Cogito Ergo Non Serviam

Obama Lays out Election Strategy in State of the Union

Last night's State of the Union speech delivered by President Obama was hardly memorable as a piece of writing. As usual, Mr. Obama brought his oratorical talents and pulled off a good performance. However, the material he had to work from was a journeyman's piece of wordsmithing and hardly something that will resonate across history. It was, in fact, a Clintonesque laundry list that set out markers for November's election.

What is all boils down to is this brief passage from his script, "We can either settle for a country where a shrinking number of people do really well while a growing number of Americans barely get by, or we can restore an economy where everyone gets a fair shot, and everyone does their fair share, and everyone plays by the same set of rules." In normal times, both of the main political parties would sign up for the latter. These are not normal times.

The Republican standard bearer in November will either be Willard Mitt Romney (a man who pays about 14% on his eight-figure annual income in taxes thanks to the current tax code) or Newton Leroy Gingrich (a millionaire who has or had a revolving line of credit at Tiffany's for $500,000, interest-free). Neither of these men can be credible when making the case for a society in which the rules are the same for everyone because they have not had to live as the rest of the nation has. That is not to say that a bazillionaire cannot be a populist who is in touch with the needs of the typical American, but these specific individuals have shown they are not.

So, by laying out a list of things to be done (the Buffet Tax, clean energy, construction jobs, etc.), the president has established a scorecard for the voters. One only has to go down the list to see what got done and what didn't (and if it didn't, who prevented it) to decide whether the administration has kept its word or not. Historically, this approach works very well in generating advertising and campaigning themes.

In the Republican response, Indiana's Governor Mitch Daniels (a man in need of a charisma transfusion and the Director the of the Office of Management and Budget under President Bush the Lesser, the surplus killer) was cautious in his tone, but he was a fear-monger in his content. "The President did not cause the economic and fiscal crises that continue in America tonight. But he was elected on a promise to fix them, and he cannot claim that the last three years have made things anything but worse." How are they worse? The private sector is adding jobs rather than shedding them, the stock market is up about 50% from its March 2009 low, insurers can't drop health coverage on a whim, there are no combat troops in Iraq, Usama bin Laden is dead.

The governor also said, "So 2012 is a year of true opportunity, maybe our last, to restore an America of hope and upward mobility, and greater equality." Last chance to stop the rot? Republicans don't win elections being the party of doom and gloom. Compare Ronald Reagan's goofy, sunny optimism (largely unwarranted in his case) with Bob Dole's cranky, "get-off-my-lawn" approach. It is hard to take the GOP seriously if it is going to offer fear and loathing from the richest of Americans at a time of austerity (if not worse).

So as Arthur Conan Doyle wrote, "Come, Watson, come! The game is afoot." For Watson, read "America."

© Copyright 2011 by The Kensington Review, Jeff Myhre, PhD, Editor. No part of this publication may be reproduced without written consent. Produced using Ubuntu Linux.



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