If At First You Don't Succeed, Campaign, Campaign Again

Obama's poll numbers are tanking - as are the poll numbers for his signature legislative effort, universal Obamacare. Obama's coattails are not merely short, but after Massachusetts, Virginia and New Jersey, apparently non-existent. Unable to fathom how he has gone from being the hope 'n change Messiah during the campaign, carrying the Democratic party with him to electoral victory, to someone who makes Jimmy Carter look like a model President, Obama has decided to go back to his comfort zone - campaigning - in a big way.:

After last week's devastating defeat in Massachusetts, President Obama ordered a review of Democratic strategy and has decided to bring back some of the key people who helped him win the presidency, hoping they can work their magic on troubled Democrats. Not wanting to leave anything to chance, the president is taking greater control over party strategy and is bringing back his former campaign manager, David Plouffe, to oversee congressional and governors' races in hopes of preventing a Democratic massacre in November. . . .

The reality is that Obama does not seem yet to have left the campaign mode. Some might think that a detriment in a sitting President. Not Obama and his clique, however, whose response to the problems or governance is to campaign more and harder. Who are we to judge? Oh, that's right. We're the electorate. That's our job.

At any rate, Plouffe, he of campaign magic, is apparently equally as clueless as to the reasons for Obama's downfall. Plouffe has has outlined a sure fire strategy to change Obama's fading fortunes in an op-ed at the Washington Post. Democrats will survive a November massacre if they just "do what the American people sent them to Washington to do." Given that Obama campaigned to the center during the general election, I would have to agree with that. But what Plouffe means is actually to do what the far left base of the Democrats wants them to do. That means, explains Plouffe, first and foremost, immediately passing health care.

One wonders if Plouffe bothered to turn on a t.v. covering the Massachusetts election for TED KENNEDY'S ANCESTRAL SEAT. Apparently not. That said, there might be more to this than meets the eye. Plouffe adds a "P.S." that "[h]ealth care is a jobs creator." Who knew? We can solve all of our problems at once. Given that health care bill would create over 100 new bureaucratic entities, Plouffe's probably not even gilding the lilly with that one. Pass health care and solve our unemployment problem all in one fell swoop. Genuis. No wonder the left feels that they are meant by birthright to govern we, the unwashed masses, by fiat. And if we don't understand that, well, they'll just make a greater effort to explain it to us in the future.

Second on Plouffe's list is that "[w]e need to show that we not just are focused on jobs but also create them." Top down job creation is not how a capitilist system works - or at least not if the goal is the creation of permanent jobs. Government funded jobs from a spending bill are by definition temporary. Of course, it may well be that Plouffe is only concerned about jobs lasting from October to mid November of this year.

On a related note, just on Sunday, the left took credit for creating a whole bunch of jobs - the only problem was that none of the President's staff doing the Sunday talk show circuit could agree on how many. The numbers ranged from "thousands" to "1.5 million" to "2 million." Quite a spread there. Plouffe might want to start out his effort to convince the electorate of the veracity of Obama's job creation claims by making sure that whatever number Obama's speech writer dreams up while on a "fairy dust" bender is the same one used by the rest of the Obama Administration in public.

Plouffe does note, rightly, that "full recovery will happen only when the private sector begins hiring in earnest." What he doesn't explain is why, then, did the Democrats only allocate 2.6% of the $787 billion stimulus bills to helping small business - the hands down best engine of new job creation in America - with another 10% for infrastructure improvements. Well, at least Obama and Plouffe can point to public sector jobs. They did very well from the stimulus.

Unfortunately, as a high school student could probably have explained to Obama and Plouffe, the public sector itself creates no wealth. Public sector employment is wholly dependant upon tax receipts from . . . the private sector (or money borrowed from China which has to be repaid by private sector tax receipts, as the case may be). While public sector functions may be necessary, paying for them is a leech, not a benefit, to the economy. So Obama pissed away close to a trillion in borrowed money for virtually no return on investment. Since Plouffe glosses over those facts, I guess he is taking a mulligan on that one.

Plouffe's ultimate solution is to tell America not to be fooled by Republican criticism as the Bushies are responsible for all of Obama's ills. Apparently Obama was never inagurated and Bush is a year into his third term. If only.

And Plouffe, lastly, calls on Democrats to loudly trumpet their many achievements during the past year. He cites as one of them the great "transparency" instituted by Democrats. Whatever else you may say about Plouffe, the guy obviously has a world class sense of humor.

I am sure the return to a campaign mode that Obama, in reality, never left will work out well for Obama and the Democrats. Indeed, I applaud them for doing so as an alternative to governing and would remind them that, should they fail, not to give up hope. The answer is just to campaign, campaign ever harder.

You know, if this wasn't so deadly serious for our nation, it would be fun just to sit back with some popcorn and watch. These jokers are caricatures - of themselves.