Candidate Barack Obama back in 2008 said he wanted to be a “transformative President” – that he wanted to fundamentally change America. His campaign theme was “change we can believe in.”
Well, now he’s President. Has he changed the country?
According to a just released poll, done for The Hill by Pulse Opinion Research, two-thirds of those polled say that yes, he has changed America. But more importantly, by 56% to 35%, most of those polled said that he has CHANGED THINGS FOR THE WORSE.
I would certainly include myself in the 56% who believe that Barack Obama’s changes have been in the wrong direction.
For example, the first major piece of legislation he pushed through the then-Democrat-controlled Congress was his $868 billion Stimulus package. He promised at the time that if it passed, unemployment wouldn’t go over 8%. It passed, but unfortunately unemployment’s been OVER 8% for 41 straight months now.
And it’s worse than that. The Obama economy is so bad that millions and millions of people who used to be in the workforce, have lost their jobs, and have been so discouraged that they’ve given up even looking for work, and they’re no longer counted as being unemployed. If they were counted, the unemployment rate would jump from 8.2% to nearly 15%!
Here’s a statistic that should worry Barack Obama. No President since Franklin Delano Roosevelt has been re-elected to that office with an unemployment rate above 7.2%. And we’re at 8.2%.
That being said, in my view, Mitt Romney is going to have to run a smart, focused, aggressive, issue-oriented campaign in order to defeat Barack Obama this year.
The Obama campaign has made it pretty clear that they will say and do just about anything to hold onto the White House. Obama has pandered to one group after another in his attempt to secure their votes.
For example, he declared that certain immigration laws would no longer be enforced by his Administration, in an attempt to placate Hispanic-Americans who felt he hadn’t kept his promise to push for comprehensive immigration reform. He announced his support for gay marriage, after previously claiming that he opposed it. And he tried to paint himself as the only thing standing between college students and higher tuition rates (a total fabrication I might add.)
My analysis of the race at this point, is that even though most polls show Obama slightly ahead, either candidate can win, and it’s likely to be very close.
As for electoral votes, there are really only ten or so states that are in play. And Ohio as usual, is one of the most critical swing states. So we’ll be inundated with TV ads (mostly negative unfortunately) by both the Obama and Romney campaigns, as well as from so-called super PACs, and other groups who will weigh in.
The candidates themselves, as well as their Vice Presidential running mates will be frequent visitors to the Buckeye State. (And of course if Romney picks Rob Portman to be his partner, Rob will already be very familiar with our fair state.)
So hold onto your seats, this is likely to be a hard-fought, nail-biter of a Presidential election. And the stakes couldn’t be higher.
