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Scott Wheeler is a former television producer reporter, investigative journalist,
and author of the upcoming book, "Promoting Decline: Obama vs America"
The Weakness of Obama's Arguments
By Scott Wheeler
1/6/12
 Obama's latest campaign strategy is just as vulnerable as the one he just abandoned and for the same reasons. The question is, will Republicans grab victory with both hands or lean into defeat? The new strategy presents the same arguments from a different angle of deception, and the Republican rebuttal is the same one they have failed to adequately make, perhaps because they don't understand it themselves outside of a few.
Obama's campaign team has abandoned the strategy that the economy "could have been worse" as the theme for reelection and adopted the more flexible strategy of "saving the middle class from decline" according to the Los Angeles Times. Indeed, Obama has already tested it out:
"You know, a few years after World War II, a child who was born into poverty had a slightly better than 50-50 chance of becoming middle class as an adult. By 1980, that chance had fallen to around 40%. And if the trend of rising inequality over the last few decades continues, it's estimated that a child born today will only have a one-in-three chance of making it to the middle class." This is what Obama told an audience recently in Kansas.
Failing to understand the significance of his own observation, Obama blames this on people getting wealthier instead of the most obvious explanation -- the exponential growth of government. During the time period Obama cited, government growth has far outpaced the expansion of wealth in the US, paradoxically with substantial sectors of government growth devoted to ending poverty. Note to Republicans: more government equals more poverty. US statistics not only prove it, but stats discovered after the fall of the Berlin wall do as well (additional hint in case that was too subtle - Soviet economic expansion did not knock down The Wall, people desiring freedom from government run economies did, the very type of government Obama is promising the United States.)
In 1950, government spending was approximately 24 percent of Gross Domestic Product (GDP), today it is approaching 44 percent of GDP according to USgovernmentspending.com. Yet Obama hopes that voters don't notice that the trillions of dollars the government has spent in the so-called "War on Poverty" have created more poor people. He also hopes that voters don't notice that every last one of his policy initiatives has resulted in less freedom for us and more power for him.
Ordinary logic prefaces the conclusion that both the poor and the middle class are being strangled by the government safety net that provides false comfort for those who fail to overcome government obstacles and reach the middle class. The expanding size of government is consuming the private economy - small business first. And small business is the first step out of poverty and into the middle class, but that fact interrupts Obama's narrative that some people's ability to succeed causes others to fail.
This is why Republicans must resist their recent historical tendency to proclaim that they will be better managers of government than Democrats. The Republican presidential nominee must explain to the Democrat base how Obama's expansion of government is harming them more than it is hurting the rich. Slogans about America's greatness will no longer be persuasive, this time it will have to be an education process. That process will require explaining that capitalism and free markets did not lead to the economic melee, government intervention did. And this will undercut Obama's strategy that government can manage the economy better than we can.
Obama's Assault on Logic
By Scott Wheeler
12/14/11
 A
new poll and Obama's recent statements leave a huge opening for
Republicans to expand a debate that is long overdue, and place
President Obama's governing philosophy under scrutiny and expose
its illogical conclusions. The Gallup poll, released Monday, reported
that 64 percent of respondents considered big government the biggest
threat to the nation, with only 26 percent that viewed big business
as a bigger threat. In addition, 8 percent considered big labor
the top threat to the nation. So it could be said, since Obama
has been a stalwart ally of big labor, that 72 percent of the nation
opposes Obama's governing philosophy.
In
a CBS 60 Minutes interview on Sunday, Obama once again revealed
that his view of the government is at odds with the desires of
the governed, here is what he said:
"And
it requires everybody to have a fair chance, everybody to do their
fair share, and rules of the road that create fair play for everybody.
And
what people have been frustrated about, especially since the financial
crisis, is the sense that the rules are rigged against middle-class
families and those aspiring to get in the middle class. So, if
we're willing to make investments in education so that everybody
gets a fair chance and kids aren't coming out with $100,000 worth
of debt to go to [sic] college."
