Barry, Barry, Quite Contrary

Has anbody caught the Campaigner-in-Chief's recent "policy speeches" in places such as recession-ravaged Cleveland? Of course you have, Pat.

Everyone else, watch this happen...

Typically, when a party is in control of both Congress and the White House, the electorate tends to vote for a division of powers during the incumbent president's first midterm elections. When the economy is facing recession (as was the case with Reagan and Clinton), this plays directly into the incumbent's political posturing goals.

By sweeping Republicans into office in November, we will actually give him a scapegoat that will allow him to win re-election in 2012. Thus far, he has only competed with himself, so it is no wonder that his approval ratings are so low (as were Clinton's and Reagan's).

If you read a recap of Obama's two speeches this week, they were less policy speeches and more a call to arms against the....minority (?). He claims that Republicans, "the party of no", have treated him "like a dog." They oppose key pieces of legislation that he has attempted to push through for the betterment of the middle class, he claims. These "poor old me" statements are made in spite of the fact that it is his party who has had total command of the legislative and executive branches for the past two years, and all of his major initiatives have been run through Congress at the expense of republican debate (with a little "r").

Barry's political advisors basically have him jumping the gun; he is not even waiting for the elections to occur before he begins to paint the Republicans as the big, bad wolves out to get his innocent little piggies (stimulus bills, healthcare, etc.).

It will not matter in terms of the results 8 weeks from right now, but we are getting a nice preview of the next two years. Instead of working towards solving America's multitude of real world problems, we can expect two years of campaigning against the House...and ultimately 6 more years of Obummer.

Rest assured that Republicans do the same thing when given the opportunity. Everybody sucks. We're just seeing history repeat itself, and Americans will be fooled into thinking that at each turn there will be actual change.