There is a talk show host where I come from that likes to warn his listeners not to get caught up in the thick of thin things. By this, he means, don’t get sucked into a debate about insignificant but sexy issues and then lose sight of the really important ones.
This is especially good advice in the political campaign season because politicians and their handlers love to find a sexy molehill and then spin it into a mountain. A case in point is Mitt Romney’s wealth (Breaking: Mitt Romney Still Filthy Rich) or Ann Romney’s horseback riding (MS and Romney’s Horse). These are “thin” issues meant to attract you and then distract you from the critically important issues in this race: Barack Obama’s progressive policies and his economic obsolescence.
In Wednesday night’s debate President Obama tried to suck the country into a debate about Romney’s economic plan which, according to the President, lowers taxes on the wealthy, raises taxes on the middle class, blows up the deficit and cuts “critical” investments in education and biofuels.
This is from a man who has no economic plan at all, who couldn’t pass a budget in Congress, who presided over trillion dollar deficits each year of his Presidency and engineered the greatest total increase in public debt in American history.
Moreover, although he keeps reminding us that he inherited “the worst financial crisis since the Great Depression” from George W. Bush, Obama eagerly re-appointed the man who presided over that financial crisis, Bush’s Federal Reserve Chairman, “Helicopter” Ben Bernanke.
All this noisy speculation about the arithmetic of Romney’s economic plan is a sideshow meant to distract us from the really important issues of this campaign: Barack Obama’s failed Keynesian economic policies and progressive ideology.
This is not to say that Mitt Romney is an Ayn Rand-like advocate of the free market. His comment that free economies need to be regulated is oxymoronic. Still, Romney doesn’t hitch his wagon of economic recovery to a retread promise of hiring 100,000 new government workers, or creating two million more “slots” in government schools, or converting pond scum into diesel fuel.
The thrust of Romney’s rhetoric is economic growth in the private sector. The thrust of Obama’s rhetoric is government growth, following the pattern he set in his first term.
In 2009 Obama signed a near trillion dollar Stimulus package that stimulated the pockets of Democratic Party special interests but little else.
In 2010 Obama signed the monstrous ObamaCare act that will serve as a prelude to a single payer, government-run health care system unless it is repealed.
In 2011 Obama proposed a second Stimulus package of $447-billion, this time labeling his effort to expand the size of government a “Jobs” package.
In late December, 2011 Obama told 60 Minutes that his first Stimulus package should have been “even larger.”
In an interview with the Daily Caller Congressional Democrat Mike Honda of California and the Congressional Progressive Caucus summed up the Keynesian economic ideology that drives him and, no doubt, the President and his administration:
“We know that if we invest money into this economy and get cash into people’s hands, they’ll spend it and once they start spending the money, it starts to circulate through our economy and it’ll stimulate the economy and we’ve done this other times before. It [The 99 Percent Act] will increase our deficit but we need to increase our deficit right now to make that investment and make that place so that we can get this thing started.”
This is the kind of obsolete and addled economic reasoning that over the last hundred years has gotten us into the mess we’re in. This is the kind of economic policy we’ve had for the last four years. This is the economic policy that Barack Obama promises to continue the next four years.
Don’t allow yourself to get caught up in the thick of thin things and lose sight of this simple but critically important truth.
This post was originally published at Property…Freedom…Peace.
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Monday, October 22, 2012 -- Mitt Romney And Barack Obama – Final Presidential Debate
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You are exactly right; Barack Obama doesn’t want to talk about his record so he continually throws out these diversions which are designed to take the focus off the real issues. Many people fall for this and at times it is hard to resist writing about them, but we must stay focused on the important issues and we must continue to point out that Barack Obama has failed the American people.
Yup. Here’s another Obama diversion from the truth:
“Obama attacks Romney on oil tax break remarks he never made”
http://dailycaller.com/2012/10/05/obama-attacks-romney-on-oil-tax-break-remarks-he-never-made/#ixzz28Y11fFEq
Very good advice, Sherman. Obama’s entire campaign is designed to destract the voter from his record.
