Outlining Obama's Strategy for Re-Election and What Another Four Would Look Like...

by: Les Carpenter
Rational Nation USA
Liberty -vs- Tyranny

Many have been saying that President Obama doesn't have a plan for his second four years should he, shudder, be reelected. Witnessing his campaign strategy, which essentially has been to run away from his record while repeatedly emphasizing electing Romney will serve to only further enrich the wealthy while returning America to the "failed" Bush years.

Unfortunately the thought of either man sitting behind the big desk in the big chair from 2013 through 2017 is rather unnerving. As the media will ignore a viable third party candidate in Gary Johnson, a man who actually stands for change and fiscal sanity, and the American people will follow suit, we are stuck with the depressing reality one of these two will be the next leader of the United States of America and the Free World.

I like to think of them as Frick and Frack. A vote for either is a vote for continued decline. So when voting for one or the other you're really deciding which slope you'll be riding down on. Sometimes I suppose voting for the known quantity is easier than taking a chance on the unknown. We took a chance on the unknown in 2008.

While contemplating the Obama/Biden lack of substance and new ideas (not that Romney/Ryan is setting the house a fire) during this campaign cycle today I happened on a WSJ article I thought relatively accurate as to the Obama campaign strategy and what we can expect from an Obama second term. I disagree there are vivid differences between Frick and Frack as was pointed out in an earlier posting. Again, my view is only the slope will be different.

President Obama has a reputation for talking, but not necessarily for saying much. He has achieved new levels of vagueness this election season. Beyond repeating that he's in favor of making the "rich" pay for more government "investment," he hasn't offered a single new idea for a second term. This is deliberate.

The core of the Obama strategy is to make Americans worry that whatever Mitt Romney does, it will be worse. That's a harder case for Mr. Obama to make if he is himself proposing change. And so the Obama pitch is that this election is a choice between stability (giving Mr. Obama four more years to let his policies finally work) and upheaval (giving Mr. Romney four years to re-ruin the nation).

The pitch is profoundly dishonest. While the choice between four more years of Obama status quo and Mr. Romney is certainly vivid, it isn't accurate. The real contrast is between Mr. Romney's and Mr. Obama's future plans. And while the president hasn't revealed what those plans are, there is plenty of evidence for what a second term would look like.

Let's dispense with the obvious: An Obama second term will be foremost about higher taxes and greater spending. The president has been clear about the former and will consider victory in November a mandate to raise taxes on higher-income Americans and small businesses—at the least.

Meanwhile, no matter how the coming budget sequester sorts out, nobody should forget why it came into being: It was the result of Mr. Obama's refusal to consider any real changes to Social Security or Medicare. There will be no reason to budge in a second term. Absent reform to these drivers of debt, and given Mr. Obama's ambitions to further "invest" in education, energy and infrastructure, a second term means proposals for even broader and bigger tax hikes—and not just for his favorite targets. Continued and growing deficits are likely as well

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Yet since the probable outcome of his approach would be continued gridlock, his real efforts will be devoted to fine-tuning the regulatory apparatus he has designed specifically to go around Congress—as the administration has done the past two years. The Environmental Protection Agency in particular will resurrect rules it delayed implementing before the election (see: costly ozone regulations) and move to take over new areas like natural-gas fracking.

The same goes for other agencies, from the Labor Department to the Securities and Exchange Commission. The National Labor Relations Board will continue to cement union dominance over employers. The Solyndras will continue. What Mr. Obama cannot accomplish via regulation, he will attempt through executive order—much as he did with his recent immigration directive.

Most voters understand that a second Obama term means the continuation of ObamaCare and the Dodd-Frank financial regulations. But there is also the carte blanche that re-election will give the president to supercharge those laws, which are only now entering key rulemaking periods. The same Obama appointees who have already taken vast liberties with these laws (see: HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius's ObamaCare slush fund) will be crafting the new regulations.The bureaucrats will also have four more years to put in place key civil servants who can be counted on to keep the rules going even past an Obama administration.

It is likely the Supreme Court will offer up another vacancy, and Mr. Obama might finally have his chance to shift the balance of the court. A slew of appellate-court positions are also in limbo as the campaign proceeds; they would be filled by a second-term Obama.

Just as important are the things Mr. Obama will not do. His record gives no indication he will revive America's leadership in free trade...


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None of this is hyperbole. Mr. Obama is open about his tax aims, is proud of his spending and has never apologized for his regulatory ambitions. Despite a shellacking in the midterms, he moved left, and a November victory will reinforce his sense that he was correct to do so. {Read More}

The deficits will continue and the debt will grow, make now mistake about it. Given Mittens Romney is really a moderate rEpublican, and has essentially been pandering to the most rightward leaning in the party of the small tent, I take issue with the idea that a Mittens presidency will be significantly different than a second Obama term would be.

As much as Mitt has flipped flop I've started calling him Flipper. Can anyone really believe much of what he says? Indeed, the choice of the "lesser of two evils" is squarely before us. That is of course unless America takes the sand from its eyes and votes Gary Johnson.

Via: Memeorandum