For your consideration...

[Joseph Burkeson, CMI]

Originally Posted by mlarson

Setting up the blame game for an Obama administration already are we?

Reminds of when Clinton said he worked so hard but couldn't do what he promised during the campaign.

Here is the real answer...


Victory Within Grasp, Obama Faces A New Choice
October 9, 2008 03:12 PM

As two major developments become increasingly likely - a Democratic presidential victory on November 4 and a sustained economic crisis - Barack Obama faces a difficult choice: does he begin now to prepare the electorate for tough times, or does he continue to maintain a politically contrived optimism on the assumption that he can shift gears after election day.

The short-term incentives are all on the side of maintaining a happy face: As things stand, Obama keeps moving ahead in the polls, winning debates and expanding his hold on battleground states. Why junk a winner?

Conversely, Obama and his aides have to calculate how the rhetoric of his campaign will influence his ability to govern. On this score, there is wide disagreement, with political scientists, strategists and political analysts - in responses given to the Huffington Post - all over the map.

Pew Center pollster Andy Kohut notes that both Obama and McCain "are caught in a bind. If they say we are in for a tough run, they run the risk of being seen as unconfident and pessimistic. However this opens them up for being seen as wrong and letting down the public once elected."

One argument is that a failure to prepare voters for what's coming can have disastrous results. Both George H. W. Bush and Bill Clinton promised either tax cuts or no new taxes and ended up reneging on their commitments. Bush lost in 1992 and Clinton lost his Democratic majorities in both the House and Senate in 1994. Conversely, Ronald Reagan, who was explicit in promoting his conservative agenda during the 1980 campaign, took office with the legitimate claim that he had a mandate to seek tax and domestic spending cuts.

"It simply is not credible to suggest that the policies to be offered in response to the credit crisis make up exactly the same laundry list as [Senator Obama] offered a year ago. But that is all [he] offered in his second debate with Senator McCain," says Michael Malbin, professor of political science at the University at Albany, SUNY. "Sen. Obama owes it to the American public to be telling us more. The financial crisis is not business as usual."

Looking at the question from a more strategic vantage point, political scientist David Brady, of the Hoover Institution and Stanford, says Obama should prepare voters by telling them now that it's "'too early to know how well the bailout will work.' Otherwise he could be like Bill Clinton in 1992, having to raise taxes because the deficit was too high."

The opposite argument is that the political costs of voicing pessimism are prohibitive, that there is plenty of opportunity to prepare voters for drastic action after election day, and that a candidate risks worsening conditions by sounding strong warnings. The classic example to support this case is the 1932 Depression-era campaign of Franklin Delano Roosevelt, who said little or nothing while campaigning in 1932 to indicate the contours of his New Deal program.

Excerpt: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2008/10/09/victory-within-grasp-obam_n_133346.html

[Michael Larson]

It's gonna a tough road ahead when the people who voted for change find that Obama has no clue.

[Joseph Burkeson, CMI]

Joe Biden: Fired Up in Liberty

"Remember you really can't call yourself a Maverick if all you have ever been is a sidekick" - Joe Biden

[Michael Larson]

If you want fired up Take a Look

Mad Republicans on the loose.