By Ted Belman
I was referred to an article titled, What Explains Fashionable Hostility Toward Israel? by a reader, but I found myself more interested in another article by William Galston, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution, Why a New Poll in Ohio Spells Trouble for Obama in 2012
After making the case that Ohio is a bell-weather state, he continues,
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[..] Now for the Quinnipiac survey, released in two tranches on Wednesday and Thursday. To begin, it finds that the 2010 Republican tide has ebbed considerably. Newly elected governor John Kasich enjoys a woeful 35 percent approval rating, in part because his agenda is out of sync with that of the electorate. Although Ohioans think it’s fair to ask public employees to pay more for health insurance and pensions, only 34 percent support Kasich’s push to limit their collective bargaining rights. Fifty-eight percent think public employee unions should be able to bargain over health insurance, 56 percent oppose banning strikes by public employees, and 56 percent support a referendum to repeal Kasich’s changes to Ohio’s labor laws.
While Kasich made his mark in Washington as a leader on fiscal issues, the Ohio electorate is turning thumbs down on his budget as well. Yes, the people like the fact that the budget was balanced with spending cuts, not tax increases. Still, 54 percent of Ohioans disapprove of the way their governor is handling the budget. Fifty percent think that the newly approved fiscal plan is unfair to people like them; 34 percent think that the cuts go too far, versus only 25 percent who think that they didn’t go far enough; and only a third believe that the cuts will help the state’s economy.
In other words, if the 2012 election in Ohio were a referendum on Governor Kasich’s first two years, Obama would probably be home free. But there’s good reason to believe that it won’t be. Take health care. Fully 67 percent of Ohioans disapprove of the individual mandate in the new federal health care law—Obama’s signature domestic policy initiative. A proposed amendment to Ohio’s constitution blocking the mandate’s implementation may well pass and will certainly keep the electorate focused on that issue. In addition, 78 percent of Ohio’s voters (including 66 percent of Democrats) favor a state bill requiring would-be voters to show photo identification in order to cast their ballots, a change that Democratic operatives believe would reduce their margins in lower-income and minority communities.
This brings us to Obama’s chances. Fifty-eight percent of Ohio’s voters disapprove of his handling of the economy, despite the fact that Ohio unemployment has declined by two full percentage points—from 10.6 percent to 8.6 percent—since February of 2010, versus only 0.5 points (9.7 to 9.2 percent) for the country as a whole. Only 46 percent approve of the president’s overall job performance. The same percentage—46 percent overall, and 40 percent of Independents—feel that he deserves to be reelected. While the survey shows him way ahead of Tea Party favorites such as Sarah Palin, Michele Bachmann, and Rick Perry, Obama’s edge over Mitt Romney is a barely significant four points, 45 to 41.
The most recent NBC News/Wall Street Journal survey shows much the same thing: Obama’s job approval stands at 47 percent, and he leads Mitt Romney by 48 to 41 percent. And the generic question is revealing: Asked to choose between President Obama and the “Republican candidate,” 42 percent of voters said they’d probably vote for Obama, versus 39 percent who opted for the Republican candidate. But fully 10 percent—a share that hasn’t varied much this year—said that it would depend on the identity of Obama’s opponent.
Of course, it’s early, and as a useful Gallup analysis shows, an incumbent’s ratings in the twelfth quarter of his presidency are more predictive than are those in the tenth, the quarter that Obama has just completed. But it’s not too early to see the basic options for 2012. If the economy perks up even modestly, Obama wins. If not, we’re in for a repeat of 1980, when a majority of the electorate was willing to fire the incumbent, but not unless they felt comfortable with the challenger—a sentiment that didn’t crystallize until the pivotal Carter-Reagan debate. So if the Republicans manage to nominate a mainstream conservative who seems reasonable, they may well win. If they nominate Palin or Bachmann, they’ll commit creedal suicide, as each party ends up doing about once a generation. As for Rick Perry—the Republican flavor du jour—it remains to be seen whether he can become the party unifier who energizes the Tea Party base and Main Street conservatives without repelling the moderates and independents who will decide a close election.
What I found interesting was that there is so much opposition in Ohio to fiscal conservatism. That’s the biggest plank in the conservative platform. Galston’s argument as to why Obama might not get reelected was I thought, weak. While in poll after poll, all the olicy positions taken by Palin have majority support.
