It likely is surprising to most faithful JMO readers that I've been holding my tongue with such a close, contentious, and convoluted campaign season. Well, with only three more days until we know who will take the oath of office in January it is time for me to share my thoughts.
My purpose for the following multi-post adventure is two-fold: Primarily, if there are any "undecided" voters reading this, I hope to provide you with well thought-out, reasoned, logical, and persuasive arguments to cast your vote for any candidate other than Barack Obama. Secondarily, I hope that the opinions and facts that I will be sharing would cause some voters who consider themselves supporters of the President to actually consider changing their minds regarding the candidate for whom they will vote. I believe the latter to be less likely, but a blogger can dream, can't he?
Table of Contents:
Why We Voted for President Obama
Things Said During the 2008 Campaign
Scare Tactics
Time's Up
Unity and Disunity
Questionable Definitions
Obama's Record
Michelle's Spending
Lawn Signs
Why We Voted for President Obama
I'd like to direct the first portion of this post to those of my readers who voted for Barack Obama in 2008. In 2008, we were looking at unemployment at completely unacceptable levels, rising gas prices, a weak housing market, a stock market that was struggling, an economy headed in the wrong direction, and we could point to specific policies put in place by the party in power and reasoned that they neeed to go. The reason I mention is this: We have the exact same reasons to vote Barack Obama out of office.
Things Said During the 2008 Campaign
The truth of the matter is that, in the past, President Obama has said some very true things. Particularly while campaigning for, and early in his term as, President in 2008 and 2009. In the speech he gave accepting the Democratic nomination for President he said this, "If you don't have any fresh ideas, then you use stale tactics to scare voters. If you don't have a record to run on, then you paint your opponent as someone people should run from." Does this resonate with anyone? Does this not sound like nearly every strategy eminating from the Obama campaign since day one of this election season?
Scare Tactics
All I've heard from Obama is scare tactics regarding his opponent. "A $5 Trillion dollar tax cut for the wealthy." "No real plan." "He won't deal harshly with China." "He'll ship our jobs overseas." "He's a Mormon." "He'll end Medicare as we know it." "He'll outlaw abortion." etc etc etc. Barack Obama doesn't have a record to run on, so he's trying to frighten people away from voting for Mitt Romney. He's trying to create a scenario where staying with the person who hasn't done the job as well as we'd hoped is still better than someone who will really foul things up. But this is completely illogical. "The devil we know..." We know that the President has been unable to right the economy in a reasonable amount of time; so, clearly, it makes more sense to bring in someone new. The chance of improvement is better than the guarantee of status quo. Bringing this full circle back to my first point: Obama's philosophy behind his original election campaign is the exact philosophy that should unseat him on Tuesday. The sitting party couldn't get us out of this mess, we need a change.
Look, if Mitt is elected, doesn't live up to his campaign promises, and ends up doing all of the things that Obama is claiming he's going to do, then I'll vote him out of office myself.
Time's Up
Which is exactly what President Obama predicted very early in his tenure as President. He admitted that he had three years to turn this ship around and if he was unable to do so, this would be a "one term proposition." Well, let's hold him accountable to that. Four years is more than enough time to turn an economy around. Even if it isn't back to where it started, the trending should be upward. Which it's not.
Let's take this out of the policital realm for a moment. The Boston Red Sox recently fired Manager Bobby Valentine after just one season. They said the following regarding their decision: "Bobby was dealt a difficult hand. He did the best he could under seriously adverse circumstances... He was dealt with a lot of difficult issues and things happened outside of his control. But we are where we are, and the results weren't good and we are looking to move forward." Even the Red Sox understood that, regardless the hand that was dealt ("It's Bush's Fault"), it is appropriate to expect a certain level of results in a certain amount of time. Bobby didn't meet the Red Sox expectations and the President hasn't met ours.
And for those who like to point the finger at the Republicans in the House for standing in the President's way, don't forget he had two years of complete control. The Democrats had a filibuster proof majority and they did next to nothing.
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