Night Live parodies of yesteryear. It would serve naysayers well to remember that Biden was a Senate veteran with 26 years of experience before he was promoted to the White House. The 15th longest serving Senator in history built a career out of bipartisan cooperation, and is widely considered one of the most likeable lawmakers in the nation. It may also serve the opposition to recall that when Biden was added to the 2008 ticket, it was in part an effort to strengthen then-candidate Obama’s foreign policy credentials. Joe Biden is no lightweight.

On the other side of the spectrum, Paul Ryan supporters are positioning the week’s rhetorical skirmish as a battle between fresh, wonky ideas versus the old and tired status quo. In the same Meet the Press broadcast, panelist and former Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich characterized the 42 year-old elected official as “one of the brightest people in Congress. I think he knows an immense amount of facts.” It is tempting to point out that personality traits that might render one well-prepared for an evening of bar trivia are hardly a recommendation for America’s second-highest office.

Debate watchers may also be curious as to what set of “facts” Ryan will be armed with on the evening in question. Will he bespeak the much-maligned, if personably delivered, “truth” about the Romney budget plan that Mittens tried to sell to registered voters last week, a plan infused with magical fairy dust that permits the elimination of the deficit without destroying the social safety net or cutting taxes further for the wealthy? Or will Ryan adopt the Dr. Phil-esque “get real” approach so yearned for by the likes of New York Times columnist David Brooks? Does Ryan have the courage to talk to likely voters like adults, detailing the real impact of a Romney administration?

Scheduled several weeks after the strangest, most deceptive Republican National Convention in recent memory, gamblers may want to place their bets on the fairy dust edition of Paul Ryan.

With the benefit of a higher “Q” rating and an established presence as a genial and intelligent public servant, a report this week from Yahoo! News distills Joe Biden’s mission for the evening to one simple goal: “Biden needs to enter the ring with his boxing gloves on. Ever since Romney picked Ryan as his running mate, the Obama campaign has been attacking the Ryan plan left and right, and Biden has to be ready to throw punches against Ryan’s economic philosophy.”

That’s right. Vice-President must accomplish what President Obama failed to do in his opening battle with Romney: put Ryan on defense and keep him there. It’s a winning strategy because Ryan’s budget plan is heartless, bad for America and when properly scrutinized, indefensible. Just keep smiling Joe and watch the young kid strangle himself.

Like the Work of the NFL Replacement Refs? Then Vote for Mitt Romney (September 25, 2012)

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I have to credit my boyfriend for suggesting this appropriate extended analogy. After several weeks of delayed games, inaccurate calls and the kind of under-preparedness that threatened to remove the integrity from NFL officiating, dire warnings came to fruition last night when the Green Bay Packers were essentially robbed of a victory. Although I am by birth a Chicago Bears fan, this was a uniting moment for football enthusiasts of all stripes. At the end of the day, it’s a love of the game that brings us together, and those who don’t stand in protest against the league’s continued lockout of unionized officials might want to consider who will side with them when their home team is cheated.

As my partner and I looked on in horror at the pandemonium that erupted at Seattle’s Qwest Field after the game’s controversial conclusion, he made a keen observation: “This is what will happen if the country votes for Mitt Romney.” Immediately, I asked for further clarification.

Basically the argument is this: President Obama has a great deal in common with the locked out NFL officials. These are the people that many fans, players and coaches take for granted during a normal season. They do their jobs without glamour, striving to make the best calls according to the league’s rule book. They don’t get it right every time, leading to the requisite jeers, but by and large, students of the game can rest confidently knowing that if nothing else, the referees decisions do not affect the match’s outcome. The best team will usually win. It is not until these shepherds are taken away that we feel the pain of their absence.

President Obama is just such a leader on a national level: a brilliant thinker and empathetic man entrusted with stewardship of the country in the midst of one of its most historically challenging epochs. Every call the POTUS has made since taking office in January 2009 may not have been the right one, but the choices were made through a combination of strategic thought and genuine respect for the American people. However much work lies ahead, in under four years, Obama has brought the union back from the brink of complete financial and foreign policy collapse.

Those that have grown impatient with the slow and steady progress of nation rebuilding would like to substitute Barack Obama for Mitt Romney, an ignorant charlatan who has made lofty promises about “putting people back to work” and “restoring the middle class” without the benefit of specifics. Seeking to capitalize on a stubbornly sluggish job market while conveniently forgetting that it was eight years of GOP policy making that landed us in this protracted mess, Republicans have the audacity to suggest we give them another go, because you know, destructive management is bound to yield completely different results this time. So send in the scab!

But as we have seen over and over again throughout this long campaign, Romney doesn’t have the chops to step into Obama’s shoes. He has no specific plans for uplifting America’s beleaguered middle class. His foreign policy ineptitude is now well documented, as is his disdain for the working poor and any average American struggling to keep a roof over their head and food on the table. To underscore Romney’s utter cluelessness, it is now apparent that he doesn’t possess the basic understanding of your average first grader in grasping why commercial airline windows can’t be manually opened.

