PRESIDENT OBAMA NEEDS TO CHANGE WHERE HE INVESTS HIS EFFORTS



 

The president needs to stop giving all those free speeches.

 

If the Democrats get killed in the midterms, they and the president will only have themselves to blame.

 

OK, we all know it’s not going well for President Obama in the popularity area.

Today, with the more than expected negative issues on the Obamacare roll-out, the continued increase in misinformation about a false Obama Imperial Presidency and the false Benghazi and IRS claims from the Fox cable channel, the lack of anything positive out of Washington DC and the US Congress.  Right now, no one inside the US Government is looking very good….especially the president. 

Forget that Wall Street’s numbers are the highest they’ve been….ever, and the unemployment isn’t where we want it, but it’s at the lowest point in over 5 years, and there have been increases in US jobs every month starting only months after President Obama came into office (Regardless of the lack of help from the GOP).  And when he did take office, the US was losing over 700,000 jobs a month.

But just forget all of that.  That’s beside the point.  What has Obama done for us lately?

So, just how bad is it for the president?

Well, internally with the National Republican Senatorial Committee, they polled the up-coming competitive US Senates races and they are starting to feel pretty good about their chances in November. 

Their polling results were as follows:

Obama’s support was at 28% in West Virginia, 36% in Arkansas, 38% in Louisiana, 39% in Iowa and Michigan, 40% in Alaska and 42% in Colorado.  The regular Public Polls find similar results for Obama in other competitive states, such as Kentucky, Georgia, New Hampshire, South Dakota, North Carolina and Montana.

Right now, none of the Democrats that are up for election later this year are asking the president to campaign with or for them.  In fact, when the president met with the Democrats at their retreat this month, one of the lawmakers told the Washington Post’s, Ed O’Keefe, that Obama had assured them that, “he would not be offended if he were not invited” to campaign for them.

This somewhat explains why the president was visiting Mexico this week and has agreed to up-coming visits in Netherlands, Belgium, Italy, Saudi Arabia, Japan, Malaysia, South Korea, and the Philippines.  And last Tuesday, French President François Hollande invited Obama to France for the 70th anniversary of D-Day and the president accepted almost immediately.

But is that the right thing to do at this time.

The Post’s Dana Milbank wrote this week that, “Although individual Democratic committees have done reasonably well raising money, the Democratic National Committee (DNC) is deeply in debt. At the end of the year it had $4.7 million in cash but $15.6 million in debt. The RNC had no debt and $9.2 million in cash.“

Now, in cases like this, when it comes to raising money, even though the president may be down in the polls, presidents are very good at raising money with their fund raising events.  As an example, in 2006, George W. Bush was less popular than Obama is today.  But that year, Bush did 80 fundraising events and brought in millions in new campaign funds.

However, so far, the current president has only committed to doing 18 fundraising events this year.  But the Obama senior adviser, Dan Pfeiffer has told the press that these 18 events are just those that Obama has promised “thus far.”

To make matters worse for the Democrats, let’s not forget the Supreme Court’s Citizens-United case and what that decision will have on the ability for the GOP to raise funds for the midterms.

Due to this high-court ruling, the billionaire Koch Brothers and other major Republican donors are expected to spend hundreds of millions of dollars on the midterm elections.  And as usual, the Republicans always enjoy their healthy majority of being supported by America’s super-rich. The Koch-backed Americans for Prosperity has already spent millions against very vulnerable Democrats.

Unfortunately for the DNC, President Obama has been going around the country not raising money for the party, but giving free speeches in North Carolina, Pennsylvania, Ohio, and Maryland, and he's touting how he is using Executive Orders for helping us Americans.

Now, this is all great for what turns out to be a very small number of Americans.  But if the Democrats lose the Senate in the mid-terms, which is still very possible, and if they don’t regain the House, which is probably an impossible lift, Obama’s final two years will seriously be in the toilet, as will the fate of the American public.

Giving free speeches about the need to increase the minimum wage, the increasing of gas mileage and lower pollution for big semi-trucks, the developing of IRA’s for steel mill workers and more efficient electric motors and batteries, this is all well and good.  But perhaps a better choice would be to challenge the fund raising that was done by the 80 fund raisers of “Dubya” Bush back in 2006…ya think?

Based on most politicos, President Obama is supposed to be a chess player, not checkers.  But if President Obama wants to get accomplished, all of the things he has stated he wants to do, then I would suggest that he invest more in the Democrats doing as good as possible in the midterms.  I sincerely believe that this would be a better idea. 

With “money-machines” such as the Koch Brothers, along with the debt-free RNC, plus the flexibility now provided by the Citizens-United decision, giving free-speeches and Executive Orders just ain’t gonna do the job for the Democrats when the November elections rolls around.

Copyright G.Ater  2014