If Obama can’t win on the issues and has no record of acheivemnt to run on, what is there that enables him to retain so much support? Does it really boil down to whether the economy improves a bit.
In other words — so that Greenspan could hedge his bets,
we placed industry in a quandary: wherein their planners could not project for new investment & new hires because they had no certainty regarding what the taxing climate would be like at or around that “expiration date,”
leaving a MOUNTAIN of otherwise available, corporate money FROZEN thru fear.
Ever try holding a cat without supporting his legs?
I meant to write, instead of
that we have NO leadership from Obama, and a hyper-partisan bubble called Congress where John Boehner and Tom Coburn, and Mitch McConnell, try to lead. I am very disappointed in Eric Cantor. and all the Dems.
I hear The Philipines has asked the USA to function like a country with a government.
best simple explanation of how Bush43 took total debt from $5.8trillion to a bit more than $10trillion.
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2011-07-26/republican-leaders-voted-for-drivers-of-u-s-debt-they-now-blame-on-obama.html
The $500bil Medicare cut was the Dems deleting the GOP’s injection of privatization thru Medicare advantage.
Just to spread the blame even more – the Clinton surpluses were ONLY from an accounting change where the Social Security surpluses were added to general revenue. REAGAN’s SS fix included tax increases to generate SS surpluses in advance of Boomer retirements.
The reason the Bush43 tax cuts were scheduled to expire was because Alan Greenspan only gave his nod of approval if there was an expiration date, just in case the projected surpluses failed to appear.
I do not know how much of the current annual deficit is due to loss of tax revenue due to high unemployment, but Obama certainly has increased discretionary spending beyond any stimulus or bailout.
The whole mishegoss would never have happened if the Dems had not pushed thru Obamacare. with Pelosi being more partisan than DeLay had been when the GOP had one-party rule.
now we have NO leadership in a hyper-partisan bubble called Congress.
The bond and currency markets will take control. That was one thing Clinton understood: the bond market rules.
Catarin, you’re using the two different terms, debt and deficit interchangeably.
However, while they both begin with “de” and both end with “t,” and are both about money, that’s pretty much ALL they have in common.
They have markedly different meanings.
(Guess who made BOTH of the two, above, blockquoted statements.)
If you’ll make up your mind which term you want to use, it’ll be a lot easier to stay on the same page with you (regardless of whether one agrees OR disagrees with you).
http://blog.heritage.org/2009/03/24/bush-deficit-vs-obama-deficit-in-pictures/
With internal enemies like the Democratic Party, all the rest of the world has to do is sit back and watch our demise. There’s no need to attack.
Bruce, please don’t type while you’re sleeping. Once again, Bush ran up $7.4 Trillion, Obama ran up debt about the same for a total of $14 trillion. Bush’s $7.4 trillion includes charging two wars on credit cards and giving billions in cash away to who knows who.
It’s not an end run if the Supreme Court agrees. This will probably depend on how much the Supremes think the country is in danger. Wouldn’t this be a good time for an enemy to attack?
Obama has trebled, at minimum, the amount spent by Bush. But, of course, that doesn’t count. It’s Bushes fault.
You say you’d like Obama to end run the House of Reps? YOU and those that think like you are the greatest threat to a free country. Do you realize that you have just suggested giving Obama dictatorial powers?
I’m adding to this post since my subject is Obama. I was going to vote in the poll, but then I came to the question, Should the $500 billion (whatever) Obama slashed from Medicare be restored? I’ve never heard of this money. What is this Ted?
George Bush ran the deficit up to 7.4 trillion dollars. This happened while we weren’t looking and was agreed to by many Republicans still in congress today. This includes the billions that were “lost” in Iraq and now nobody knows who got it… The deficit is now up to 14 Trillion but we watched it happening with the last $7 trillion. The banks got a huge chunk, initiated by Bush, and the rest of this money was spent in full view of everyone to keep the country from going under.
I think the Republicans are pulling a coup. Obama cannot give in to them, not only because part of them are the Dirty Doers, but because Obama is president, not them. I think Obama should take emergency legislation to the U.S. Supreme Court saying that America’s survival is at stake and giving him a run-a-round from the House of Representatives. I hope Republicans who are the criminals in this will go drown in the ocean. glug glug
Tea Party GOP Drives US Towards Catastrophic Default, World Panic
Italian Prosecutor Michele Ruggiero Building Case Against Corrupt Ratings Agencies – Obama Justice Department Out to Lunch
gold loves Bernanke by Celente
While Rome Burns (America) we are distracted by the old Bread and Circuses Gambits!!!
