Whatever you may think of him or his views, Fox television personality Bill O’Reilly is not stupid. Here he makes the Republicans’ case against Obama and for Romney pretty succinctly:
Take a look at this chart: When President Obama took office, unemployment was at 7.8%. After three and a half years, it stands at 8.3%. Median income when the President took over was about $55,000. Now, $51,000. Gasoline prices in January 2009 were $1.84 per gallon. Now, $3.82 per gallon. That’s painful to working folks and it’s largely ignored by the President. National debt of $10.6 Trillion when President Obama took the oath of office. It is now more than $16 Trillion – an astronomical and dangerous rise. Finally, the budget deficit in President Bush’s last year was $458 Billion. In 2011, under President Obama, it had risen to nearly $1.3 Trillion – again, a dangerous amount of money to have to borrow.
There’s no way the Democrats can spin those facts; they’re in stone. The country’s in trouble, no question about it. But there is a question about how to get out of that trouble. Many voters believe that President Obama has had enough time to improve things. That if a football coach inherits a team, and that team is worse three and a half years later, the coach is out of there, the coach gets fired. But Mr. Obama says, “wait a minute!†His situation is unique.
President Obama: Historically, after these big financial crises where a lot of people are dealing with debt or a collapse of a housing market, that creates bigger challenges. And we’re seeing this, not just in here the United States, but around the world. But, what I would say is that the steps that we’ve taken in saving the auto industry, in making sure that college is more affordable, in investing in clean energy and science and technology and research. Those are all the things we’re going to need to grow over the long term.
Bill O’Reilly: Now, there’s no use in debating President Obama’s opinion. He believes it, and so do his followers. All the charts in the world are not going to change their minds. So it is up to you, the voter, to decide whether Mitt Romney and the Republicans should get a chance to improve things, and therein lies the question mark. Talking Points has said from the beginning of this campaign that the vote will be a referendum on Barack Obama. It will be an up or down vote on him.
The Republican Party knows that, and therefore Governor Romney is going to play it very safe. He’s not going to be drawn into any policy controversy. He’s not going to make any bold and fresh statements. He’s simply going to say that President Obama has failed to bring prosperity to America, and that he, Mitt Romney, will be able to do that.
Whatever you may think of him or his views, Fox television personality Bill O’Reilly is not stupid.
Gotta disagree with that assessment. I think Rush Limbaugh nailed it when he stated that O’Reilly was basically Ted Baxter.
The Republican Party knows that, and therefore Governor Romney is going to play it very safe. He’s not going to be drawn into any policy controversy. He’s not going to make any bold and fresh statements. He’s simply going to say that President Obama has failed to bring prosperity to America, and that he, Mitt Romney, will be able to do that.
So, Romney is doing the minimum to get elected. He’ll figure out how to govern later, I guess….
“Finally, the budget deficit in President Bush’s last year was $458 Billion. In 2011, under President Obama, it had risen to nearly $1.3 Trillion” – this is misleading, as I’m sure you know. O’Reilly worded that carefully.
But that’s a nitpick. My main comment is this: in the fall of 2008, voters were so fearful about the future that they elected an essentially unknown and untested candidate to the presidency. I don’t see that same fear today. O’Reilly’s saying Romney doesn’t have to make a case for himself, and I don’t think that’s enough. If “Just trust me” is his strategy he will very likely lose.
It worked for President Obama.
I think as a political analysis O’Reilly gets the analysis about right. But on substance, he’s wrong. Nothing he mentions is within the power of the Presidency to fix. O’Reilly and a lot of other people think the President is at fault for the deficit, yet who is it that writes and passes the budget and various spending measures for him to sign?
The President is not at all like a coach. A coach essentially has dictatorial authority and the buck really stops with him or her.
Still, it’s a message that sells. People give Presidents blame and credit for what happens on their watch whether they had anything to do with it or not. So I think O’Reilly is right that it will be a referendum on the President. At the same time, though, Romney has a lot of political liabilities. If the GoP had a better candidate (and a coherent platform) I think they’d be wiping the floor with the President right now. But they don’t, they have Romney and their own inconsistencies, warts and all.
