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Obama’s Swing State Strategy: Take Credit for GOP Accomplishments

Will Republicans really let him get away with it?

by
Tom Blumer

Bio

July 17, 2012 - 12:00 am
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Florida, where the unemployment rate has dropped from 10.9% to 8.6% since Sunshine State Governor Rick Scott took office, deserves an honorable mention. Though Scott technically didn’t succeed a Democrat, his predecessor Charlie Crist governed like one for four ugly years. Scott also resisted Uncle Sam’s “high-speed rail” temptations.

These five states owe their success to governing directly against the tax-and-spend, regulation-gone-wild, crony-capitalist model President Obama has been using in Washington. Meanwhile, Democratic governors who have largely embraced Obama’s agenda and have tried to apply it in their own states have seen results ranging from mediocre to disastrous.

The most obvious failure is California, home of the nation’s third-highest unemployment rate of 10.8%. Governor Jerry Brown’s once-Golden State has seen its projected budget deficit grow to $16 billion. A tax increase, accompanied by the usual “the world will end” threats if voters don’t acquiesce, will be on the November ballot. Not content to waste “high-speed rail” money earmarked for his state, Brown also gleefully gobbled up the funds Ohio and Florida forfeited, and is currently doing a victory lap over the state legislature’s recent approval of the $69 billion (before the inevitable cost overruns begin piling up) folly.

Other Democrat-governed states with serious ongoing problems precipitated primarily by progressivism include:

  • Illinois — The Associated Press reports that “not paying billions of dollars in bills for months at a time” is “the state’s policy.”
  • New York —  The unemployment rate in the Empire State has increased from 8.2% to 8.6%  since January 2011.
  • Connecticut — The Nutmeg State nuttily raised taxes by a record amount last year, yet still had to close a budget deficit back in May when (surprise!) tax revenues didn’t roll in as expected.

So why should any of this benefit an incumbent Democratic president who, deliberately or not (the argument in favor of the former becomes more powerful with each passing day), has seemingly done everything he can to hold back economic and job growth after claiming two years ago that “I will not rest until every American who is able and ready and willing to work can find a job”? Well, Obama and his apparatchiks want us to believe that his policies alone explain why many states, particularly key swing states, are recovering at all. Of course, President ‘Prompter also has an establishment press which will gladly play along with this outrageous mendacity. On the sycophantic surrogate front, Ted Strickland — Kasich’s Democratic predecessor who saw over 400,000 Buckeye State jobs disappear on his watch – recently claimed that “a more prosperous Ohio owes Obama a vote of thanks.”

You can’t make this up.

Thus far, the response to Obama’s fabulist framing from the Republican Party and presumptive nominee Mitt Romney has ranged from non-existent to pathetic. If you don’t counter it, folks, enough people to matter just might believe it.

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Tom Blumer owns a training and development company based in Mason, Ohio, outside of Cincinnati. He presents personal finance-related workshops and speeches at companies, and runs BizzyBlog.com.
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