Change—and Some Hope

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Change—and Some Hope

 

May 12, 2012 - 4:46 pm - by Victor Davis Hanson

Rays of Sun Amid the Storm

The Rasmussen Tracking Poll recently had Romney up 50 to 42 over Obama. At this early juncture, such polls mean nothing—except as diagnostic indices of why perhaps both candidates go up and down in popularity.

So why has Barack Obama plunged in the polls these last few days?

The Republican slugfest is over. The media cannot headline any longer the daily conservative suicide. Barack Obama’s job report came out at 8.1% unemployment—but, more importantly, with information that a smaller percentage of adult Americans are working than ever before, and fewer in absolute numbers than nearly four years ago when Obama took office.

So someone must be asking, “What then was the lost $5 trillion for?” Note, in this regard, the 5.4% unemployment rate that won George Bush the slur of a “jobless recovery” in 2004.

There was some pushback to Obama’s spiking the football on the anniversary of bin Laden’s death.

And have you noticed how Team Obama keeps losing the doggy wars? Seamus begat a photoshopped Dachshund sandwich; Romney’s supposedly terrible polygamist great-great grandfather in Mexico begat Obama’s polygamist father in Kenya; Rush Limbaugh’s “war on women” begat Bill Maher’s misogyny; Romney the high-school hair cutter begat tapes of Obama as the chronic drug user and recollections of Biden, the neighborhood teen bully. I know why the Obama people wish to distract from the economy, but at some point they must accept that they are losing these trivia tit-for-tats, and it now is beginning to show in the polls. (Hint: you may think it neat to ridicule a Mormon, but for purposes of fielding a clean candidate, Romney is a political operative’s dream in this age of adultery, sin, drug, and drink—which is why the Washington Post is back to a supposedly insensitive 18-year-old Mitt Romney this last week).

The flip-flop on gay marriage, of course, did not win Obama a single vote, just plenty of one-percenters’ money. More injurious to his cause was his idiotic refrain about his “evolving” views. No one believed that yarn: fifteen years ago he was for gay marriage when it was smart politically for him to be so, and then he revolved to “no” when it was not. All that happened this week was that clueless Joe Biden jumped the gun. Obama with a wink and nod had privately assured rich gays, as he had Putin, that after his reelection he would give them what was wanted, but could not quite yet, given his need to hoodwink the clingers to get reelected. I think most voters understood that con as emblematic of this presidency.

Despite, not Because of, Obama

But there is more good news. Surveys of federal oil and gas reserves keep soaring. At some point, some president is going to realize that by tapping such bounty all at once he can create new jobs, earn budget-deficit-reducing cash, stimulate the economy, Read More http://pjmedia.com/victordavishanson/change%e2%80%94and-some-hope/