Here's my latest as published at my Examiner Column (sourced links there):
http://www.examiner.com/examiner/x-51986-Silicon-Valley-Conservative-Examiner~y2010m8d9-Obamas-Car-Metaphors-Inadvertently-Drive-Home-Republican-Points
For the 2010 mid-term and 2012 elections, President Obama and the Democrats have chosen to continue to campaign against… George W. Bush? Really? That’s the game plan? Is this overly exhausted tactic the best they have? If so, they should hit with their best shot and all but assure their defeat. If they believe this is a winning strategy for them, then they are more deluded and disconnected from the Country than previously thought.
Ironically, Bush is being given more credit and power than anyone on the left ever wanted him to have.
After a disappointing attempt by Obama to make humorous “digs” at Republicans during a speech given at a DNC fundraiser on August 2, the joke is on him, as he provided enough meat to create a great “Republican Ad” sandwich. Thinking himself so clever, and believing he was making great metaphorical digs, he inadvertently made the Republican’s case for them instead.
Obama’s first mistake was mentioning Bush. Two years into his radical “fundamental transformation of America,” many Obama-voting Americans, suffering buyer’s remorse, no longer buy this worn out rag of a strategy. On the contrary, they join a majority of Americans who are so opposed to Obama’s radical policies that they would now view the imperfect Bush White House as a refreshing drink of water comparatively; at least it was still the untransformed Republic of our Founders, something that could actually be workable. Billboards have been popping up around America with a picture of Bush and a caption that asks, “Miss me yet?” for a reason. What a statement of the current political climate!
Obama has beaten this dead “Bush” horse so much that it has become glue, but, unfortunately for him, not the kind that sticks. Two years later, the cat is so far out of the bag with the now more informed American people, the argument has lost its potency. In fact, it’s so obvious that it’s embarrassing to see him still use this huge turn-off of a deconstructed, benign and ineffective strategy. Now falling on deaf ears, it has the opposite affect Obama mistakenly hopes for. Instead of helping boost his rapidly declining approval, it exemplifies why there is such a decline, further, it increases it.
During this speech, Obama yet again used a now familiar Alinsky tactic, made familiar by his own over-usage of it: deflection by blaming others for the very things of which he is guilty. With an apparent and usual smug pleasure in his own chiding, Obama said, “… they're betting on amnesia… They're counting on that you all forgot. They think that they can run the okey-doke on you. Bamboozle you." Hilarious! But not how he intended, rather, because, obviously, he is the one hoping Americans will have amnesia about the past two years, hoping they have forgotten. Reminding them of their former ire against Bush is his own bamboozling deflection from himself and all he has radically done the past two years, against the passionate disagreement of the American people, a deflection that no longer works. The damage he has done in so short a time easily overshadows anything Bush did. It appears that only Obama doesn’t yet realize it - Bush is so yesterday. All eyes are now fixed on Obama and his Administration. The clear disapproval of Obama’s policies are still so fresh in the minds of the American people, no “Bush-like” reminders are needed. And while the left likes to declare that voters always forget, they are in for a huge shock in November as voters have been chomping at the bit to get to the 2010 mid-terms and stop this “Wonderland” madness.
As far as exactly whose policies “got us in this mess in the first place,” awakened and thus, better educated Americans know that the economic downturn began in 2006 when Democrats took over the Congress. Blaming Bush and conservative policies is a hollow argument when history clearly proves the conservatism of our Founders works. Obama claims Republicans drove us into an economic ditch but he dug us out. Just because he says it over and over again does not make it so, especially when there is an abundance of proof otherwise. He fails to recognize that the American people are watching him drive us off a cliff a la “Thelma and Louise” style! His policies have tripled our National Debt in less than two years! In this time, he has spent more all by himself than all previous Presidents put together. He cannot revise history and sell it like a welcomed lemonade stand in the summer heat. Americans are no longer thirsty for his spin, or his radical policies.
As for his mocking of the number one item on the Republican agenda being the repeal of his Healthcare Bill, saying, “I have no idea why you would want to repeal that in the first place,” of course not – he is clueless! Repealing the Bill is the greatest music to America’s ears! It is the number one item on the agenda of the American people who never wanted it in the first place. Obama has forced this upon the American people and before it can do any damage, Americans want it shut down. What does he think the TEA Parties have been about? Why doesn’t he recognize how the TEA Party fires were turned up considerably during the Health Care debate last summer, both in rallies and those “violent, angry, mob-filled” Town Hall Meetings? Republicans will be considered heroes if they succeed in repealing the monstrosity of a Bill.
Lastly, Obama’s “Car” metaphor, with the double entendre of the “D” standing for “Drive” and the “R” standing for “Reverse,” was the garnish on the sandwich. When driving forward means driving off a cliff and destroying the Country, you can’t get into reverse fast enough to prevent it! It is embarrassing that he fails to recognize that slamming on the brakes and throwing it immediately into reverse is exactly what the American people want!
Republicans would be smart to make the most of this one speech – Obama provided all they need to make their point, both for the 2010 mid-terms and the 2012 elections. They could create a multitude of creative ads using clips from the speech to “drive” home the point: this President and the Democrat-ruled Congress are “out of touch!” The evidence comes from Obama’s own lips, through his not-so-clever quips, as if the majority of Americans are still bamboozled by his spin.
Indeed, Obama should run against Bush and equate Republicans with the TEA Partiers, just as they have planned. Brilliant! The American majority is no longer asleep and is not so “stupid” as Obama once counted on. In the summer of 2009, he jumped the shark and now he is trying to use old tricks to swim back upstream to his former glory days. However, all that his tactics do is cement everything Americans have learned since then until now: mostly that Obama’s “Hope and Change” feels more like “Hype and Chains,” and all that Americans hope for now, effective immediately, comes in this new mantra: “Change it back!” That would be a very good place to start.