Letter to Congressman Van Hollen on Solutions to the Default Crisis
Webster G. Tarpley, Ph.D.
TARPLEY.net
July 21, 2011
My dear Congressman —
The American people are not interested in Obama’s Grand Bargain or the Gang of Six plan, which are cowardly and dishonest attacks on Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, jobless benefits, and other vital programs. Cuts in these programs will not reduce the deficit, but they will kill Americans. Such cuts represent a veiled form of genocide. We want to save money by ending all the wars, including Obama’s fiasco in Libya. We want the repeal of the failed Bush tax cuts. We want to see Wall Street forced to pay their fair share through a Tobin tax or Wall Street Sales Tax of 1%, with half the proceeds kept by the US Treasury and the other half distributed to the states to stabilize budgets and protect social services. We want the most toxic derivatives — including credit default swaps and collateralized debt obligations — banned, as they were from 1936 to 1982. We want a recovery and jobs program in the New Deal FDR tradition, all financed by 0% federal credit from a nationalized Federal Reserve. Reactionary Republicans and Tea Party fanatics need to be fought, not appeased. As for the ratings agencies, they should be on trial for their malfeasance of 2008, and not dictating policy to the US government. If Obama thinks he can get re-elected by catering to Wall Street and by betraying his own base to pander to those morally confused independents, he will meet the fate of Jimmy Carter. Any Democrat who votes to weaken entitlements must expect to be primaried and ousted. We urge you to call McConnell’s bluff and avoid the cataclysm of default by passing a clean bill to raise (or, better, abolish) the debt ceiling with NO CUTS to our hard-won New Deal and Great Society economic rights.
— Webster G. Tarpley Ph.D.
The real Agenda of the extreme right in America financed by the Mellons and the Koch Bros is the complete repeal of all FDR and LBJ entitlements and the breakup of the American labor movements. While the left has their Soros the right has their own as well. Both have similar end game agendas. This is why I trust NO Politician, they are all owned or will never see high public office.
Important messages from Gerald Celente, Trends institute
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M3XpfaXlblM
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l6rPzwqrkPU
When I look at the U.S. political scene from north of the border all I see is a bucket of apples and oranges, all of them rotten. What ever happened to government of the people, for the people and by the people. Today, it’s government by power elites and which lies have the most money behind them.
My money’s on Generic Republican.
Ted, that Galston post at TNR was well below Galston’s usual level of neutral insight. He seems to be reacting to the staunch TNR commenters who remain infected by Obama-itis. Galston never recovered from the comment thread when he bashed Netanyahu on June 16:
http://www.tnr.com/article/the-vital-center/90048/israel-netanyahu-livni-palestinian-abbas
In fact, Galston has fallen into the groupthink that Peretz’s “fashionable hostility to Israel” post tries to explain. Actually, Peretz mostly needed to flog his former mentees who now think Netanyahu-bashing is the way to excuse O’bama
I comment at TNR under a different name (please no leak to your cousin!), but did not think that Galston analysis of Ohio was worth the time to comment.
But, anyone here who thinks Palin or Bachmann will get the GOP nomination had better not hold your breath, and should read this historical analysis of the GOP nomination process:
http://nationalaffairs.com/publications/detail/a-gop-dark-horse
and wait to see what happens when Rick Perry officially becomes a candidate, sometime in August.
Hard to see how O’bama can win in 2012 now that it has been revealed in NY’s Jewish week that McCain handily won the Weiner’s NY9thCD in 2008. If Obama can not win New York, Ohio will not matter.
The quoted poll on Kasich’s popularity in Ohio should be taken with a large bucket of smelling salts. Polls can be manipulated to obtain any answer you want, and in the end, if unemployment in Ohio is down Kasich and the Republicans will get the credit. The Democrats are hell bent to pursuade people that the majority of America is on their side to reinforce their own self-destructive doubts and fears. There is no way that the American economy will be any better next Nov. than it is now — even if Obama tries to bribe the 50% of Americans who pay NO income tax with every penny of the 50% who do. The only way Obama can win in 2012 is by stealing the election with the help of his union goons and thugs. As he said, “if they bring a knife to the fight, we will bring a gun.”” I assure you, he was NOT kidding. Social idealists like Obama are so sure of their own righteousness that they can rationalize, any evil, any crime, any lie and come out smelling like a rose in their own misguided eye.
