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Downtown, the Unbound Magazine's From the Publisher's Desk
Fearless Rick | 11/03/2012
Why Obama Should win Easily (and why he may not)
With the election bearing down hard on the candidates and the electorate, it's time to make the call, and, despite the resounding cries from the media that this is "the most important election of your lifetime" (just like in 2000, 2004 and 2008) and that it's "too close to call," the evidence suggests otherwise.
President Obama should win easily, handily, and without a doubt, like a solid stakes-winning race horse running against a common claimer. The Obama team has put together a solid campaign - despite the failure in the first debate, now almost universally forgotten - a superior ground game in the most hotly-contested states and a message that almost all Americans can clearly understand: after four years as president, we know him.
The Republican challenger, Mitt Romney, hasn't managed to clarify his message, nor has he detailed any of his "plans" to save America. Romney speaks of repealing Obamacare his first day in office. That's as empty and impossible a promise as any candidate of recent vintage has made, simply because unwinding legislation that's already been partially implemented, besides being approved by the Supreme Court as constitutional, is about as easy to do as cork-stopping an erupting volcano. It just isn't going to happen.
Other promises candidate Romney has made ring equally hollow.
He says he'll restore jobs in America. The truth of the matter is that the president has limited power over the health of the economy and the United States is in the midst of a serious financial crisis - one that the Obama team hasn't yet come to grips with - that has caused structural damage and change to the status quo. Jobs that used to be plentiful - especially in manufacturing and construction - have gone either to foreign countries or been severely crimped by the Great Recession from which we are slowly emerging, if you believe the statistics.
A "laissez faire" approach to business might just be the key to prosperity, without the headache and interruption of government at all levels. While both candidates purport to being "business-friendly," to Romney that equates to being friendly to big business, particularly his friends in high places as CEOs or on the boards of major, publicly-traded corporations, not primarily small, often one-man or one-woman operations which, together with multitudes of small business of less than 50 employees, constitutes the bulk of business in America. Obama sees that a diverse business climate not dominated by a handful of companies in each industry offers more opportunity for growth and prosperity, while Romney, blind-sided by his years as a vulture capitalist, prefers the top-down model that has been a disaster for the middle class and actually stifles creativity and competition.
On foreign policy, Obama is once again the clear winner. Again, he's been short on bold initiatives, but that is probably a good thing. American foreign policy is well-established and not likely to change dramatically in any meaningful way in as short a time as four years. Obama hasn't done any damage to our reputation; in fact, some may say he's improved it by promoting an America that is more willing to seek compromise rather than dictation, common sense solutions over gunship diplomacy.
For his part, Romney has repeatedly stated that he would build up the military to a fighting force that "no one would dare oppose." That sounds like sabre-rattling and war-mongering to allies and enemies alike, and Americans are largely sick and tired of wars that have limited (or, clandestine) purpose and seemingly never end.
At least Obama got us out of the disaster that was Iraq and is painfully slowly unwinding our operations in Afghanistan. It's almost a certainty that he'd like us out of there sooner rather than later, but his hands are largely tied by the military, logistics, corporate interests and the ongoing threat in the region of terrorism, most of which emanates from Pakistan, a hotbed of Islamic radicalism.
Additionally, Obama did kill Osama bin Laden, something George W. Bush had nearly eight years to accomplish and never came close. Assassination of global terrorists may not be the most palatable policy, but it is effective and Americans could finally put some closure to the tragedy of 9/11, something that has been largely understated in this election season.
Tax rates on the ultra rich, one-percenters in this country are too low and the income gap between them and the middle class has continued to grow, even under Obama, but Romney - through his surrogate, vice presidential pick, Paul Ryan's short-sighted proposal to gut Medicare and actually lower taxes on the rich - is, once again, on the wrong side of the issue, the side that favors the wealthy over the middle and lower classes, clinging to the debunked and fatally-flawed ideology of trickle-down economics, which has never worked, never will and is primarily nothing more than a fascist propaganda ploy to quiet the cries from the "rabble" that constitutes the vast bulk of the American populace.
Romney's efforts to persuade Americans on nearly any topic have failed miserably, mostly because he's nothing but a media creation, the consummate politician, with nothing more than getting elected on his agenda, and he's proven such by changing positions on critical issues to meet the desires of the particular crowd to which he is speaking.
It's commonly called "pandering" and Romney has proven exceptionally adept at the practice.
Surely, our economic issues are center stage, and Obama hasn't exactly excelled at solving our problems, but, trillion dollar deficits to the contrary, he's kept the country afloat in a time of serious crisis. His rather smooth hand is preferable to the rough treatment the middle and lower classes would expect from a Romney presidency. Obama has done a credible job navigating the US through a very rough patch, despite an ornery, obstructing congress. Making a leadership change at such a critical juncture would be jarring and unwise and the American populace largely understands this.
Finally, there's the electoral collage and the map charting the way to 270 votes. In practically every poll and strategy gives Obama an easier route to victory than Romney. The president has never trailed in Ohio, and is unlikely to lose his edge in that key swing state. Elsewhere, the Romney team - and their surrogates at Fox News - seems to believe that they can forge a victory without winning Ohio, or even capturing that state. They cite Virginia, New Hampshire, North Carolina, Colorado, Florida and laughably, Wisconsin, Minnesota and Pennsylvania as key states they can and will win. The notion is ludicrous on its face, improbable at best and impossible without some vote-rigging, something the Republicans are notably quite good at, considering their "decided" (by the Supreme Court) victory in 2000 and the stolen election of 2004.
The only way Mitt Romney becomes our next president would be by massive fraud, which cannot be discounted, only because it's happened before. However, Democrats and freedom-lovers nationwide are on alert, and the chances of another stolen election are no favorable for the Republicans and their misguided candidate with the cloudy past and clouded, changeable positions.
Without vote-rigging, vote-switching and outright fraud, there's not a snowball's chance in hell that the Republicans can win with such a flawed candidate as Mitt Romney. He's a stuffed shirt, an apparition, with limited ideology, and that which does emerge is highly favorable to the privileged upper crust and devastating to the rest of America. He's neither conservative nor particularly well-equipped for the job of bringing America back from the brink of financial catastrophe. Obama, at least, has weathered the storm of the past four years and that alone raises him well above his opponent.
Obama will win a second term, and, barring any dirty tricks by the Republican party, will win easily. Americans should be able to go to bed by midnight Eastern time secure in the knowledge that the process - as flawed and precarious and convoluted as it is - has worked, with the hope that a second and final term by Barack Obama will produce less partisanship, more cooperation and clear solutions to some very thorny problems.
Publisher's Additional Note: I know that many were awaiting the truth story promised last time (see below), but, well, I didn't realize that the election would become a topic. Yes, I am imperfect, but let's get through the coming week and I'll promise it again:
Next time: The untold story: the unmitigated truth about the downfall of my fledgling 1980s media empire, or, "How Gannett couldn't handle my success, killed my business and ruined my life."
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