Friday, February 13, 2009

Schwarzenegger's Lesson for Obama

Reviewing Sandalow's piece in the DCExaminer entitled Schwarzenegger offers a cautionary tale for Obama:
Schwarzenegger’s approval ratings, which once hovered at Obama-like levels, have fallen to record lows. The latest survey from the Public Policy Institute of California showed that fewer than one in three approve of Schwarzenegger’s handling of the state’s economic troubles. More than half disapprove of the job he is doing as governor.
Yes, Arnold is a big disappointment, he ran his election on the libertarian platform, but morphed into a tax-and-spend moderate. (Matt Welch over at Reason does a good job explaining what Arnold has become.) Funny, they never seem to morph the other direction.

So Sandalow offers a cautionary tale for Obama. I disagree with Sandalow -- Arnold is no cautionary tale for Obama. Not because Arnold doesn't provide a suitable example, he does, but because Obama does not believe in cautionary tales.

Sandalow scores big with these key points:
Republicans can talk all they want about tax-and-spend Democrats, about Cabinet secretary nominees not paying taxes and about not wearing jackets in the Oval Office. If the economy rebounds in a meaningful way over the next few years, Obama’s talk of change will resonate, and his star will shine ever brighter.
On the other hand, no amount of mellifluous prose, Internet savvy or bipartisan appeal will overcome an economy in which plunging stock prices ruin retirements, bank failures dry up credit and one in 10 Americans is out of work.

Whether either one of these extremenes occurs, or something in betwen, we can only hope that Obama will not be dealt Bill Clinton's hand. (For one thing, I do not want to see Michelle as Secretary of State.) Clinton was impeached, but is still the living hero of the Democratic Party. Now to his credit Clinton was a moderate, like Arnold. Obama is a radical, and there is a tiny chance he just might crash and burn as people wake up out of their stupor and realize he is making slaves of the middle class for the benefit of the lower class. That awakening is unlikely, with the corrupt fourth estate as Obama's mouthpiece. More likely, he will be quoted for the next 200 years as revisionists create causality between Obama's farts and greenhouse gas reduction or something equally absurd.

What will happen: if the economy recovers: Obama will take the credit. If it doesn't he'll say he has a mandate to do something "we need another round of financing for a stimulus" Here is a hint... Obama is praying for another round of financing, he wants to borrow from your grandchildren to erect massive institutions to socialism and his ego. Whatever happens, three and a half years from now Obama will be asking for re-election to "finish the work we began in 2009, when we started cleaning up from the previous administration." In the meantime, he will charge ahead with his agenda full of socialism, blinders on to the lessons of his predecessors.

7 comments:

OBloodyHell said...

Obama's efforts are going to be as effective as Jimmy Carter's. The economy isn't going to "clear up" because it isn't addressing any of the problems with it in a meaningful way, any more than Japan's idiotic and almost identical "efforts" throughout the 1990s did.

Obama is going to be a one-term president just as Carter was, because the notions he espouses are inherently brain damaged to the point of blatant incompetence.

Unfortunately, all too few have 30-year memories. And those who do not remember the past are doomed to repeat it.

OBloodyHell said...

Jon Stewart on The Stimulus:

http://www.thedailyshow.com/video/index.jhtml?videoId=218356&title=clusterf#@k-to-the-poor-house

Even the liberals are getting on his case...

If he keeps it up, he'll be a lame duck PotUS before the traditional honeymoon is over.

I hear the "Jeeeeeemy... Jeeeeeeemy caaaaaaaaaaaaaaartr" whispers starting already.

Bob Cosmos said...

Obama, Barack Hussain (OBH)

O Bloody Hell (OBH)

There's a coincidence for you...

Bob Cosmos said...

OBH -- Thanks for sharing! The Daily Show is really very good.

I wish I could agree with you that BO-44 will be a one-term president. While he is lowering the standard of living for the country, he is raising it for certain voting blocks, which is something Carter didn't do. Carter tried to fix every problem, he worked too hard.

BO-44's character is very different, he does not want to fix problems, he wants to erect a self-sufficient perpetual socialist machine.

OBloodyHell said...

I think the biggest question is whether or not the GOP's actual conservatives can get their sh** together and oust the neolibtard infiltrators who have ruined the Party to this point. Crap, if they could get their act together fast enough, they could probably oust the Dem majority (which, considering the low marks Congress is getting, ought not to be hard) and weaken his ability to hand favors to his friends.

But Obama is almost certain to be a one-term PotUS for the simple reason that he (or, more accurately, the Dems) are not going to fix anything in the economy, which means that it's going to be spectacularly obvious, even with the MSM cheering for him, that The One hasn't done jack for anyone.

OBloodyHell said...

> There's a coincidence for you...

B+O+B

2+0+2=4.

Coincidence? I think not...

:oP

Humans are pattern matchers -- we look for patterns where there are none. It's why there remains numerology and astrology in this day and age. One of the things schools should be teaching children and are failing to is how to recognize false and irrelevant patterns.

Bob Cosmos said...

>But Obama is almost certain to be a one-term PotUS for the simple reason that he (or, more accurately, the Dems) are not going to fix anything in the economy, which means that it's going to be spectacularly obvious, even with the MSM cheering for him, that The One hasn't done jack for anyone.

Half of voters pay no taxes at all, and many of those are on the dole. Do you think any of them will vote for conservatives that promise to reduce taxes and spending? Using Roosevelt as a model, we can see how manipulating certain voting blocks can gain BO-44 another term. To see which groups he is targeting now, just take a look at the beneficiaries of the so-called Stimulus package, which is really the starter of his self-sufficient perpetual socialist machine.

All Obama has to say is "Yes the economy still sucks, but we are not done fixing the mess from the previous administration." I think I am going to make a longer post on this topic in the coming weeks, so more debate the better.