Yes the nation was, to use a phrase popular with Democrats, “lied into” electing Barack Obama President. Or as this author puts it, Obama on the flying trapeze:
We’ve seen him in action for a bit more than six months. What we can say with confidence, now that we have the evidence of his actions, is that had he run on (a) transforming the U.S. economy by massive federal government intervention, (b) taking an owner’s stake in the automobile industry, (c) transforming the rules of America’s energy economy, (d) instituting a national health-care system – all of these simultaneously and in the centre of a financial meltdown – Barack Obama wouldn’t merely have lost the election, he wouldn’t have got as many votes as gnarly old Ross Perot did in an election long past….
It is inconceivable that these ideas occurred to Mr. Obama postelection. His agenda is of such scale and particularity that it is evidence of design and previous contemplation. He knew what he wished to do when he was campaigning, but he was not going to whisper the scale and range of his designs while the campaign was on. It would have scared off people.
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Not Too Early For “I Told You So”.
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Comments
I have a hard time believing that his supporters did not know his agenda. Since his approval rating is still in line with his electoral rating, I have a hard time believing that Americans are disappointed in him.
I don't think the problem is that Obama supports bad ideas. I think the problem is that Americans support bad ideas.
The mainstream media wouldn’t do it. So we are trying to get your important messages to the American people. 67 This post is a suggested read at, http://aresay.blogspot.com/
Americans knew exactly who they were voting for. The majority of Americans felt like the republicans screwed up this country, and they finally wanted to fix it. McCains campaign promises were no different then Bushs, so he clearly wasn't the answer.
Republicans are a minority now and they really need to deal with that fact. For example, when republicans claim that we have the best health insurance system in the world, that isolates the 40% of americans without health insurance. Obviously they don't think we have a good plan, and as long as Republicans keep saying we do they'll never get those votes…
The problem is that Obama's agenda was clear to anyone who studied his past, rather than being satisfied with "just words." Not the specifics, of course, but the whole hell-for-leather devotion to statism and Keynesian economic fantasies. Sure, PBO dissembled, but the truth was there for people who did the research the media refused to do.
Hey Professor Jacobson, I've gotten the impression from previous posts that you respect Cass Sunstein's work- but would he feel the same way for your work? I'm not really sure why you think Sunstein is okay, since his ideas are diametrically opposed to small government. Now Obama has made him the head of the "White House Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs." Sunstein wants to redefine libel as the "spread of false information." What is false information, Professor Jacobson? What's the truth behind the Honduran protester's blood-soaked shirt? WHOSE TRUTH, Professor Jacobson?
http://www.nypost.com/seven/07112009/postopinion/opedcolumnists/gag_the_internet__178749.htm
Hey, also, I thought of you the other day because I was in Ithaca, which is so so beautiful. The Ithaca Bakery I think embodies the distopian leftist vision- the bureacracy involved in trying to get a sandwich- different, multicolored counters for different functions, they ask you to give you their name which they call out (and over-priced). It's a lot of hoo-hah and red tape just to get a sandwich. Although, their stuff is delicious.
It was shouted from the hilltops — his supporters refused to listen, being all starry-eyed and enthralled and all. Joe the Plumber called his hand and got the "treatment" as a reward.
Rasmussen has him with a -7 approval rating, and falling. There may yet be hope (without change).
That's the "passion" index,not an approval rating. Fifty-seven percent of Americans still approve of his job performance. More than half of Americans still support everything he's done and plans to do.
Obama doesn't scare me, but Americans sure do.
I had a conversation just the other day with a supporter (conservative living, professes to be a hippy) and she sighed and said that she hoped that he would be the agent of change he said he was in the campaign. I commented that I didn't vote on words but on history and that I thought he was too much of a Chicago pol to be the transformative leader he claimed to be. She sighed again and agreed reluctantly.
His support among people who wanted him to be a new kind of leader, people who work in private industries or are small business owners, is eroding quickly. They wanted to believe in the dream, despite their own common sense.