Fix by fiat? No. But the president isn’t exactly an innocent bystander, either.
I seem to recall that President Obama authorized sending more troops to Afghanistan, signed the ARRA enacting it into law, and signed the bill that re-authorized the “Bush tax cuts”, enacting that into law, too. Those things have a dramatic impact on stuff like, say, the debt.
If you’re saying that he made choices and those choices required him to raise the debt, well and good. What’s his excuse now? The theory is counter-cyclical spending balanced by pro-cyclical reductions. We’re in the third year of the recovery.
If the new theory is counter-cyclical tax cuts for fiscal stimulus and pro-cyclical tax cuts for fiscal stimulus, isn’t that what the Republicans have been saying? Who was it who said that when you give the voters the choice between a Democrat acting like a Republican and a Republican they’ll choose the Republican every time?
That’s just one example. The other issues have similar arguments.
The President is not at all like a coach. A coach essentially has dictatorial authority and the buck really stops with him or her.
A President is more like a substitute teacher. Congress is like the school board, and the bureaucracy is like the class.
It worked for President Obama.
Worked for his friends, too. The rest of us are well and truly fucked. But hey, Obama had to wear shoes that were too small because he was the worst lawyer ever, so I guess it all evens out.
” He’s simply going to say that President Obama has failed to bring prosperity to America, and that he, Mitt Romney, will be able to do that.”
Without saying how he will do it. We have a choice between the party that was in charge when they killed the economy, we are talking presidency here so that is our metric, or the party that does not know how to fix it (setting aside the argument about whether any president can do so). If we are going to put the party back in charge which hosed us, I think they should reveal some plans. The ones I am hearing, tax cuts for the wealthy, increased defense spending and no change to Medicare dont sound like winners to me.
Steve
The ones I am hearing, tax cuts for the wealthy, increased defense spending and no change to Medicare dont sound like winners to me.
But … but … but … BAIN! And, uh, an unadopted plan! And, uh, um….
Okay, I got nothin’. Sadly, neither do they.
Like I’ve been saying for at least four years, it’s the disasters versus the catastrophes.
If I may interpret….
No specifics, Bush’s fault, and Dems are clueless. Bush’s fault, no specifics. Status quo.
There is never any there, there, steve.
Sorry, but those are your choices. I suggest you watch the South Park episode about the turd sandwich and the giant douche.
“Sorry, but those are your choices. I suggest you watch the South Park episode about the turd sandwich and the giant douche.”
Already saw it. My favorites remain the Margaritaville episode, and the hunting episode from the first couple of years. Unlike Jan and Drew who think Mitt is the cat’s pajamas, I think Obama is just less bad, mostly on foreign policy. The President has some ability to change domestic policy, but I dont expect big changes until they have to be made. The have to will be determined by the bond market or some external event.
Steve
I suggest you watch the South Park episode about the turd sandwich and the giant douche.
Sage advice.
steve, those episodes are good, but I still prefer the pilot (about the giant antenna in Cartman’s ass – “Kick the baby!”) and Scott Tenorman Must Die. “I made you eat your par-ents, heh heh heh heh heh heh!” and the “tears of unfathomable sadness”! Cartman was revealed as a character of J. R. Ewing level evil. Make Love, Not Warcraft and the one about not being sucked into FaceBook (You have Zero Friends) are also personal faves.
“Tsst”
The Dog Whisperer trains Cartman.
“200”
Tom Cruise, fudge packer, Muhammad
The Dog Whisperer trains Cartman.
I forgot about that one.
Forgot The Snuke.
Steve
steve, I actually found The Snuke to be offensive. No fan of Hillary, but that was just too much for me.
Dave,
Well, I look at what the candidates promise and I look at what their supporters and surrogates say their candidate will do and I look at how people assign blame when things don’t go right and credit when things do. To my ear, the majority of it is all about the President and the grand promises they will fulfill if elected.