The
question is, who is it that doesn't have a "fair chance"?
If you
are poor in this country you get free meals and a free education
from age zero all the way through a bachelor's degree -- and in
many cases, free graduate school. We are constantly told about
the high number of hungry children in this country, yet the high
school dropout rate is the highest in the poor schools where students
get a free breakfast and a free lunch. How hungry can these children
really be if they won't even show up to school to get the free
meals? And Obama claims that the taxpayers who are picking up the
tab for all of this have an unfair advantage?
If you are the average
top ten percent wage-earner, your taxes are paying for someone
else to get a better education than you are able to provide for
your own children. That is called "social justice" in Obama's world.
If
Americans believe the "rules are rigged against the middle-class,"
they are right. But it is Obama now, and those who share his ideology,
that have been rigging the rules for decades. If you are in the
middle-class, for example, you would not have enough money to contribute
to Obama's campaign in order to get the deal Obama gave Solyndra.
And that is just one example of how the left's system of government-run
economics has created the very disparity that Obama claims to care
about. In its most cynical form it is a protection racket that
the political class in general, but mostly Democrats, have created
that requires big business to pony up donations to the politicians
that will be making the laws that can cost them immense sums of
money.
So, yes, the deck is stacked in favor of big business, but
it is Obama now, and in the past mostly Democrats, that made it
that way. With threats of punitive laws, the Democrats are able
to extort political support from the big businesses that they claim
to be against. All the bluster about needing more regulation of
Wall Street is just an announcement from Democrats that big business
needs to line up and pay their alms to escape the regulatory burden
contained in the next round of legislation. And if you are not
big enough or don't contribute to the right politician, then you
pay the price that government regulation costs you (but not your
competitors who did play the corrupt political game).
In
his speech at Osawatomie, Kansas last week, Obama leveled the following
charge against an unspecified "they":
"In
fact, they want to go back to the same policies that stacked the
deck against middle-class Americans for way too many years. And
their philosophy is simple: We are better off when everybody is
left to fend for themselves and play by their own rules."
This
is Obama's perverted view of our constitutional right to self government
-- "everybody is left to fend for themselves." This distortion
is evidence of Obama's deviancy. But the line "play by their own
rules" is astounding for its hubris. It is Obama and his fellow
travelers who have always maintained that the Constitution is a
document left open for them to interpret any way they please. In
other words, Obama believes the law of the land can mean whatever
he wants it to mean at any given time, while accusing others of
wanting to play by their own rules.
Obama
also made this interesting observation, but failed to understand
its significance:
"You
know, a few years after World War II, a child who was born into
poverty had a slightly better than 50-50 chance of becoming middle
class as an adult. By 1980, that chance had fallen to around 40%.
And if the trend of rising inequality over the last few decades
continues, it's estimated that a child born today will only have
a one-in-three chance of making it to the middle class."
Of
course, Obama blames this on people getting wealthier instead of
the most obvious explanation -- the exponential growth of government.
During the time period Obama cited, government growth has far outpaced
the expansion of wealth in the US, paradoxically with substantial
sectors of government growth devoted to ending poverty. Ordinary
logic prefaces the conclusion that bureaucratic strangulation of
small business opportunities is by far the most likely reason fewer
people are in the middle-class, as opposed to Obama's claim that
some people's ability to succeed caused others to be left behind.
Obama's
unpopular philosophy requires his use of deception and to make
rhetorical points that are substantially false. In his self-serving
and brutal assault on logic, his words and actions have forced
us to suspect the worst about his motives.
Who is afraid of a Do-Nothing Congress?
 Is
President Obama painting himself into a corner by expecting a bad
economy when voters go to the polls next November? His campaign
team has announced, in the New York Times, that next year their
campaign strategy is to go negative.
Obama's strategists have warned that they intend to say that,
whoever the Republican nominee is, it was their party that led
to the economic problems we now face.
