Now that Mitt Romney is finally free of Rick Santorum's quixotic campaign for the Republican presidential nomination he can devote his time, money and energy to the November election against Obama. He will find that the political landscape has changed in the last few weeks as some economic indicators have shown improvement. This progress and the damage done by Santorum's desperate political and personal demonizing of him have provided Obama with an advantage which is demonstrated in national polls. The President currently leads Romney in national head to head polling by2.6% (46.8 to 44.2). He has also improved his standing in critical “toss up” states like Ohio, Florida and Virginia, and the advantages of incumbency, including a supportive national media, present an up hill battle for Romney.
However, this president is still vulnerable and Romney needs to plan his campaign carefully to take advantage of a number of obvious Obama weaknesses. On a general level Obama's job approval rating on a national level is still at levels that fall into the “unenthusiastic” category. As of April, 2012 his average rating among several national polls is still less than 50% (47.2%). Thus Romney's first task should be to identify himself to the electorate by shedding the false identity contrived by Santorum and Gingrich in their failed attempts to send him to the sidelines.
Even before the exit of Santorum, the Romney campaign chose to ignore him and the other primary hangers on, Gingrich and Paul and concentrate on Obama. This is the correct strategy. However, there are those in Santorum's religious right camp who are struggling to accept his loss and are seeking to make Romney the torch bearer of Santorum's failed “values” and social issues campaign. Ralph Reed, founder and Chairman of the Faith and Freedom Foundation wants Romney to become Santorum Lite: Reed says “. . .his immediate task is to consolidate conservative support and unify the party. The best way to do that is to appropriate the best parts of Santorum’s message.” Aside from the difficulty in identifying “the best parts” of Santorum's failed message, this is demonstrably bad advice. Santorum wanted to strengthen economic opportunities for Americans by strengthening families i.e “marriage”, in itself a positive goal, but his strategy for doing this was denigrating women who pursued careers and taking positions on issues that lacked popular support. On abortion (51% support; 43% opposed ); on gay marriage (46 % support; 44.5% opposed); and on birth control which generates support in the mid-70s. These are issues that are largely irrelevant to presidential powers and Romney would be foolish to go there. Given the choice of Romney or the most liberal president in modern times, if not ever, the idea that the disappointed religious right who Reed and others like Pat Robertson claim make up the “core” of the Republican Party and needs to be “solidified” for them to support the Republican candidate, makes little sense.
There are several important areas where Obama is vulnerable and where Romney should concentrate.The most visible is the Patient Protection and Affordable Health Care Act or “Obama Care” whose fate the Supreme Court will decide in the Fall. Romney need not wait for this decision to make this a campaign issue. While there are several components of the act which have appeal to voters such as requiring coverage for pre-conditions, keeping dependents on coverage until age 26, and making it more difficult for insurance companies to cancel coverage after large claims, the major flaw, other than the bureaucratic morass it creates, is the enormous public cost it generates. The latest academic study of the fiscal effects of the law predict an increase to federal spending of $1.15 trillion and $340 billion to federal deficits over ten years.
In political terms the importance of this issue is reflected in the fact that it affects every American in some way and 53% of the American public are opposed to it while only 39% support it.
Enormous federal debt and deficits: The existing federal debt is $15.6 trillion and growing. Even without Obama Care this debt is growing by $454.4 (2011) annually due to the accruing interest that must be paid on it but for which funds are not available. The Obama Administration's proposed federal budgets also are projected to run annual deficits in the area of $1.3 trillion dollars, all of which makes the new health care bill unsustainable and puts the future worth of the U.S. dollar in peril. The financial situation in the 17 nation Euro-zone is critical and instructive. The Euro-zone nations have a total government debt of $12.7 trillion which exceeds 100% of Euro-zone GDP (approximately 12.46 trillion (2009). U.S. debt is also exceeds U.S. GDP of $15.064 trillion ( 2012 IMF est.). The deficits and debt were the energizing focus of the Tea Party movement which helped capture the House of Representatives in 2010. This energy can be recaptured and spread to a wider electorate with common sense explanations and an agenda of specific spending cuts and tax reform.
Tax reform: There is general public acceptance that the federal tax code is too complicated and unfair. Obama's only focus on this problem is his attempt to politicize it by advocating the so called “Buffet Rule” which imposes a minimum tax rate of 30% on tax payers who make more than one million dollars a year. While this idea polls well with a public which is in general suffering from the economic downturn, as a financial strategy it does little to address the problems of debt and deficits. If enacted it would only bring in an average of $4.7 billion a year and thus have little impact on either the debt or annual deficits which measure in trillions, and is essentially a campaign tactic. The same thing could be accomplished by reducing the number of tax brackets and eliminating most deductions. This “simplification” would produce more “fairness” and could be structured to produce more revenue even if tax rates were lowered. Obama doesn't want to fully enter the politically sensitive area of tax deductions and “loopholes” from which some politically important groups benefit, but for the underdog Romney, the broad issue of tax reform offers an issue which could prove productive.
