President Obama To Run On His Record
The U.S. Presidential election is still more than five months away but the campaigns of President Barak Obama and Republican candidate Mitt Romney are already moving at full speed and will continue to do so, non-stop, until the last ballot is counted. Somewhere in between the biased reporting, slanted analysis, and baseless opinions from both political war rooms, the American public and observers from around the globe might glean a smidgeon of fact and useful information pertaining to the views, policies, and political objects of both candidates. But to do so you’ll have to be extremely observant and willing to wade through piles of, well, let’s just call it political refuse, because Mitt Romney and President Obama both know that in American politics it’s better to pile it on than to present it reasonably.
Being an incumbent political candidate has a lot of advantages. At the top of the list is your record of achievement during your last term; assuming of course that yours is indeed a record of achievement. In the upcoming presidential election President Obama faces an uphill battle should he choose to run on his record, not because his first term in office lacks significant accomplishments, but more because his opponents will attempt to portray his successes as a step-by-step agenda to transform the U.S. into a Euro-socialist nation. This is not necessarily a new approach to presidential politics when it comes to national elections in the U.S. and in particular the manner in which the dominant parties choose to draw their battle lines. Republicans will come down on the side of small government, states’ rights, social conservatism, and aggressive foreign policy while the Democrats will generally choose a platform advocating a larger government role in securing individual prosperity, a more liberal social agenda, and olive branch diplomacy when it comes to foreign affairs. It just so happens that in this election cycle the ability to paint this picture in extreme shades of red and blue is perhaps greater than it has been during any time since FDR resided at 1600 Pennsylvania Ave. This is especially true in this election cycle as the Republicans will attempt to portray President Obama as a socialist because of the policies and measures he aggressively pursued to combat the economic crisis that was devastating the U.S. and other Western economies when he first took office.
You can argue about ideology and the motivating factors behind particular policies from now till Ron Paul is finally elected president, and even then extremists in both camps will still hold to their biased beliefs tighter than Jack Benny holds (or held) onto his wallet. So rather than argue the basis for the policy, President Obama would be best served to present evidence of the successes of these policies when waging his campaign against his Republican opponent, Mitt Romney.
Killing Osama bin Laden is a plume of feathers in President Obama’s war bonnet and will always be a venerated chapter in his legacy. When it comes to his record on foreign policy, hunting down and killing Osama bin Laden is a trump card that the President should play skillfully and boldly. However, critics will also point out that President Obama extended the war in Afghanistan and put in place a timetable that leaves our troops on watch in that unstable patch of rubble for more years than he or his generals are probably letting on.
President Obama fought to push through the first major revisions to the American health care system since President Nixon ushered-in in the era of privatization of health care services. As controversial as the bill was, is, and probably will be going forward, it was a major accomplishment and a huge step toward overall health care reform in the U.S.
The most important aspect of President Obama’s record, and the one issue that will ultimately decide the outcome of the upcoming election is the state of the U.S. economy. The President will have to make the argument to the American people that when he came into office, the country was in the throes of a multi-faceted economic calamity and now, just three years later – albeit three long years – most economic indicators are moving in the right direction, and some, with unexpected momentum. The opposition will argue that President Obama made the problems worse and that his policies prolonged problems that could have been solved more quickly, and with fewer long term consequences. At the end of the day, or at the end of day on November 6, 2012, the American voters will have their say on who wins this debate and the master bedroom at 1600 Pennsylvania Ave.
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