“You know, I’m a hundred percent confident that the people of Iowa and the American people will win the day on November 6th of this year when President Obama is re-elected because of his policies, because of the fact that he has brought this country out of the worst economic disaster that we faced since the Great Depression and the people of America know” – DNC Chairwoman Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz (D-FL)
The benefit of liberals is that you’ll always know what an alternative universe will look like, and here we have Snaggletooth providing the most recent window into that world. One has to, at some point, sit back and question whether this woman is really this incredibly stupid, or this incredibly dishonest. There is not a single economic metric that even remotely connects any Obama promise to economic success. Not one. In fact, the American Enterprise Institute had a recent article title, The 7 most illuminating economic charts of 2011, which shatter the Administration’s “economic success” rhetoric.
My guess is that they know, without a doubt, that they are telling the American people a massive whopper of a lie. I’m convinced Obama is not nearly as smart as liberals think he is, but he can’t be so stupid as to believe the bullshit the DNC and his re-election campaign is spewing into the ether. What I find amusing is the Administrations belief that class warfare rhetoric is going to win the day for them and the Dems in general. Yes, yes, he is a man of the people as he takes not one, but two private jets- at taxpayer expense- to Martha’s Vineyard and Hawaii to stay in multi-million dollar estates. Clearly, one of us.
In truth, I love the delusion. I love that liberals actually think that this is somehow a winning argument for them. Keep it coming. Really, let it flow. Tell us that a few hundred thousand here, or a million or two there, don’t mean anything in the greater scheme of things. Go on and tell us about how crying foul over wasteful government spending is just a nagging effort in desperation, as if there are no major issues of consternation from this Administration for the American people to fret about. Really, it’s working… or maybe not.
Stepping back into reality, let’s look at who the American people are- and more importantly- how the Administration’s message is resonating with them.
Gallup conducts a survey on the political ideology of U.S. adults. This is an ongoing survey that started in 1992 and since its beginning, Conservatives have consistently outnumbered liberals 2-1. The most recent survey, done in August ’11, has 41% of U.S. adults identifying themselves as Conservative, up 4% from 2008. Likewise, only 21% of U.S. adults call themselves liberal, down 1% from 2008’s all-time high of 22%. 36% of U.S. adults identify as moderate, again down 1% from 2008. More U.S. adults identify as Conservative and that metric continues to steadily grow.
But an important component of the survey that easily gets lost is the partisan breakdown of ideology, specifically the Independents. In 2008, 30% of Independents called themselves Conservative. However, that number jumped to 35% in the August ’11 survey with self-identified liberals only making up 20% of Independents.
This Conservative Ascendency is important in that the message of the Administration is not resonating. And there is a lot of data to demonstrate this. At the end of December, Gallup conducted another survey in which they asked U.S. adults to rate their political ideaology, and the political ideology of the Presidential candidates- to include Obama- on a five point scale, with 1 being very liberal and 5 being very conservative. The average for the U.S. adults sampled was 3.3, or moderately conservative. All GOP candidates either matched the sampling (Huntsman) or were slightly to right with Michele Bachmann being the farthest to the right by 0.7 (4.0 versus 3.3). Obama was a full point to the left (2.3 versus 3.3), which means that the average American more closely identifies with the GOP candidates than with Barack Obama.
This plays out in another poll, done by Pew Research Center, but focused on economic structures rather than political ideologies. The survey looked at views of Capitalism and Socialism, and what the reaction was by different demographic groups. Dems as a group see Capitalism negatively, but it is only liberal Dems who see Socialism positively. Correction, liberal Dems and Blacks who see Socialism positively, which explains why we see the race card played so hard and so often now by the left.
In party identification, Rasmussen’s recent survey found that self-identified Republicans increased in December while self-identified Dems decreased. This is particularly interesting, though it is still very early, in generic balloting. As it sits now, according to Rasmussen, the GOP leads Dems 43% to 38% and in the Presidential race, a generic Republican beats Obama 47% to 43%.
A lot of this is based on the economy, which is the biggest concern of voters. This is followed by Healthcare, Education and Iraq, which the survey found that voters trust the GOP over the Dems on all of these issues. In fact the only issue the Dems are more trusted than the GOP is Social Security and Government ethics (Mainstream media’s whitewash of Solyndra, Fast & Furious, and the DOJ seems to be paying off).
Which brings us back to the rhetoric of the Administration. Class warfare sounds great to partisan ideologues, but it rarely stands the test against actual facts. Again, AEI’s The 7 most illuminating economic charts of 2011 do a great job of demonstrating just how much damage this Administration has done to the economy. Obama has consistently tried to put the failings of his economic policies on Bush, but this one graphic best reflects the failings of this Administration.
Obama can talk all he wants about the eeeevvviiilllllllllllll Republicans, but the facts remain: this Administration has been an epic failure, and the American people know this.
President Obama spoke with ABC’s Diane Sawyer in an interview on Thursday. Sawyer asked him how intense his reelection ambitions were. “How much do you want it?” “Badly,” Obama replied. “Because I think the country needs it.”
The 800lb Gorilla 