Last night’s Seahawks/Packers game, which bore witness to two awful contest ending calls from officials, was a case study in inexperience compounded by frozen ineptitude. No lives were lost and I do not mean to suggest that the NFL scandal is on par with the dire consequences we are bound to collectively suffer by replacing Obama with a cartoon punchline. However, those who enjoy the sporting element of politics yet approach the coming election with seriousness were gifted with a foreshadowing allegory from, of all places, a football match. Imagine Romney in the end zone during a matter of national urgency, surrounded by a team of confused advisers more interested in saving face than protecting the honor of the institution. That’s our future should the Romney/Ryan ticket prevail.

Should We Forgive Romney’s ‘Off the Cuff’ Remarks? In a Word, No (September 15

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Call it the 2012 Presidential campaign shot heard ’round the world. In a contest marred by gaffes and PR debacles of the diverse kind, Mitt Romney is staring down the barrel of hard video evidence that he just doesn’t give a damn about Americans occupying social positions outside the privileged one percent.

By now we have grown used to the candidate’s willful ignorance. Everyone not living in the United Kingdom enjoyed a good laugh at Romney’s clumsy insult directed at London, the host city of this year’s summer Olympics. Nothing was destroyed but a planning committee’s delicate feelings. Silly Mittens.

But Romney’s foreign policy ineptitude took a turn for the more serious last week when U.S. ambassador to Libya Christopher Stevens was killed in a terrorist attack, and the GOP challenger immediately sought to leverage the tragedy for political gain. Without waiting for full details of the incident and before expressing his condolences to victims’ families, Romney made an inexcusable, disingenuous play to tar Obama as an American apologist. As anti-American protests rage in areas where not so long ago, we celebrated “Arab Spring” democratic revolutions, it is important to ask to what extent Romney’s careless words fed the growing fires of Middle Eastern hatred.

Romney doesn’t give a fig what kind of trouble he stirs up overseas. As America works to restore its image from the out-of-touch “Cowboy Diplomacy” of the George W. Bush era, yeoman’s work in which President Obama has been largely successful, Mittens runs around shooting his uneducated mouth off about the long-running Israel/Palestine conflict and other issues which may score him points with his political base, but do nothing to reflect the traits of a leader who understands 21st century dynamics and a hyperconnected, interdependent world ecosystem.

However, until this week it was reasonably safe to assume that Mitt Romney’s blunderous foreign policy soundbites were unfortunate blabber from an unelectable candidate who nevertheless genuinely loves his country. Most of us are not so partisan that we can’t disagree with a man without questioning his patriotism (behavioral patterns of the far right wing notwithstanding). Apologies to the remaining voters who tried to believe that no matter who wins the November election, a real effort would be made to create jobs and otherwise throw the drowning middle class a lifeline.

We have all made dialectical miscalculations in the private company of friends and family members. Comments that would sound gauche in mixed crowds seem palatable around the familiar. Presidential campaigns are particularly scripted, messaged and strategized so when given a chance to go “off the cuff, ” who can throw stones at an exhausted, 24/7 news cycle-beleaguered contender? In making the case here, consider most of Vice-President Joe Biden’s dunce-cap worthy messaging errors.

Mitt Romney’s latest rhetorical scandal cannot be categorized as the mistake of an exhausted, relaxed man in the company of likeminded souls. How do we know this for certain? Just ask him. According to a report earlier this week from Yahoo! News, “Mitt Romney stood by his comments captured on a hidden camera at a closed-door fundraiser earlier this year in which he called supporters of President Barack Obama ‘victims’ and said they are reliant on government handouts.”

Well then. Allow me to take the opportunity to thank Romney for his honesty and candor, an occasion members of the voting public are not awarded often enough. I have to disagree withNew York Times columnist David Brooks when he writes “Mr. Romney, your entitlement reform ideas are essential, but when will the incompetence stop?” Brooks’ rhetorical question implies that Mittens’s characterization of Obama voters as lazy, needy bottomfeeders is merely an error, but in order to accept this position, one would have to willfully suspend belief in the candidate’s own words at the hastily arranged late-evening press conference. I don’t think most of us are prepared to do that.

 

Where Are the Jobs? Ask the GOP (June 6, 2012)

Becky SarwateLeave a comment

Last month Mitt Romney wrote a column printed in the Cleveland Plain Dealer that presumed to pose an important query to President Obama: “Welcome to Ohio. I have a simple question for you: Where are the jobs?”

Ohio is a key battleground state in the November elections and like any politician worth his salt, challenger Romney is attempting to use the dismal job numbers of the last three months, including news released last Friday that the U.S. added a meager 69,000 positions to payrolls in May, to his advantage. In the course of his open letter Mittens makes an attempt at magnanimity: “I recognize, of course, as do all Americans, that you inherited an economic crisis. But you’ve now had three years to turn things around. The record of those three years is clear. Your policies have failed, not only in Ohio, but across the nation.”

Well I know the right is oh so tired of hearing this inconvenient truth, but the mystery of the disappearing workforce is owing not to the President’s leadership but to eight previous years of treasury looting and voodoo economic policy. Many pundits (some of whom I once considered liberal) and Republican mouthpieces are foisting a giant Jedi mind trick upon all of us, not entirely without success. It’s as if two wars paid for on the credit card, the rapid expansion of health care expenses and dimwitted tax cuts for the wealthiest Americans have nothing to do with our collective and personal debt load, of creating the impression that the American Dream and the middle class are endangered species.

