The Desperate Campaign of Barack Obama

I have figured out President Obama’s re-election campaign strategy:  Keep throwing stuff against the wall until something – anything -- sticks.

The “war on women” strategy didn’t work.  Only hard-core lefties believe Mitt Romney is anti-woman.  And even they don’t really believe it.

The “he’s too rich and out of touch” wasn’t resonating with the peasants either.  Neither was the “he put his dog on the roof of the car” and drove to Canada thing.

When they threw “Bain Capital” against the wall, they must have figured they had a winner.  Here was a guy who ran Bain, they told the voters, who was out to “maximize profits” not “create jobs.”  Oh, the humanity!  Or more accurately:  Oh, the ignorance!

There isn’t a company in the entire USA – not a mom and pop drug store or a multinational conglomerate – whose main goal is job creation.   Not one! Someone needs to tell the president that “job creation” comes only after you “maximize profits” … that only when profits rise and business grows do the people who run the company need more workers to keep up with demand.

President Obama didn’t know that because he doesn’t know anything about business.  But enough of his supporters – Democrats all – went on TV and said it’s wrong for the president to demonize private equity in general and Bain in particular.  These companies, the Democrats said, do a lot of good for the country.

So now, in case you haven’t noticed, Team Obama has settled on a new strategy, at least for the moment.  And it’s as thoughtful and reasoned and smart as all the rest.  And it pretty much comes down to this:  A President Romney would be a disaster.

I’ll bet anything that Team Obama put the word “disaster” in front of a focus group of potential voters and found that "disaster" engenders negative feelings.  No kidding!

So a recent headline in the liberal magazine Rolling Stone shouted: “Why 'President Romney' Would Be a Disaster for Women”

And a left-wing Web site told us that “Romney Is a Disaster on Education” … while another liberal site informed us that, “A Romney presidency would be a foreign policy disaster.”

Not all Democrats, of course, think Mitt Romney is a disaster.  Bill Clinton for instance, doesn’t think so.  He thinks Romney is a calamity.

Just a few days after praising Romney’s “sterling” business career, Clinton told an Obama fundraiser that a Romney presidency would be “calamitous for our country and the world.”

Bill Clinton and other Democrats say that since Romney is running as a businessman who claims to know how to turn around the economy, then it’s fair game to challenge him on that central plank of his campaign.  And it is.

They say when Romney was governor of Massachusetts he didn’t create a lot of jobs and the state’s economy lagged behind almost every other state in the country.  For this there’s a simple response, one that every voter will readily understand:

“When I left office in Massachusetts,” Romney should tell President Obama at their first debate, “our unemployment rate was 4.7 percent.  Down from 5.6 percent when I took office. After almost four years as president, America’s unemployment rate is 8.2.”  Then, after a brief, dramatic pause to let those two numbers sink in, he should look over at the president, smile weakly, and put the nail in the coffin.  “Most of the folks listening to us tonight, Mr. President, would be thrilled with my 4.7 percent.  It’s a lot better than your 8.2 percent”

One more thing:  If a Romney Presidency would be “disastrous” and “calamitous” what should we call the Obama presidency?  I mean, besides “incompetent.”