An Obama win is just not ringing true

Over and over I hear the same analysis -- Romney is weak, and Obama is gaining momentum in a recovering economy. I hear it so so much it sounds like the pundits are doing less analysis and more promotion of a narrative. It just doesn't seem solid. I realize that Obama has an advantage. MSM and Hollywood and community organizers and union organizers and college professors and the many, many government employees are all in the Obama camp rooting for their man. Poor Romney doesn't even have Fox News. Fox is pushing the story of a weak and unpopular Romney barely winning with an everpresent threat over one of his shoulders, yet Romney continues to win. George Will is even saying Obama will win.

I'm not sure how much the political class believes anything it promotes, but if most of these pundits believe what they're saying, they aren't convincing, and the facts are not on their side. The economy might be recovering according to a technical definition of recovery from recession, but it's so weak and shaky no one can tell there's a recovery. If we include workers who've dropped out of the work force, and workers who are working in low-paying jobs below what they once had, the employment situation is bleak. If you include oil prices and food prices, then we have high inflation. Housing sales continue to stall out. Afghanistan is imploding, and Iraq is on the brink of coming apart at the seams. Obama is blustering about war with Iran, which would be a catastrophe. Pulling our troops back into a war that will be four times the intensity of Iraq could demoralize our military. What do we hope to accomplish in the Mideast?

The political class might be right. Obama might be a sure winner, and Romney might be winning by a fluke, but it sure doesn't seem this is the siutation when you look at the facts.

Feeling sympathy for Romney

I'm beginning to change my mind on Mitt Romney -- with all the attacks from Right and Left, I'm beginning to think he might have something going on. The Republican candidates who are twisting his words and criticizing his successful business career are hurting themselves, at least from my perspective. I have problems with Romney's Big Government moves as governor of Mass, but I have no problem with his business successes.

The basic idea behind the type of business he was in is to buy failing companies, try to save what's valuable and get rid of the rest. Most companies bought like this would likely fail if they simply continued like they were going. To criticize Romney for making the best of bad situations is ridiculous. To pretend he bought healthy companies and ran them into the ground causing bankruptcy and job loss is ludicrous.

Republicans are blowing a great opportunity to make some big changes in government. It's not that Republican failure leads to Democrat success, because Democrats have failed completely. The sad result is that we might be stuck with the same failing statist system that's got us to this ugly point. I still think Ron Paul is the one candidate who would shake up the status quo and fight for change, but Paul is completely ignored in media, and unless enough Americans rebel and elect Paul anyway, he doesn't stand a chance. There will be no media support for Paul, and there will be no Republican Party support for Paul.

Not only is the Republican Party fighting against Paul, they are fighting against his ideas. It would be okay if Paul lost but had such a powerful effect on the Party that it created change, but this is not happening. Republicans of all stripes are attacking Paul and his message, except young Republicans, which is good sign for the future.

Getting back to Romney, if he will reject his past moderate follies and stand tall as a defender of capitalism and limited government, he could blow Obama out of the water, especially once the independents see he's serious. One thing Romney needs to avoid is attempting to identitfy with the "blue collar" man and woman. there is no need to relate and indentify, just understand what's needed to turn the economy around, then the working man and woman will take care of themselves.

Obama's secret campaign weapons

http://hotair.com/archives/2011/11/27/obamas-not-so-secret-weapon/

Obama hasn't contacted me for campaign advice, but I will offer some anyone. American voters are in no mood for Michelle's and Biden's happy BS regarding the administration's wonderful efforts which have been blocked by a heartless Republican Party which protects the rich and hates the poor.

If this is their strategy, it will backfire. The American people are prepared for the truth regarding how bad the economy has become and wants to hear how government has plans to get out of the way of recovery.

Stop the polls!

http://hotair.com/archives/2011/09/17/obama-2012-it-could-be-worse-2/

I've heard three different versions regarding Obama's popularity in the last week -- he's slipping, he's staying steady and his popularity went higher. It's official that polls are now just one more political tool meaningful only to those spinning political events hoping to influence public opinion rather than measure that opinion.

I'm also sick of reading about Obama's poll numbers, because this is beyond Obama -- he never had the power to keep his promises and there is nothing he can do to improve the economy except leave it alone and remove the obstacles to private sector growth -- everything else is political footle.

Our problem is systemic, and until we create a free economic environment and stop government intervention, nothing will get better. The progressive/statist agenda is on the ropes, and intellectuals are running to the defense of the present system, but only because most would be lost without it.

The problem with stimulus

Our problems are no longer short term problems that are ameliorated by short term stimulus gimmicks. Obama plans to give a speech in September in which he promises a little bit of everything to everyone which means we'd better be worried. Unless Obama proposes fundamental changes, his speech and his promises will be meaningless. We don't need pep talks, national ego boosts and gimmicks to get us past 2012 -- 2012 is only important to Obama -- but to people who have to plan for the long term there needs to be clarity over the long run, as much as possible anyway.

Obama is hinting at lowering taxes, spending on infrastructure and dealing with the long term debt. Anything that will happen in the future can be automatically scrapped because the long term promises never materialize in DC. As for tax cuts, if he's talking about short term reductions in payroll taxes, well, that's nice but it doesn't alleviate concerns regarding upcoming tax hikes to pay for Obamacare and unfunded liabilities. So, that leaves us with infrastructure and green energy spending and unemployment benefit extension and more food stamps which will hit immediately. Also, Obama will likely use Warren Buffett's whining to justify raising taxes on millionaires&billionaires, but this is not about Warren Buffett or Bill Gates or Donald Trump -- it's about how wealth is used.

We should decide if created wealth should be invested in the private sector and left to private sector decisions as to how it will be used, or whether trillions of dollars should be extracted from the private sector into government hands to be spent by politicians and government officials. It doesn't matter if Warren Buffett wants to be taxed higher, he can't speak for all creators of wealth and he can't make the decision that government should take the created wealth rather than have it in private sector hands. Warren Buffett would like the government to have the wealth because Buffett depends on government connections for his wealth -- he's just an old crony of the Merchant State, an old Hamiltonian backroom rent-seeker making statist deals with his buddies, so his wishes are irrelevant. If his government connections were severed he'd cry like a scared boy in the dark.

Short of fundamental free market changes, Obama can do nothing but get some good crank from his dealer Bernanke and shoot it in the arm of the economy to get him past the 2012 election, and then promise to get the economy straight tomorrow -- but tomorrow never comes, and it's always one more high, one after another until this junkie govenrment crashes and the dealer is busted.