Jerry Said:
FIFY
What we need here is a really negative campaign. Mr. Obama has relieved the American population of the safety implied in rule of law. He has lied to the electorate. He has sent boys to their deaths in a war he did not intend to win. He has bankrupted the country with his Cloward-Piven strategy. He has undermined democratic values and dismissed as irrelevant the views of our founding fathers. He has in larger terms brought the world to the point of massive destruction by removing the US from the position of power that those seeking justice in the world could depend upon. He has thrown millions of people under the bus by failing to support people seeking freedom, most illustrative of this process being the Iranian people. He has supported by lack of action and also by direct action the Muslim Brotherhood who will likely grab power in both Egypt and Syria within the next six months. He has supported, by failing to discipline or fire Eric Holder, the idea that law can be differentially enforced depending upon to which favored group you belong. He has failed to put forth any meaningful budget or legislation, leaving these duties to the legislative branch. Indeed, he has failed multiple times at all tasks that this country requires to remain functional.
I am exposed mainly to the Right’s points of view, which I do not accept as revelatory, but as somewhat sensible. Nonetheless, I have come to doubt the ability of the American electorate to make rational choices. Frankly, Donald Duck should receive more votes than Obama. At least the cartoon character has done no harm.
Obama is a failure. The only thing propping up his numbers are the mainstream media. And polls? Most are intentionally skewed.
The historic mandate of 2010 has not lost steam amongst the voters who are now paying double for their gas and watching their food prices skyrocket since then, not to mention the perpetually poor jobs market and overall economy. To the contrary, our numbers are increasing.
Couple all of that to the members of his base that he is continuously losing as a result of his ideologically driven policies, such as his moratorium on drilling in the Gulf, there goes Louisiana. His assault on the coal industry, there goes West Virginia. His animus towards Israel, there goes, what? 35% of that base? He’s even lost at least 20% of the black vote.
Obama is a one term failure.
Whoever wins the Republican nomination will be the next President. If you are a Conservative, as I am, our job is to make sure that it is a Conservative that wins it. If Palin chooses to run, I will back that principled Patriot. If not, I will work for whomever she endorses.
I tend to think it’s because America is at the tipping point where a majority benefit from government spending and a minority pays for it all.
That’s why the debt issue is existential. Do we raise taxes and push ourselves over the cliff to socialism – and instant bankruptcy? Or do we reclaim America’s genius and virtue – freedom and limited government?
@HA65MPH –
My money is with Palin.
I think our best bet is voting for Bachmann. She is intelligent and well liked. Her chances are excellent to beat obummer.
I WOULD VOTE FOR EITHER ONE .. AS I KNOW THE ‘GALS” WOULD LOVE AND ‘CARE FOR OUR COUNTRY ” just sayin’
Why are they taking the side of the public employees? This is taxpayer money we are talking about.
Palin and Bachmann are mainstream conservatives who hold views much like Reagan yet the writer assumes nominating them will be suicidal for the GOP. Reagan was also considered too extreme in 1980 yet won a landslide victory. Given that this article is from TNR that explains this analysis. Liberals are still trying to convince us these women are unelectable yet they are terrified of them. I don’t buy into the notion that either of them can’t win.
The Republicans are big on ideology and short on clear practical solutions that can be understood by the public. Being disillusioned with Obama is not enough. People are looking for specific solutions that look credible and practical. Neither party has the brains to even set up a basic suggestion program to tap into the creativity that exists among many Americans. During the 2008 election cycle I called the energy staff persons of 50 representatives and senators of both parties offering something practical regarding energy. I left a message for a call back. Not one of these people ever responded. Go to http://www.byronwine.com and see why we are deliberately being locked in to the energy mess and why the leadership class is willfully deaf dumb and blind.
Ted said,
What’s so interesting about that? The factories are gone and rusting, the only jobs are for young people flipping hamburgers, beggars are on every street corner and people are getting kicked out of their homes. If Obama has Geithner print out bales of funny money and drops them out of airplanes at the polling booths, he will get elected. People in need are not fiscal conservatives: They’re potential goons for hire to the highest bidder. Remember Germany in the early 1930s, when its government was exercising “fiscal conservatism”.