Jobs: Both political parties, and on the campaign trail, both Obama and Romney have expounded consistently about the need to create jobs in an economy facing 8.3% unemployment. The number is far greater when counting those workers who have become discouraged and stopped looking for work. Obama is vulnerable on this subject because his solutions are about government spending to support job creation rather than the private sector. His administration has two major examples of working against the private sector creation of jobs.
Caving into
environmentalist extremists who are ideologically opposed to fossil
fuel development in any form, Obama rejected the huge Keystone
pipeline project which would have brought oil from Canada across the
United States all the way to the refineries in Oklahoma and on the
Texas coast of the Gulf of Mexico. The thousands of jobs such a huge
project would have required became the victim of disaster scenarios
about alleged drilling based pollution in Canada and possible
pipeline leaks over the vast aquifer in Nebraska. The fact that the
pipeline sponsors offered to revise the route away from the aquifer
did nothing to change Obama's politically inspired opposition to the
plan.
In 2011 the
Democrat appointees to the National Labor Relations Board accused
Boeing aircraft company who wanted to complete construction on a new
manufacturing plant in South Carolina to build the new 787
Dream-liner aircraft. This was based on a trumped up charge by union
opposition to the non-union character of the new plant, in spite of
the potential creation of thousands of new jobs in economically
strapped South Carolina. It was resolved only when Boeing made
concessions to its union workers in Seattle, Washington.
While the
unemployment rate has in recent weeks declined, the record of job
creation since the beginning of the recession in December, 2007 has
been one of private sector declines and government sector increases.
Between 12/2007 and 2/2011 alone, while the private sector lost 7
million jobs, government workers increased in number by 230,000. In
first two years of the Obama Administration the numbers were:
private sector, down 2.6 million; government sector up 144,000.
Obama's Fiscal Year 2012 budget (which failed to pass) included an
additional 15,000 new federal jobs (4.182 for the Internal Revenue
Service, 1,054 to enforce Obama-care’s mandatory purchase of health
insurance.)
SOLYNDRA:
The Solyndra scandal
is noteworthy not only because it resulted in the loss of $500
million dollars of tax payer money but because it reflects the
ideologically based commitment of the Obama government to reflexive
support for anything labeled “green”, without common sense
financial analysis. It is clear that Obama, who visited the solar
panel manufacturer for a “photo op” when the loan guarantee was
made, was trying to establish his environmental credibility for
political purposes without regard to market based business
principles. Romney should constantly remind voters of this financial
disaster as part of his own long range policy of mixed fossil fuel
development and alternative energy.
A similar but
more futile outlook remains in Afghanistan. Obama's “policy” is
to continue to throw billions of dollars at the corrupt Karzai regime
based on a questionable withdrawal date of 2014. This is the
continuation of a failed effort to convert a tribal society with
little sense of national identification , a medieval religious
orientation, and an economy so devoid of the resources necessary for
wealth creation that the growth of a middle class necessary for
political and economic stability is virtually impossible. Romney
will have ample opportunities to offer a different, more common sense
strategy and a quicker withdrawal date.
Meanwhile,
relations with Pakistan which is a forced marriage of convenience
because of its necessary role in the prosecution of the U.S. (NATO)
war in Afghanistan, continue to deteriorate. The end of that war
before 2014 would do much to relieve the necessity for the U.S. to
both support and endure the hostility of the Pakistani population and
the inconsistent relationship with the Pakistani government and
military.
In general
Obama's post 2008 election decision to “extend the hand of
friendship” to the Muslim world has been rejected. Although
several of the authoritarian Arab regimes have succumbed to the “Arab
Spring” movement, the nature of the successor governments is still
in doubt and there is little indication that these governments, when
they are eventually consolidated, will contribute to regional
stability or be cooperative with respect to American interests.
While their development is largely beyond U.S. influence, there is
little evidence that the Obama Administration has developed coherent
policies to advance such interests.
In Syria,
besides the usual State Department nostrums that “condemn
violence”, there is no U.S. policy, although it would be in U.S.
interests for the Assad regime, which is an Iranian client and
supporter of the anti-Israeli terrorist groups, Hezbollah and Hamas,
to fail.
The Iranian
nuclear development program has approached the crisis point as Obama,
after three years, has only recently reached the point of applying
significantly punitive economic sanctions to bring the Iranian
government to possibly productive negotiations. It may well be too
late, given the Iranian's decade long strategy of delay and denial,
and the Israeli government's belief that Iran's continued progress in
hardening the sites of it's nuclear research and development will
shortly make a military strike ineffective. Such a strike in the
next few months will create a significant military and energy related
crisis. Obama will need to make clear to the American public exactly
where he stands on this issue but he is not likely to do so,
preferring to put such difficult decisions off until after the
election.
The Romney
campaign will have to be focused, avoid serious gaffes and
miscalculations and offer substantive policy alternatives to Obama's
three plus years of inconsistency and liberal growth of government.
He is at a disadvantage to start with because the Democratic “core”
which is less interested in good governance than in it's various
special interests being protected is larger than the Republican core.
Thus the battle will again revolve around the moderates in both
parties and Independent voters. Obama's lack luster support among
these groups provide an opportunity for Romney but he will have to
conduct a much better campaign than he has in the Republican
nomination struggle.
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