True. I think the quote from Rep. Honda is key. That’s Obama’s record.
The problem is that the distractions matter. August and September were dominated by Obama distractions and it really hurt Romney. On some level they have to be responded to.
You’re right to a certain extent. On the other hand, you have to respond quickly and then move on. I followed Gov. Scott Walker’s recall election in Wisconsin quite closely. As you know, Walker won handily. Afterwards, he attributed his success to never allowing the opposition to control the message. He said he always stayed focused on his main message no matter what he was asked. He then repeated that message again and again and again and again. Romney was quite effective at this in the debate.
I don’t disagree. There as to be a delicate balance between staying on message and responding to attacks from an opponent. I don’t think Romney did a good job responding to some of the Bain attacks and at the same time he didn’t seem to have a message for a couple months. Romney’s August and September was perhaps a tutorial in what not to do in a campaign. These days he seems to be staying on message while rolling his eyes at Obama’s attacks. That’s probably good for him so long as Obama doesn’t come up with anything new.
Both parties rely on the distraction of social issues. The Right goes for the God and Country vote (Bible and Flag) and the Left goes for the God and Gay vote (Religious people are nutty and gays need protection). Meanwhile both parties steal from the taxpayer.
Remember, GW was not penny pincher. I might be voting for Romney but he isn’t exactly going to be Scrooge when it comes time to dole out the cash.
Agreed. I’ll vote for Romney because he’s not Obama. However, next time the Republicans must nominate a candidate who understands your comment about stealing from the taxpayer.
Sherman, all of this would be interesting if I thought that you had some sort of real guiding principles that govern your advocacy of Romney. I’ve suspect that you don’t for a few rounds now, but you confirm it with your declaration that you will vote for Mitt Romney because he isn’t Barack Obama.
I also put this together with your note to me on another thread:
“The fact that Romney lies does not imply that Obama tells the truth. The fact that conservative websites and publications print some of the news subjectively does not imply that liberal websites and publications print all of the news objectively. Your observation that “people seem to hear what they want to hear” does not exclude you.”
WOW. You admit that it’s a fact that Romney lies, and yet you’ll vote for him anyway. Everything else you may try to convince me of falls on deaf ears, since you’ve proven to me that you accept lying in a politician (and will vote for him no matter what)as long as he’s on your side.
I don’t hear just what I want to hear. I hear what people are really saying. Unfortunately, neither of your above positions are something I respect. Sadly, I hear exactly in you the same things I hear from those on the far left. And realistically, just like leftists, I know I can never have an actual conversation with you, since you don’t really care about the content of anything as long as it has an (R) attached.
Now who is telling who what he believes?
It’s good to hear, though, that you won’t be voting for Obama.
Very strange and twisted. I didn’t say I wouldn’t be voting for Obama, and I didn’t state what you believe, I showed you direct quotes of yours.
You’ll vote for Romney because he isn’t Obama- you don’t dispute that, right, since it’s what you wrote?
I do have a real question, one that I’ll not comment on the response if you’d rather. But does it mean anything to you that Mitt Romney has stated straight out that he has no plans for any abortion legislation- regulation, expansion, either one.
I’m assuming here, and correct me if I’m wrong, but you’re pro life. Does Romney’s statement give you pause at all?
Speaking for myself, I have no problem with Mitt Romney’s stance on abortion. I may wish he would state his opposition to abortion a bit more strongly, but I think he believes the issue should be left to the states.
Whoops. I have no idea how that got posted twice. Believe it or not, I’m not quite so enamored with my own voice that I’d do that on purpose. Truth is, I’m a techno-dork.
I deleted the duplicate comment. I doubt it was anything you did that caused it to post twice. I believe the mechanics of the blog software aren’t playing as nicely with a comment plugin I am using to load the comments without having to reload the entire page. The technical term I am using is “glitch”.
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