That’s all true and I don’t think the President gets a free pass, but if one is going to assign responsibility one should at least parse it accurately. Candidates and their supporters do talk as if they can do things by fiat. I’m just pointing out that’s not the case in reality. When people say “Clinton balanced the budget,” well, no he didn’t. Clinton’s budgets weren’t actually passed by Congress. Congress wrote their own budget, passed it and then President Clinton signed it. All he did was accept what Congress wanted.
Well, we haven’t had a budget in three years. Unless one believes the President should have shut down the government by vetoing all the continuing resolutions that keep things running, I don’t see how the President holds the major responsibility regarding the debt since a budget hasn’t even reached his desk. The debt problem not a problem the President can fix. Until Congress can agree on a budget what is this or any President supposed to do? They have no Constitutional authority to do anything, so that leaves “soft power” to try to get the Congress and Senate to agree to something. Looking at those two legislative bodies I find it hard to blame the President for failure in that regard.
So, I wonder what is actually in people’s heads when they say “President Romney/Obama will fix X” or are to blame for problem Y. Are the people who make such arguments simply shilling for their political side, demonstrating their tribal loyalties, doing their part to get their guy elected, or do they really not understand how our government works? What am I missing?
Well, we haven’t had a budget in three years. Unless one believes the President should have shut down the government by vetoing all the continuing resolutions that keep things running, I don’t see how the President holds the major responsibility regarding the debt since a budget hasn’t even reached his desk.
Three years is the most important part of that statement. That puts it all the way back to when the Dems ran everything. (IIRC filibuster rules don’t apply in the same manner to budgetary matters.) If the President can’t even lead his own party on something as basic as the budget, then he has demonstrated that he has no leadership skills.
And yes, after the first year of not being able to pass a budget he should have stopped signing at least some of the continuing resolutions. But that would have required a bit of resolution on his part, and perhaps took away from time he spent improving his bowling game.
Are the people who make such arguments simply shilling for their political side, demonstrating their tribal loyalties, doing their part to get their guy elected, or do they really not understand how our government works?
Yes.
Further, all these things are reinforced by the fact that EVERY President and EVERY Presidential candidate talks about the Presidency as though it were a Roman dictatorship, so people tend to treat it that way even when they know better.
Which all gets me back to wondering why R/R will do better with Republican Congressional leadership than Bush did.
Filibuster does apply to the budget, but the reasons are arcane.
What are “leadership skills” in this context? The GoP House keeps passing the Ryan Budget and the Senate won’t pass it – in fact they won’t even let it come to the floor. What is the President supposed to do, convince Senate Democrats to pass the Ryan budget? The two sides are diametrically opposed on budgetary issues – I don’t see how Presidential leadership can force or otherwise compel compromise in this situation, but if you’ve got a solution, let’s hear it.
Let’s say Romney get’s elected. Is he going to be able to pressure the House to pass a budget that can actually get through the Senate? I’d say the answer is no.
What is the President supposed to do, convince Senate Democrats to pass the Ryan budget?
Andy, the President can’t even get a single Democratic vote for his own budget proposals. Not one! And he couldn’t get a budget passed when Pelosi ran the House and Reid ran the Senate. Surely to God a Democratic President ought to be able to get Democratic Senators and Congressmen to throw him a bone of a couple of votes, and he ought to be able to work out a compromise budget with them too. He IS the junior partner in budgetary matters, but by God he IS still the President.
Forget the squabbling with the House Republicans now, he couldn’t even get it done when the deck was stacked completely in his favor. This tells me that his own party members neither fear nor respect him, and they don’t love him enough to give him even one single fig leaf to cover his nakedness before the voters. Empty suit, empty resume, empty chair, empty stadium. There’s no THERE there.
Let’s say Romney get’s elected. Is he going to be able to pressure the House to pass a budget that can actually get through the Senate? I’d say the answer is no.
Maybe, maybe not. Will he be able to compromise with the House leaders to at least get some fucking votes for his ideas? That’s the real test. If he can’t even do that he has no hope of forging a compromise with the other party.