Political Pinball, One Day Later

By Alan Caruba

In the primaries, politics is a lot like pinball as it moves in unexpected ways, lifting one candidate’s chances of getting the nomination, bypassing others. In the national election, it’s more like a bowling bowl, rolling down a straight and narrow stretch headed either to the gutter or a strike.

For Republicans, we’re in the pinball phase of the blood sport of politics. For Democrats, they have but one choice and that’s Barack Obama. Watch now as many Democrats re-register as either independents or Republicans.

How can you tell who the White House fears more as an opposing candidate? Just watch how many times David Axelrod, the public relations guy behind Obama’s win in 2008 gets on television to attack Mitt Romney and Texas Gov. Rick Perry who announced his candidacy on Saturday, the day of the Iowa straw vote. Then try to keep count of the number of lies he will tell about either.

In 2008, Axelrod had a totally unknown, charismatic Obama to sell who ran more against George W. Bush than John McCain. In 2011-2012, he has the most unpopular President since Jimmy Carter.

Axelrod honed his skills in Chicago politics. On August 9, Politico revealed that “Barack Obama’s aides and advisors are preparing to center the president’s re-election campaign on a ferocious personal assault on Mitt Romney’s character and business background, a strategy grounded in the early stage expectation that the former Massachusetts governor is the likely GOP nominee.” (Emphasis added)

Five days later Obama’s advisors had Gov. Rick Perry in the crosshairs. Romney had skipped the Iowa straw vote, but none of them believe the straw poll winner, Rep. Michelle Bachmann, has any chance of securing the GOP nomination. And they are right.

Like some pit bull chained up in the basement of the White House, Axelrod came charging out on Friday to attack Gov. Perry even before the straw vote made news. As Jeffrey Folks said in an August 14 commentary posted on AmericanThinker.com, Perry is “the most successful American governor in living memory.”

The political pinball has bounced away from Romney, Bachmann, and other GOP candidates and found its home in the Perry campaign. The longer it stays there, the more it will transform into a great, big bowling bowl headed straight down the lane and into the White House.

On one hand it will be fun to watch Axelrod and other Obama lapdogs foam at the mouth and spout all manner of lies about Perry, but it’s 2011, the economy is in the tank, the nation’s credit rating was downgraded for the first time in its history on Obama’s watch, the unemployment rate is officially at 9.1, and the dreaded “double dip” recession is in full bloom.

Moreover, Obama has lost his mojo. He is in the worst of all political positions; he is an object of ridicule.

Folks compared the Texas economy to California’s. Given that California is one of the most liberal States and Texas is comfortably conservative when it comes to policy, Folks noted that “What California lacks in the kind of political leadership that will attract new business. Economic growth in California—one can hardly call it ‘growth’—has been stagnant or worse over the past decade.”

“In April 2011, California ranked last among the 50 states in job creation” said Folks, noting it had an unemployment rate of 11.8% while in the same month, the unemployment rate in Texas was 8.2%.

“As Governor of Texas,” Folks pointed out, “Rick Perry helped to create a tax and regulatory environment that would attract new business to the state and allow businesses already there to flourish.” And Texas has a zero income tax!

Within twelve hours, former Minnesota Governor Tim Pawlenty had dropped out of the GOP race and we can expect the others to follow suit with the likely exception of Mitt Romney, but Perry will demolish him in the primaries to come.

Republicans can already smell a winner and with good reason. Perry is the longest serving Texas governor and he has never lost an election. The Reagan Democrats of the 1980s put him in the White House and it will be the turn of the Perry Democrats this time around.

There’s a reason Obama is franticly trying to raise as much money as he can at this point, 14 months out from Election Day. In the months and weeks ahead, the smart money will no longer be there.

Only one thing is predictable, Axelrod and the Chicago political thugs that form the inner circle of Obama’s team will engage in every dirty trick, every slander, and every lie possible in a desperate effort to stave off the juggernaut of Gov. Rick Perry.

© Alan Caruba, 2011

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President Babe

By Alan Caruba

There’s a lot I don’t know about Michele Bachmann, the Minnesota Representative who just announced that she wants to be the next President of the United States of America, but I do know she is great eye candy and, given the present occupier of the office, I would much rather look at her in the Oval Office than him.

She is—and I say this with all due respect—a babe.

Mitt Romney, with whom she is currently a “front runner” in the nomination sweepstakes, looks classically presidential. He is a handsome fellow with a winning smile. My guess, though, is that if Texas Governor Rick Perry gets in the GOP race, all bets are off or, more accurately, all bets will be on him. Gov. Perry has a certain John Wayne cragginess about him and a track record of success in the Lone Star State.

I would like to say that the presidency is not a beauty contest, but to some degree it is.

Put side-by-side on a stage with Obama during the 2008 campaign, John McCain looked like one of the dwarfs that hung out with Snow White. However, confounding everyone during the campaign was the former beauty contest contestant and Governor of the Great State of Alaska, Sarah Palin and she, too, is an attractive gal. Plus she can skin a moose. Can you????

In a society that is conditioned by scads of celebrity silliness to prefer handsome men and beautiful women, it is no secret that we prefer our candidates to meet Hollywood casting standards. Anyone old enough to remember John F. Kennedy can verify that. Rumor is that the ladies loved him and he returned the favor. Jackie Kennedy was quite a beauty in her own right and a great asset for him.

By Hollywood standards, who would not vote for George Clooney or Robert Redford in a heartbeat? By comparison, Newt Gingrich more resembles the Pillsbury Doughboy. Until he opens his mouth and then he has the tendency to make a lot of sense along with the occasionally egregious gaff such as teaming with Nancy Pelosi to spout global warming fairy tales.

Now here’s where it gets interesting. According to a recent Rasmussen survey, 73% say they expect the United States will have a woman President sometime in the next ten years. “Voters are more willing than ever to elect a woman president” said the survey results and the national telephone survey found that “82% of likely U.S. voters say they are willing to vote for a woman president.”

So a President Bachmann, while unlikely in the short run, is not unlikely in the decade ahead unless, of course, we elect a President Palin before that. Some political pundits are saying that Rep. Bachmann might end up on the GOP ticket as the vice president candidate and would thus be one heart attack away from the presidency.

Rep. Bachmann is a Tea Party conservative and that has been gaining traction. I would vote for her just because she wants to repeal Obamacare and there’s much in her stated political positions with which I would agree. In politics as in life, good timing is always helpful and Rep. Bachmann brings an impressive personal and political resume to a race that is actually beginning to look and sound interesting.

Given the savage treatment accorded Gov. Palin, we shall soon know how much Rep. Bachmann scares the Left by how quickly they begin to photoshop her head on photos of porn star bodies. Their dementia knows no bounds.

Americans should recall that Ronald Reagan’s counterpart in Great Britain was Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher and England has not had a PM to match her judgment and toughness since.

Let us keep our eye on the prize which in this case is to send Barack Hussein Obama packing; back to his beloved Chicago where he can pig out on fast food with Rahm Emanuel, Bill Ayers, and the Rev. Jeremiah Wright.

© Alan Caruba, 2011

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