September 26, 2010
By Herman Cain
In less than two years, this presidency has produced an unprecedented
turnover rate of top administration advisors, a failed stimulus
spending bill, failed economic policies that have left the economy
stalled, much higher than expected unemployment, a hugely unpopular
health care bill, a financial regulatory deform bill, a list of
expensive poorly executed populist programs that flopped,
out-of-control federal spending, uncertainty about success with the war
in Afghanistan, and increased tensions with Iran, North Korea and
China.
Millions of voters have come to realize that this presidency lacks
leadership, direction, decisiveness, economic urgency and, most of all,
solutions. This combination of deficiencies has produced a more than
uninspired citizenry, except for the most loyal and misled supporters of
the president.
And just like the Obama supporter who confronted the president at a
supposedly friendly town hall meeting last week, people are exhausted
from listening to all of the failed attempts to spin failures into
successes with speeches and media sound-bites.
A disheartened Obama supporter called my radio show last week and
asked if I could name one thing that Obama had done right, since it
seemed to him that all I talk about are the things that have not
worked. I honestly tried to think of something significantly positive,
but I could not. There have been too many disappointments and broken
campaign promises.
This presidency is in free fall, which means this nation is in free fall.
But after further reflection, there is something this presidency has
inspired. With the help of an incompetently led Congress, Obama has
successfully awakened a citizen’s movement that has stunned the
political establishment in both parties.
The political establishment and the Obama media call it those Tea
Party People. They can’t seem to understand why people are upset. Maybe
they’re not listening.
The administration, Harry Reid, Nancy Pelosi, other Democrats, the
Obama mainstream media and other liberals have responded to the
citizens’ movement with nothing but name-calling attacks on the Tea
Party people. Those tactics have not worked. In fact, they appear to
have further energized the citizen’s movement. Demonization and
intimidation of “We the People” is not working.
The free fall of this presidency started with an unmanageable
management structure. Fifteen cabinet heads and dozens of czars is not a
logical way to structure a leadership team.
Two of the president’s top economic advisors have left in less than
two years, and the third of four, Larry Summers, has announced that he
is leaving. Rahm Emanuel, Obama’s chief of staff, is expected to leave
soon to run for Mayor of Chicago, while senior advisor to the president
David Axelrod has confirmed that he will be leaving sometime in 2011 to
work on Obama’s re-election campaign. That might be the uphill
political challenge of the century.
Many congressional Democrats running for re-election are distancing
themselves from the president, the health care deform bill and the Cap
and Trade and Tax and Kill bill. And they don’t even talk about all of
the spending, which has not been the solution to economic growth. In
fact, they want to spend more!
And now the Democrats have decided to wait until after the November
elections to pass legislation on the expiring current tax rates. This is
a signal that the president and the Democrats are going to raise
taxes. We just do not know whether it will be on all of us or some of
us.
Instead of a parachute, this president and Congress are determined to put this economy and nation into a nose dive.