That raises an important question: If the economy were doing
well right now would the President be giving Republicans the credit?
Likewise, now that he is on record saying that if his latest
jobs (spending) bill doesn't pass Congress, the Republican controlled
House of Representatives is to blame for the bad economy, or at
least that part of the bad economy that he isn't blaming on former
President Bush.
But if the economy improves over the next 11 months, the Republican
candidate for president can also run on the recalcitrant Congress
by pointing out that stopping Obama's policies made the economy
better.
In fact, if Republicans had any moxie they would ask Obama this
question: "If the Republican-controlled House was able to stop
you from fixing the economy, why didn't the Democrat-controlled
House stop President Bush from wrecking it, as you claim he did?"
Such questions can undo Obama's campaign strategy because it
is a poorly rigged contraption that is mostly dependent upon the
so-called mainstream media's contribution being equal to or greater
than it was in 2008.
It is secondarily dependent on a weak Republican candidate that
will seek androgyny instead of clarity when it comes to explaining
the difference between what the political left believes and what
conservatives believe.
We frequently hear and read that presidential elections are won
with votes from the middle that flow to the most moderate candidate.
There was only one moderate running for president in 2008 and
he was beaten by a left-wing extremist, so someone should explain
how nominating a moderate and running to the middle wins an election.
This is not the time for Republicans to "run to the center" where
the political establishment tells us the votes are. This is a time
for bold statements that clarify our national purpose, while appealing
to the logic of voters and exposing the fraud of the Democrats
strategy to have the people who take from the system decide how
the people who pay for the system's money is spent.
Republicans can start by explaining to a nation, many of whom
have been previously inattentive, that all they hear about conservatives
from the media and Democrats is a lie.
They are told by the left that success equates to "greed" and
hope that no one notices that all of their schemes to redistribute
the wealth always end with more power for them and less freedom
for everyone else (except the political class who has the final
say over who gets what).
A close inspection will reveal that politicians using the word
"greed" use it as a weapon to gain power while robbing people of
their rights to liberty and property. Power is the manifest greed
of the political princelings of the Washington establishment.
The lesson of recent elections is that we cannot keep electing
moderate Republicans. We can't send moderates to negotiate with
left-wing extremists in the Democrat party- the net effect is destruction
of the Republic.
All we have gotten for electing moderates, like we are told we
should, are solutions too small to fix the problems the left creates.
For every pound of progressive destruction, we get eight ounces
of cure, if that, from our side.
But we are told that we are not allowed to use words like "socialism"
to describe the socialists in the Democrat party because that drives
away independent voters, yet they call us names like "Nazi" and
"fascist" and we call them "our good friends and colleagues."
Then they win elections with a highly unpopular ideology – poll
after poll shows that 40% of Americans identify themselves as conservative,
while 20% identify themselves as liberal, and yet our Republican
establishment tells us we must compromise.
This idea of sending moderates to negotiate with the far left
has done enormous damage not only to the nation's economy, but
to the very idea of free market economics.
Compromise on everything from Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac to tax
increases and regulation of the markets has led to a disaster,
but instead of blaming the left, who have been negotiating us out
of our freedom for the past 100 years, capitalism gets blamed instead.
So when we nominate the candidate the establishment tells us
we must in order to win, we lose every time. They get most of
what they want, and conservatives and capitalism get all the blame
for the failures of those compromises.
Obama's campaign strategy is to blame the bad economy on Republicans,
but Obama can be defeated by putting his leftist ideology on trial
in this election and explaining how it brought the economy to its
knees.
But first, Republicans have to acknowledge that
it was weak Republicans, in the interest of compromise, that
allowed too much liberal poison to choke a once strong and free
economy.
