2012 Calls for Change, Not Hope

 

By Bradley Blakeman
Newsmax.com

Obama was swept into office with charisma, promises and slogans. He was the consummate candidate. He had all the answers and spoke eloquently and with passion and could excite and move people to action.

He promised “change you can believe in.” He promised an open and transparent government. He pledged to listen to the people and return “civility” to governing.

In 2012 the public is finding out what the rest of us knew all along. The man who had all the answers to all that ails us in the 2008 campaign has no answers as president seeking re-election with a record replete with failure.

Even today, President Obama refuses to take responsibility for his actions. Instead, he continues to blame others and embarks on a strategy of distortion, deflection and division.

What Obama did not have in 2008 he has in 2012 — a record.

According to Rasmussen Reports, Obama entered office with an overall approval rating of 65 percent. This week it is reported that Obama’s approval rating tanked to 48.3 percent according to an average of polling reported by Real Clear Politics.

Rasmussen reported this month that, 63 percent of Americans believe the country is heading down the wrong track. The most damning news however for the White House and Democrats standing for election on Nov. 6 is the polling reported by USA Today this week that found that 56 percent of Americans in “swing states” believe that they are not better off today than they were four years ago. Nationwide, 55 percent of Americans think the same.

The president and his Democratic leadership the past three-and-a-half years badly miscalculated their “mandate” for change. They did what they wanted to do, instead of what the American people needed to be done.

The president declared time and again that the recession we faced was the worst since the Great Depression yet his handling of it made things for our economy much worse. Instead of dealing head on with the economy, he created a “crisis” on healthcare and rammed through generational healthcare legislation that the people did not want or need.

Americans from all over the country kept asking themselves back in 2010, “What good is ‘affordable’ healthcare in 2014, if I do not have a job in 2010?”

Today Americans are asking the same questions they did back in 2012 and according to Rasmussen Reports, 52 percent of Americans now favor repeal of Obamacare.

What has really turned the country sour to the president is his aloofness to their economic plight. The president promised us that unemployment would not exceed 8 percent nationally if the more than $700 billion stimulus passed.

We now know that unemployment shot up to 10 percent and still hovers at 8.3 percent nationally since the stimulus bill was passed. In addition, in many urban areas unemployment is 18 percent and among the youth population those 18-29 the unemployment rate is 20 percent.

Evidence of frustration by Obama supporters could be seen at the president’s hand-picked audiences as early as 2010.

At one town hall meeting Obama’s former law school classmate Anthony Scaramucci said this to the president: “I am exhausted of defending you, defending your administration, defending the mantle of change that I voted for.”

And who can forget the African-American woman who identified herself as a CFO, mother, and military veteran. She took the president to task at another such gathering: “I’ve been told that I voted for a man who was going to change things in a meaningful way for the middle class and I'm waiting sir, I’m waiting. I still don’t feel it yet.”

These are ardent supporters that he is disappointing. These are the people the White House handpicked to attend events.

Since then nothing has changed for the better. In fact things have gotten worse. Curiously, Obama and his campaign no longer favor such events to get their message out in 2012.

If it were not for bad news Obama would not make news. This week the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office predicted another more than $1 trillion dollars in debt this year, and is counting on a double-dip recession.

Unemployment is high. Gas prices are setting records. Our credit rating has been reduced, foreclosures are rampant as are bankruptcies. We do not have a national budget. We are running historic deficits. Unfunded wars are being waged and Medicare, Medicaid, and Social Security are teetering on insolvency.

On the eve of the Republican Convention, it is not enough to tell America how bad things are. Republicans need to remind people that we together can solve any and all problems facing us. Candidates and speakers must be hopeful, optimistic, and most importantly all must set forth a clear, concise and understandable road to economic recovery.

Federal, state, and local elections will most assuredly turn on the economy. It is all about jobs, budget, energy, debt, responsibility and leadership.

In 2012, America is hoping for a change for the better in our economic well being.

Bradley A. Blakeman served as deputy assistant to President George W. Bush from 2001-04. He is currently a professor of Politics and Public Policy at Georgetown University and a frequent contributor to Fox News Opinion. Read more reports from Bradley Blakeman — Click Here Now.

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