It’s as though the giant bursting bubble of the housing market in 2008 and the foreclosure crisis that has yet to abate, a result of scandalous Wall Street malfeasance, was orchestrated under Obama’s leadership. Like the foundering of the automakers, partly the result of producing giant, fuel-inefficient cars that nobody wanted, a problem that has progressed a long way toward resolution (thanks to ahem, Obama) was the Commander-in-Chief’s master plan.

I know how the GOP will counter: but he’s had almost four years to fix things! He can’t keep using Bush as an excuse! I am the last person to argue that it’s not the responsibility of our current elected leader to correct our wayward path and put us once more on the road to prosperity. But do you know why they say Rome wasn’t built in a day? Because it wasn’t.

All of the aforementioned problems, issues that people forget brought this nation to its very knees in late 2008, have witnessed remarkable rebounds, even as pain continues. This is lamentable but how can there by any sane suggestion that a Romney Presidency, which would effectively serve as Dubya Part II, is the way to go? We’ve been there before. That one percent thinking almost got us killed – literally and figuratively.

Obama has not been a perfect President, but he’s been a pretty damned good one, cool under pressure and able to reform the state of our military involvement, banking regulations, auto industry standards and health care dysfunction even without the participation of the opposition. The housing market and unemployment, two quagmires in need of creative strategy, have a long way to go and the economy should not be considered stable until there has been sustained improvement in those areas. But let Obama have the same eight years to continue the hard work he’s started in resetting the economy, the same period voters afforded George W. Bush to dismantle the budget surplus and national peace he inherited from predecessor Bill Clinton.

Latino Voters Self-Deport Mitt Romney (June 2, 2012)

Becky SarwateLeave a comment

According to the latest round of NBC-Marist polls, President Obama and presumed GOP nominee Mitt Romney are locked in a virtual tie among registered voters in Iowa, Colorado and Nevada. This Midwest and Western states are considered by those in the know to be key battleground venues in the November elections.

In Iowa, Obama and Mittens polled at an even 44 percent favored rate, with 10 percent declaring themselves undecided. In Colorado, the President currently edges Romney by a mere percent while his lead stretches to two points in the home of Las Vegas. While the election season remains in its early stages (I know that may be difficult to believe given the oversaturation many of us already feel), the numbers are cause for concern to the President’s re-election team.

Meanwhile the results of a new Washington Post-ABC News sample ran with the headline, “Poll shows Romney becoming more likeable.” The challenger’s favorability rating registered at 41 percent, up six points from a month ago. This statistic may be less of a concern for the Obama camp, not simply because the Commander-in-Chief’s own likability index is 11 points higher at 52 percent. If there’s one thing that most members of our dysfunctional two-party political system can agree upon, it’s that Mitt Romney is a crushing bore.

So yeah ok, the race is becoming more competitive as we approach convention season and Mittens is doing courageous work trying to overcome liabilities that include anger from animal lovers (the whole driving to Canada with the family dog strapped to the roof bit – thank you Gail Collins), women (this year’s tone-deaf assault on female reproductive rights), the gay community, people who prefer their politicians to have genuine, stable positions on the issues and last but not least, Latinos. It makes me wonder who exactly these pollsters are speaking with when they collect their data.

This question could be posed relative to any of the groups mentioned above, but the results of an NBC News/Wall Street Journal/Telemundo poll published last week indicate that Obama enjoys a staggering 34-point lead over Mitt Romney amongst Latino voters. How does the Romney Team think they can bridge that crater? Perhaps of even greater concern: only 26 percent of Spanish-heritage voters view the GOP candidate positively, while 35 percent reported a negative opinion. There are 50 million Latinos in this country with a 3.1 percent population growth between July 2008 and July 2009 alone. This is not likely to change and in the midst of many challenges faced by the Romney campaign, the lopsided nature of the candidiates’ perception within the Hispanic citizenry should be a five-alarm panic.

The aversion to Romney amongst Latinos is not entirely the Dull One’s doing. For this state of affairs, Mitten can thank members of his own party like Arizona Governor Jan Brewer who has helmed a crusade against her state’s prominent Spanish contingent, or former Republican Presidential candidate Herman Cain who offered an electrified barbed-wire fence on the US-Mexico border as the answer to out nation’s outdated immigration policies. Forward thinking like this from the new crop of GOP standard bearers almost makes one pine for the comparatively progressive views of Dubya.

Despite what general election polls suggest, the numbers don’t add up and history teaches us that statistics are themselves only another statistic when it comes to predicting U.S. Presidential contests. The insights are useful and needless with almost equal frequency. The doom spelled for the future of the GOP’s appeal in its alienation of women and minorities has yet to be experienced at its height. This gives us something to anticipate in future election cycles. But any Republican strategists who think that rich white men can carry Mittens to victory in November are kidding themselves. There’s only so much disenfranchising you can do, though I expect GOP lackeys to continue giving it the old college try.