Memo to Republican Candidates
By Scott Wheeler
11/09/11
 We
have already won the man-made global warming debate, why do you
keep breathing credibility into the issue by saying "you don't
know if it is happening or not?" There is plenty of evidence
that it is a manufactured political issue disguised as science. The
public doesn't believe it in man-made climate fears. Why not force
the Democrats to defend their support of this unpopular and unscientific
nonsense?
How about pointing out that the only scientists who are still
perpetuating the global warming story are the ones steeped in green
activism and profiting from research grants? Instead of trying
to split the difference, why don't you instead explain how Democrats
blew hundreds of billions of taxpayer dollars on a hoax?
Once again, the facts and the best political strategy are on the
Conservative side yet we have Republicans throwing it away with
both hands in an attempt to appeal to people who will not vote
for a Republican anyway. This is not only bad politics, bad science,
and it is bad for the country and bad for the cause of liberty.
Bull Connor Media Turns Fire Hose on Cain
By Scott Wheeler
11/01/11
 In
eleven short years since Bill Clinton was president the "one
free grope rule" for Democrats has turned into the liberal
media in hot pursuit of second and the third generation rumors
of a conservative Republican "looked at me funny and I think
sex was on his mind." Just when you think the left-wing's
cesspool of hypocrisy is finally drained, they start filling it
up again. I am referring of course to Politico's breathless
reporting on Herman Cain over what would not have even been worthy
of asking Bill Clinton or Barack Obama about.
Remember when Clinton was running for president and during his
eight years in office there were repeated allegations of affairs
and serious evidence of sexual harassment including "credible" evidence
of rape? At that time the media devoted most of their time to attacking
anyone who mentioned Clinton's sorted past.
The mainstream media were demanding at the time that the Special
Prosecutor Ken Starr ignore Clinton's lying under oath about molesting
an intern in the Oval Office so the nation could focus on more
serious issues. All the while the liberal agenda driven mainstream
media, all with exception of an occasional New York Times report,
completely ignored something far more serious: allegations and
evidence that Clinton had sold national security secrets to Communist
China. Still today, very few have even touched on what would have
been the biggest story since WWII.
Given the mainstream media's obvious agenda of protecting their
liberal leaders and destroying anyone who could challenge them,
here is my advice to Mr. Cain: run against the mainstream media.
Do not let them bully you with scandal-rumor questions. Throw it
right back on them with obvious Clinton and Obama scandal questions
they refused to cover in the past. For example, when a covert Democrat
pretending to be a reporter asks you what transpired with regards
to the allegations from Politico, simply ask them for
information about their reporting on Juanita Broderick's allegation
that Bill Clinton raped her, - "when you get around to reporting
on that, then get back to me." You can also throw Obama at
them by saying, "how much did your newspaper (or network)
tell us about Mr. Obama's relationship with that terrorist Bill
Ayers, oh yea, nothing. Well you know I think the American people
would like to know more about that serious issue that you all neglected
last time around, so after you get some real answers about that
issue then come talk to me."
The media will quickly get the message, the more they try to scandalize
you the more you expose the Clinton/Obama scandals they worked
so hard to keep under wraps.
In fact, you can take this strategy even further by blaming the
media for all of Obama's failures. The media is to blame for the
mess we are in right now. After all, he could not have been elected
without their help. You can also refer to the mainstream media
as "Obama's team" when addressing them. Call them out by speaking
to the media they way you would speak to a Democrat, "your side
says this, or your team says that." Force them to deny what is
obvious to everyone- that they have a liberal agenda. Demand that
if they want answers from you, then they must go get answers from
Obama. While members of the mainstream media are defending themselves
it will be harder for them to attack you.
The effects of this strategy will be manifold: it will call the
public's attention to the media's rabid bias in favor of Obama;
it will make Obama irrelevant to this election; and it will further
diminish the liberal media's popularity and trust which is not
nearly as high as Obama's.
Why Herman Cain is Surging and Why
the Political Establishment Doesn't Get It
By Scott Wheeler
10/13/11
All over the country I have had numerous people tell me over
the past several months that if they could pick anyone out of the
Republican field to be president it would be Herman Cain. And then
follow it up with this caveat "but since he can't win I am going
with so-and-so (insert the name of any other Republican here)."
