Free Markets, Free People
That’s the consensus in an interesting poll just published:
More than two-thirds of voters say the United States is declining, and a clear majority think the next generation will be worse off than this one, according to the results of a new poll commissioned by The Hill.
A resounding 69 percent of respondents said the country is “in decline,” the survey found, while 57 percent predict today’s kids won’t live better lives than their parents. Additionally, 83 percent of voters indicated they’re either very or somewhat worried about the future of the nation, with 49 percent saying they’re “very worried.”
The results suggest that Americans don’t view the country’s current economic and political troubles as temporary, but instead see them continuing for many years.
My father used to tell me “you live between your ears” meaning attitude and outlook are yours to control and play a critical part in life.
Attitude and outlook are also critical in any sort of economic recovery. If the attitude is pessimistic and the outlook deemed as dismal, it sometimes becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy.
I remember back in the days of the Jimmy Carter presidency, the “malaise” that settled in on the country. People felt everything was out of control. Interest rates were through the roof, we were seen as a paper tiger in the world and whatever else Jimmy Carter might be, he wasn’t much of a leader. Everyone then thought America was in decline then too.
But then Ronald Reagan came along, took charge, changed the attitude and outlook of Americans and, well, the rest is literally history.
One of the key jobs of a President of the United States is to address the country’s outlook and attitude. It is a very important aspect of leadership. It is also critical to recovery from economic problems, unemployment and other ills that are besetting our country. It is about setting up the proper climate to make attitudes swing to the positive side and the outlook appear rosier.
One of the things I’ve said consistently since Barack Obama has taken office is he’s not (nor has he ever been) a leader. That’s actually no surprise to me because I understand what leadership requires. In a word, development. The great leaders of today, with very few exceptions, worked their way up to their ultimate leadership job through a series of lesser leadership jobs.
I use military examples because they’re familiar to me, but no division commander ever took that job that hadn’t first been a platoon leader, then company commander, battalion commander and brigade commander.
And even then, some division commanders are better than others. But regardless, their leadership skills have been developed and honed by successive leadership positions of increased size and responsibility. And the weak leaders have been cast aside in that process.
We’ve elected a man who hasn’t even had a platoon, if you get my drift. And now we’re asking him to lead (well, in reality, we ask him to lead 3 years ago) in a very difficult time.
This poll indicates how well he’s doing.
In any school in the land, his grade in leadership would be “F”.
Is America in decline? Under this president the answer is “yes”. Does it have to remain in decline? No. But to change that, the first step is voting the present occupant of the White House out of office. The good news is we all know what happened to Jimmy Carter.
I’m beginning to wonder if the Republicans can run just about anyone for President (note the qualifier – “just about” – not everyone, even among the declared candidates) and win given this economy and this president:
Americans’ disapproval of how President Barack Obama is handling the economy and its growing budget deficit has reached new highs amid broad frustration over the slow pace of economic recovery, according to a Washington Post-ABC New poll released on Tuesday.
The ratings boost Obama received after the killing of Osama bin Laden has dissipated with his job approval rating back to 47 percent. Forty-nine percent disapprove of his performance.
Obama’s approval rating bounced to 56 immediately after bin Laden was killed last month.
But it went back to a plurality very quickly. On the key issue, however, it hasn’t returned to a particular percentage – it’s gotten worse. Much worse:
Fifty-nine percent, a new high, gave Obama negative marks for his handling of the economy, up from 55 percent a month earlier.
Obama’s approval rating on the deficit issue hit a new low of 33 percent, down 6 points since April.
Anyone who doesn’t understand that is where the election will be decided hasn’t been paying attention to politics very long. Bill Clinton knew it when he rode to victory on his “It’s the economy, stupid”. Ronald Reagan knew it when he continually asked, “are you better off now than you were 4 years ago”? And Barack Obama would probably kill to have the economic problems Jimmy Carter faced – not that he’d do any better than Carter.
The point is, in bad economic times, incumbents have a tough road ahead of them at election time. That’s because economic issues, joblessness, insecurity and fear are felt and understood by everyone. Pocketbook issues are personal issues. And the public has always voted those issues in general elections – much to the disadvantage of incumbent politicians, especially presidents. There’s a number going around out there which claims that no president since FDR has been re-elected with unemployment over 7.2% . Of course keep in mind only a some of them since then have run for re-election and not all of them had bad unemployment numbers at the time. The point, however, is that this sort of issue is critical to re-election chances.
The survey reflects a broadly pessimistic public mood as high gasoline prices, sliding home values and high unemployment numbers raised concerns about the pace of the U.S. economic recovery, The Washington Post said.
Eighty-nine percent of Americans say the economy is in bad shape; 57 percent say the recovery has not started and 66 percent said the United States was seriously on the wrong track.
Forty-five percent said they trust congressional Republicans over Obama to handle the economy, up 11 points since March.
If much of what is listed in the first paragraph isn’t improving fairly dramatically when 2012 arrives, Obama is in for a long year and, just guessing here, an “upset” loss. The shine has worn off. The cache of electing a black president has run its course. History has been made. And now the results part of the show come to bear. Having been a moment in history won’t save Obama if the economy still sucks as badly as it does now.
Yeah, this is going to be an interesting year and a half until election day 2012. I’m betting it’s not better economically and, again depending on who the GOP eventually nominates, Republicans stand to win the election. Or, and you heard it here first with all the caveats – it is most likely the Republican’s election to lose.
Of course, knowing them, I have little doubt they can manage to do that.
A very interesting poll is out which measures Arab public opinion on a number of questions. Two of them give a damning review of the results of the Obama initiatives in the area.
One question asks: “How would you describe your views of President Barack Obama and the United States”. In 2009, soon after Obama took office among all his promises and in the wake of the Cairo speech, Arab public opinion, as measured by this poll, found 45% to be positive about him and the US, 28% neutral and only 23% negative.
Oh what a difference a year and actually having to do something makes. Now 62% have a negative view, 16% are neutral and only 20% are positive.
On the question of, “How would you describe your attitudes toward the Obama Administration policy in the Middle East?”, a majority of 51% said they were “hopeful” in 2009, while 28% were neither encouraged or discouraged and only 15% were discouraged. Now? 63% say they’re discouraged while only 16% say they’re hopeful.
In 2008, when the evil Bush regime was still in power, 83% of those polled said their general attitude toward the US was somewhat unfavorable or very unfavorable. That number is now 85%.
Probably the most telling of all as to the effectiveness of the administration’s foreign policy in the area is the change in attitude about a nuclear armed Iran.
In 2008, most Arabs believed that Iran was pursuing nuclear power for peaceful purposes. Now most believe it is pursuing it for nuclear weapons. When asked in 2008, “If Iran acquires nuclear weapons, which of the following is the likely outcome for the Middle East region?”, those polled replied 44% “more positive”, 12% “wouldn’t matter” and 29% “more negative”. After a year of Obama’s policies toward Iran, Arab public opinion has shifted. Now 57% say it would be “more positive”, 20% “wouldn’t matter” and a mere 21% say “more negative”.