I would submit that whereas the Obama team may be lousy at policy, they are usually pretty impressive at politics. After first slicing and dicing the once-powerful Clinton operation in the 2008 primaries, the Obama machine proceeded to run circles around the McCain outfit in the 2008 general election.
I would further submit that the Obama Administration has recently made two terrible decisions, which are not only dreadfully wrong on policy, but on the politics.
First, President Obama announced that he’d decided against allowing the Keystone XL pipeline to move ahead. Despite proclaiming at his State of the Union Address that he would promote U.S. energy independence, and favored an “all of the above” energy strategy, he has stopped this critical pipeline dead in its tracks.
A few facts. Canada’s Northern Alberta region has 174 billion barrels of oil, second only to Saudi Arabia. Building and maintaining the 1,700 mile pipeline from Canada to Texas would create tens of thousands of new jobs in constructing and maintaining the pipeline. Some of those good-paying jobs would be right here in our community, as Siemens in Norwood is building hundreds of motors used to push the oil along in the pipeline.
The Keystone pipeline has been studied to death by all the appropriate U.S. bureaucracies, and environmental risks were found to be minimal. Despite that fact, some environmental lefties (a core Obama constituency) still opposed it. He’s picked their point of view over the urging of another Obama core constituency – labor unions, who want the jobs, and therefore want the pipeline.
One irony in all of this is that Canada’s made it pretty clear, if we don’t build the pipeline to accept the oil, they’ll build a pipeline themselves across Canada to British Columbia, where they’ll ship it to China, which has much weaker environmental protections than we do. So much for protecting the environment.
U.C. Professor Attila Kilinc, who supports the pipeline, concluded his Op-Ed in the Cincinnati Enquirer last week with this statement: “For America’s energy security and economic well being, the Keystone pipeline must be built, and the sooner the better.”
Now for Obama’s second huge mistake – on both policy and on politics. His Administration has ruled that under Obamacare, all Catholic hospitals and other institutions will be forced to provide abortion-inducing drugs, sterilizations, and other related services, even though they are anathema to traditional Catholic teachings, or risk fines and penalties which could run them out of business. In the words of columnist Peggy Noonan, “In other words, the Catholic Church was told this week that its institutions can’t be Catholic anymore… President Obama may have just lost the election.”
Senator Marco Rubio introduced a bill in the Senate, and I have introduced a companion bill in the House of Representatives, which would prevent the Obama Administration’s anti-religious policy from taking effect. You can click here to read the full text of the bill.
Now the failure of the Obama Administration’s position on policy, and on principle, and on morality is pretty obvious, but let’s look at the politics of it. For years now, Catholics have been considered THE swing vote in this nation. They swung in Obama’s direction pretty significantly in 2008, 54% for Obama and only 45% for McCain. (As a Catholic myself, I find this very disturbing – particularly when it was quite clear where he’d be on the key issue of abortion – just look at the two Supreme Court Justices he’s had the opportunity to appoint thus far.) But rank and file Catholics nationwide have been outraged by this callous attack on their religion. And there are nearly 78 million Catholics in the United States, making up 27% of the electorate.
Peggy Noonan concluded her piece by saying, “There was no reason to pick this fight. It reflects political incompetence on a scale so great as to make Mitt Romney’s gaffes a little bitty thing. There was nothing for the President to gain except, perhaps, the pleasure of making a great church bow to him. Enjoy it while you can, (President Obama.) You have awakened a sleeping giant.”
This is, of course, a reference to a quote attributed to Japanese Admiral Isoroku Yamamoto, the mastermind of the surprise attack on Pearl Harbor, who is supposed to have admitted on the morning of December 7th, 1941, “I fear all we have done is to awaken a sleeping giant, and fill him with a terrible resolve.”
Well President Obama may have unwittingly filled millions and millions of voters with a resolve to come out this November and vote him out of office. I sure hope so.