Daniel Henninger wrote about similar observations in the September
29 edition of the Wall Street Journal:
"You hear the same thing said about Herman Cain all the time:
Herman Cain has some really interesting ideas, but . . .
I love Herman Cain, but . . .
But what?
But he can't win.
Why not?
At best, the answer has to do with that cloudy word ‘electability.'
Or that Mr. Cain has never held elected political office," writes
Henninger.
But something happened in the month of September that changed
everything. After the Orlando debate of the Republican candidates,
which many saw Cain as the winner, and the Florida straw poll that
followed which Cain won, people across the nation started seeing,
for the first time, that their first choice to be president really
had a chance of winning- a possibility that the Republican base
hasn't seen for a long, long time.
By Tuesday September 27, Zogby released a poll showing Cain with
a strong lead over the rest of the field. I pointed this out to
several Washington insiders who immediately dismissed it and said
basically that Zogby's polls can't be trusted. I pointed out to
them that their opinion of Zogby was irrelevant because it was
posted at the Drudge Report and all over the country people would
be realizing that Cain could win. I predicted to the naysayers,
at that time, that Cain would come up in the other polls and could
soon be out in front. The past two weeks has validated that analysis.
The Washington establishment never gave Herman Cain a chance mainly,
I am told, because of his lack of "political experience." But a
lack of political experience is only a liability to the political
class, to the rest of America it is an advantage. It is interesting
that the political establishment itself doesn't realize how ugly
the stain of being a political insider is to the majority of voters.
This makes for an interesting juxtaposition: Mr. Cain's likely
biggest advantage with conservative voters, that he comes from
outside the establishment, is viewed by the establishment as his
biggest weakness. He speaks American. He doesn't speak in the measured
tones of the political class and that is another thing that makes
him attractive to the conservative base. Perhaps conservatives
thought it was too good to be true that one of their own could
be elected president, hence the feeling that victory for their
first choice was out of reach. But now, the recognition that Mr.
Cain can win will likely cause an explosion of participatory enthusiasm
among the conservative class of the GOP-- the grassroots activists
that do the work even after they are told that they must settle
for the candidate that the establishment selects.
What is important for Cain to remember is that part of his support
is predicated on conservatives believing that he won't abandon
his convictions if he makes it to the general election. At this
point, the biggest mistake Cain could make would be to let Washington
insider election technocrats convince him he needs to moderate
his views in order to get elected. He should be very aggressive
in defending what the mainstream of Americans believe and ignore
the warnings that being authentically conservative will "drive
independents away" which is what the liberal media establishment
always threatens and the Republican establishment always fears.
What the Republican establishment should fear the most is that
if they try to force their approved candidate on the base they
may cause a split in the Republican Party that never heals.
Another Missed Opportunity
By Scott Wheeler
10/12/11
Republicans missed an opportunity to turn the tables on the Washington
Post. If the presidential candidates had boycotted the Washington
Post debate on the basis that the Post twice endorsed Bill Clinton
who worked for a segregationist, William Fulbright, and even praised
Fulbright upon his death. The Post of course has used distortions
and innuendo in an attempt to smear two Republicans, George Allen
in his 2006 Senate race and most recently Texas Gov. Rick Perry
because he hunted on property that had a rock with a racial slur
written on it and not properly covered in a timely fashion. In
addition to exposing the hypocrisy of the Post, it would lay the
ground work for refuting the next wave of media attacks which will
surely be aimed at Herman Cain. By framing the liberal media as
racist, it makes them ripe for a strong push back if they ask Cain
any questions that they didn't ask Obama.
Republicans need the right answer to this predictable question
from the media just as they saw it in last night's debate. Towards
the end, two of the questioners played the class envy card:
Charlie Rose "I don't want this hour and half to pass without
some recognition and conversation about the question of disparity
in America."
