Baggage
If you watch CNN and most other media outlets, this race is over. I’m not ready to go quite that far. However, if it is, I gotta wonder what we are electing. Obama just seems to collect baggage every day of late. Now we’re looking at credit card fraud, which I don’t think is enough to derail an Obama presidency, but it could prove to be a distraction. Add on to that this week’s other revelation, that he hangs out with terrorist sympathizers, and of course, his Marxist socialist philosophies. Toss in Ayers, Jeremiah Wright, and a whole host of other fringe elements, and it seems to me that in addition to the very serious issues that will meet the new president in January, Obama’s going to have his hands full putting out completely unnecessary fires. What this reminds me of is Clinton coming into office in 1993 with a whole slew of personal and legal problems that hounded him the entirety of his presidency. It very often distracted from the message he was trying to push, and eventually crippled him his last two years in office. The dangers he warned us about Iraq ( yeah, IRAQ! ), were largely ignored as a desperate attempt to distract from his legal problems. George HW Bush came into office with basically no baggage at all, and the events of 2001 basically hijacked his entire presidency. I can’t imagine what things would have looked like over the last seven years if he had had numerous personal and legal questions hounding him the entire time as well. Whoever takes office in 2009 will have a popularity problem. The economy is perilous, Russia is becoming more aggressive and antagonistic, and the conflicts in the Middle East will continue unabated. It’s not a matter of how long we’ll be in Iraq, we’ll be in the Middle East for a long time. It’s just too dangerous to ignore. The social agenda of Obama will not be possible. It’s just that simple and obvious. If he attempts to raise taxes on anyone any time soon, The One will be crucified. There is no way with the out of control federal budget he can cut taxes significantly. With no additional revenues and no way of raising additional funds, any program he does try to create will either be unfunded or will take funding from other existing programs. And, I’m here to tell you, you don’t mess with social programs without suffering wounds. How long will people buy into “The One” without the big results he’s promised? Change can happen. But, it has to be done at the right time. The Democrat social agenda of the last two years is a big part of what’s gotten us into this mess. It’s not being written about much, but it is. Look at the stock markets since Pelosi took over Congress. Look at housing. Look at unemployment. Look at employment. It’s no coincidence it all tanked. They’ve added expenses to doing business and not given employers reason to hire. It’s that simple. With Obama’s message of spreading the wealth, that incentive to hire people will be under even more pressure. How long will people see the economy slide before they tire of it? How long will CNN and MSNBC protect The One when they start suffering from his policies as well? That is when Ayers, Wright, the credit card fraud, and the numerous other issues Obama carries with him will mean something. Additionally, following the natural cycle of politics, if the Democrats win big in 2008, expect the trend to start moving the other way in 2010. If that does happen, as it did to the wildly popular Bill Clinton in 1995, that’s when that baggage becomes a real issue. And, that baggage only makes it that much easier for the other side to reverse the trend. Toss in the real scary issue of the Obama people already censoring media, and you can expect a rather nasty public backlash from the people who protected The One.
It’ll be interesting to watch tho.
UPDATE November 21, 2008: The rather nasty public backlash is starting a lot sooner than I even expected. But, basically in line with what I did expect. I don’t like Kos so I don’t normally link there. However, Daniel Halper apparently does read it and has several quotes. As nasty as it’s already getting, I can’t wait to see what happens when Obama actually does name his cabinet.
