By all accounts, the president's re-election prospect is in trouble. One can lay some blame on the president - because after all, he is the president and that is where the 'buck' starts and stop. The biggest obsticle Mr. Obama faces in his uphill battle for a second-term is oddly his own base. Not that these liberal voters will cross over to support a conservative candidate, but rather will find themselves without a 'Real' dog in the race and thus skip voting all together.
This is because many liberals view Mr. Obama's governing style as too conciliatory to republicans and not willing or able to stand his ground on issues important to them. In thier view - the president has basically sold them out. On issue after issue - he has capitulated. From cap and trade legislation, to the Patriot Act, to Guantanimo bay, to repeal of the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA), to immigration reform, and even health care reform, his signature domestic accomplishment, which the president quickly abandoned the "single-payor" option that many in his party badly wanted. But the biggest problem he faces in this regard is that he fell for the "Deficit First Trick" at a time when the federal government needed to spend the country out of a recession.
The Republicans were able to dupe the president into thinking that deficit spending is the number one problem facing us as a nation. Not so - it is jobs - which the lack of - has lead to one of the highest and longest period of unemployment in our time. We need a "New-Deal" approach to solving our jobs problem. Both parties know this - but the republicans have skillfully turned the word 'stimulus' into a bad word. Why? Because the GOP lack new solutions for creating jobs, they are stuck back in 'Trickle Down' or 'Voodoo Economics' theory. Which is the idea behind tax cuts to wealthy and corporations with the belief that the money will 'trickle dowm' stream to the middle and lower classes. The Ronald Reagan approch which President George H. W. Bush appropriately labeled "Vodoo Economics."
Instead of President Obama taking republicans to task for their policy gimmicks, he has been dancing to their beat - which makes him look funny. With the 2012 campaign now on the way, there is virtually no chance of the president getting any meaningful legistlation through divided Congress. However, he can call-out the 'Do Nothing Congress' as only a president can. The fact is that the Republicans have blocked every job creation bill democrats have tried to pass in order to make the president a 'one-term president'. Which the Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell indicated was his number one priority. That's exactly what is playing out.
For the President to have a snowball's chance at re-election, he needs to show the American people the games that the Republicans have played with their lives and the consequences thereof in order to make him a one-term president; that for the GOP it is more about the president's job rather than them - the American people. In other words, put their record, literally, the voting record of everyone in Congress and highlight the price of their political gamesmanship. This will infuriarate independent voters and liberals, who are aware of the obstructionism - but unsatisfied with the president's approach of 'compromising' with the intransigent and unreasonable GOP on vitually every issue.
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