Karen Tumulty "Over the last 30 years the income of the wealthiest
1 percent of Americans has grown by more than 300 percent and yet
we have more people living in poverty in this country than at any
time in the last fifty years. Is this acceptable and what would
you do to close that gap?"
The poor, by definition, have no assets, so the growth of wealth
means there alwasy will be a growing disparity. The growth of wealth
has allowed the creation of more poor people because what we now
consider poor is far better off as a result of increasing wealth.
How bad off can poor people be in this country when the poor are
the most likely to drop out of the high school education that is
provided for free? And not only is the education free, but the
poor get breakfast and lunch provided to them for free at school.
How hungry can poor children possibly be when so many of them drop
out of the school that provides them two free meals a day plus
a free education?
Two Can Play That Game
By Scott Wheeler
9/22/11
More great advice for the Republican establishment to ignore:
President Obama's logical immaturity in his September 19 speech
announcing the "Buffett Rule" provides a big opportunity for Republicans
to expose the corruption of his rhetoric.
"We have to prioritize…..Either we ask the wealthiest Americans
to pay their fair share in taxes or we're going to have to ask
seniors to pay more for Medicare. We can't afford to do both. Either
we gut education and medical research or we've got to reform the
tax code so that the most profitable have to give up tax loopholes
other companies don't get, we can't afford to do both. It's not
class warfare, it's math" says Obama. But it is not math. It is
philosophy--one of Aristotle's thirteen fallacies, with this particular
instance being of the informal variety. It is more commonly known
as the straw man argument: Obama makes up whatever he wants the
conservative position on an issue to be, then pretends to refute
that argument, machinating himself as the defender of the downtrodden.
In reality he comes off as a pernicious Don Quixote imagining productive
people as his enemy.
Obama often uses unsophisticated fallacies to promote his illogical
policies. "Either we raise taxes" on who he calls the "wealthy"
or we will be forced to "gut education and medical research…. And
schools that are crumblin' [sic]," Obama claims. The economic illiteracy
of these statements isn't worth unpacking, but they do present
an opportunity for Republicans to re-appropriate his triteness
and absurdity and broadcast it to the voters every day until the
election. Democrats have been employing this tactic against the
GOP and conservatives for years—and to great effect.
Here are a few examples of how conservatives and Republicans can
respond:
"Either we stop Obama from giving our tax money to fat-cat labor
union bosses or our seniors won't get medical treatment."
"Either we stop Obama from pouring millions of dollars into the
outlaw group ACORN and its subsidiaries or homeless families will
be forced to sleep on the street."
"Children are going to bed hungry while Obama hands over stimulus
grants to Marxist organizations such as The Brecht Forum who openly
declare their plans for the overthrow of the United States."
"While our roads and schools and bridges are crumbling Obama is
sending hundreds of millions of our tax dollars to the terrorist
group Hamas through dubious ‘aid packages' to the Gaza Strip.
"Either we ask Obama to demand that his millionaire and billionaire
friends, like those at Solyndra, to return the billions of taxpayer
dollars they received through the stimulus and his other failed
economic experiments or else average Americans who play by the
rules will do without."
If people in America are ever going to get a fair shake, the Obamas
must stop their conspicuous consumption of tens of millions to
support their insatiable cravings for beluga, squab and other luxuries.
The Obamas' use of public funds to live the lifestyle of a czar -- flying
their extended families to five-star vacations around the world
and flaunting opulence as though it were their own money to burn -- is
an egregious insult to so many Americans who sleep in their cars
due to Obama's failure to create a single job.
The difference between these juxtapositions and the ones Obama
offered are that these are accurate and fair comparisons while
Obama's were wholly contrived to foment class warfare. Even with
the facts on our side, conservatives still have not learned to
use the illegitimate tactics of the Left for the very legitimate
purpose of leveling the playing field.
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