yustyoking

                                    “Enjoy your last ride on Air Force One.”                            

                               – President Obama to Congressman Anthony Weiner, when Weiner criticized Obama’s health care program while airborne

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            My mom is 90 years old and sharp as a tack. I spent 12 years as a political consultant, in local politics, during my military career. She and I solve the world’s problems every night over dinner.  

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             Mom: “With the GSA convention scandal in Las Vegas and now the Secret Service bacchanal in Cartagena, Colombia, the commentators on talk radio are saying Obama is an absentee manager.”

             Kevin: “I know he’s an absentee president. I live in the Greater Washington area, and he never returns my calls!”

            Mom: “Ha ha!”

            Kevin: “As usual, the commentary is a little dumb. Obama will simply say, ‘I’m not in charge of the Secret Service. I don’t run the GSA. To err is human, to forgive, divine.’

            “But, yes, the CEO is expected to set the tone, and with Obama as president, there’s a leadership vacuum as large as the Potomac River. I don’t think he’s an absentee manager, so much as passive-aggressive. I’ve never understood his style of non-leadership.”

            Mom: “Obama and Bush are glamour boys. They wanted to be president, with all the pomp and ceremony, but not the job of administering the country. Neither of them ever ran a company in their lives. Their résumés are paper thin.

             “Romney may be a wooden, boring son of a bitch, but he is a proven, competent administrator.”

            Kevin: “If the government is going to be handmaiden to industry, at least let’s get a competent industrialist in the White House, who knows how to get things done. Right now, we’re standing still.”

           Mom: “We’re not standing still! We’re going backwards in a downward economic spiral! I don’t see how anybody can support Obama.”

            Kevin: “Well, don’t forget, he’s got that charisma thing. He gets up before a crowd, waves his arms and speaks, and the masses are hypnotized. Hitler had it, Mussolini, Genghis Khan, Julius Caesar. Orators, they know how to raise the passion of their listeners and make their blood boil. Obama has the gift. People come away from his rallies thinking they’ve seen Jesus and touched the hem of His garment.

             “Barack Hussein Obama tells each group, ‘I am with you!’ He’s a con artist: He’s not lying, because he’s already looked in the mirror and convinced himself that he really means what he says. Charismatically persuasive, he gets people to believe in him. He tells the Jews, ‘Israels’s security is paramount.’ What does that mean? ‘Diplomacy is a chess match and I’ll offer Israel to gain a tactical advantage’? As Bill Clinton once famously said, ‘It all depends on what your definition of “is” is.’

             “The Occupy Movement is a sterling example. In the economic meltdown, Obama sided with the 1%— the banks, the brokerage houses, who caused the crash with their falsely bundled securities, and with the automobile industry. Obama left Main Street— middle class America— sorely pressed economically. Without money to spend, we stand by and watch retail outlets go under. The face of America is changing. Economic Darwinism, only the strong survive. We watch our roads fill with pot-holes. A huge chasm has opened between the ‘haves’ and the ‘have-nots.’ Yet Obama can telegraph the Occupy Movement, ‘Don’t worry! I hear your message. In my heart, I am with you.’

            “That’s a great message! Only in his icy cold heart, ‘Mr. Cool’ only cares about himself and his immediate family.” 

            Mom: “I don’t see how a recent college graduate, weighed down with student loans, unemployed, forced to live with his parents, can tout Obama as the answer.”

            Kevin: “Generation Y, the Internet / Facebook social network, the ones who poured money big time into the 2008 Obama campaign, the people who worked day and night leafleting, telephoning and canvassing for Obama, have all been let down. Along with everyone else outside the banking, Wall Street brokerage and industrial communities.  But college students aren’t known for being worldly, experienced or acting rationally.

             “Even if they support Obama, I find it hard to believe they will come out for him in the droves we saw in 2008.

            “The Washington Post still shows daily photographs of Obama campaigning in Ohio, Kentucky, Pennsylvania, Illinois or Iowa, making speeches and pointing his finger, but I don’t see any references to tens of thousands of spectators waiting hours in line to get to see him.

            “It’s 2012, not 2008. When Obama and his campaign staff are marching to victory, David Axelrod is going to look over his shoulder and say, ‘Hey, uh, Barack! Good grief! Where are the throngs? There’s nobody behind us! It’s only the six of us!’

            “People are not buying what he’s selling.

            “What does Obama say in his speeches? He sets up straw men. It’s always someone else’s fault. He exhibits the mentality of an 8-year-old, ‘I didn’t do anything! It was all Billy’s fault.’ So it’s really a question of who he is going to blame the failing economy on.”

             Mom: “He’s the president! I haven’t seen such a clueless Chief Executive since Jimmy Carter.”

              Kevin: “What was that movie with Robert Redford? The Candidate. On election night, with his supporters wildly cheering his victory, the candidate turns to his campaign manager and asks, ‘What do I do now, Harvey?’ That’s Obama in a nutshell. Glamorous, brilliant, clueless.”

              Mom: “President Obama didn’t cause the economic crisis, he inherited it. But when he had his FDR moment to pump jobs and money into the middle class and revitalize this country, he chose to use the trillions of dollars to shore up his buddies on Wall Street. I blame our current mess on Obama!”

             Kevin: “Ah, yes, but you’re logical. You can’t expect other people to react logically. On the plus side, you don’t need a rocket scientist to know your ass is cold.”

              Mom: “This election is the Republicans to lose. If they choose a way-out candidate, the undecideds won’t be able to vote Republican.

              “Even a halfway centrist candidate like Romney seems attractive when the alternative is a big, fat nothing.

              “The Republicans were idiots to attack each other that way in the primaries. That just provides ammunition for the Democrats to use against the Republican nominee.”

              Kevin: “This is America and everyone watches TV. Who can remember what the big issues were three months ago? Today, it’s the space shuttle Discovery. Two weeks ago, it was the cherry blossoms. What was the topic of conversation three weeks ago? No one remembers! We Americans have incredibly short attention spans. Come the Fall, no one will remember the mean, ugly things other contenders said about Mitt Romney during the Republican primaries.

            “People don’t like mudslinging, attack ads and negative campaigning. When the Democrats start bringing up the attacks made during the Republican primary campaign, and leveling those charges in the national election, the public is going to say that such unsportsman-like behavior demeans Democrats.

            “Some of the negative campaigning will brainwash people through sheer repetition, but a lot will turn off the electorate.  

            “I don’t think disappointed Democrats are going to vote Republican. They just won’t vote. We’ll see a very depressed voter turn-out in November.”

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