President Good Hair?
There's another interesting post on the GOP field for that party's presidential nomination up at the Los Angeles Times. This one takes a look at Texas Governor Rick Perry's chances against Barack Obama in 2012 and reflects on a post by Merrill Matthews at the conservative website Human Events (located here).
Matthews "compares" Perry and Obama and finds Obama's record sorely lacking. Here is a list of Obama's "accomplishments" since taking office according to Matthews:
Matthews continues by highlighting some of Obama's most significant fumbles:
Energy: Gasoline was $1.67 a gallon then. It's now $3.79.
Food: Average cost of a gallon of milk was about $2.65. It's about $3.50 today.
Housing: The median cost of a home was $229,600. Today it's $217,900.
Budget deficit: We fell $438 billion short of balancing the federal budget in 2008. We missed it by $1.4 trillion this year -- nearly four times higher.
U.S. debt: Total federal debt was $10.7 trillion then. It's $14.5 trillion now -- nearly 50% higher.
Unemployment: Then, 7.3% of Americans were unemployed and 9.1% are unemployed today.
As the Times article points out, this isn't too fair because Obama inherited an economic mess from former President Bush. The Wall Street and bank bailouts occurred even before Obama was sworn in. The real estate bubble was already bursting and the economy was swirling downwards. Still, those figures do hold some truth with respect to just how Obama managed the problems he inherited, which was not very well.
Instead of an emphasis on a stimulus package which would have put Americans back to work, which in turn would have increased revenues, Obama chose to continue the bailouts without tying the monies to increased hiring. Instead of scaling back military operations, he increased troop levels in Afghanistan and is currently burning millions of dollars on missiles being fired by drones in Libya.
To use the metaphor favored by Matthews, Obama fumbled the ball handed off to him by Bush.
Will Obama lose to Perry should he become the nominee? It's hard to tell. After all, Governor Perry is a bit of a loon, threatening at one point to pull his state out of the union. And Perry hasn't even entered the GOP race, much less been tested by debates and personal appearances. But it is an intriguing scenario.
Matthews "compares" Perry and Obama and finds Obama's record sorely lacking. Here is a list of Obama's "accomplishments" since taking office according to Matthews:
Matthews continues by highlighting some of Obama's most significant fumbles:
Energy: Gasoline was $1.67 a gallon then. It's now $3.79.
Food: Average cost of a gallon of milk was about $2.65. It's about $3.50 today.
Housing: The median cost of a home was $229,600. Today it's $217,900.
Budget deficit: We fell $438 billion short of balancing the federal budget in 2008. We missed it by $1.4 trillion this year -- nearly four times higher.
U.S. debt: Total federal debt was $10.7 trillion then. It's $14.5 trillion now -- nearly 50% higher.
Unemployment: Then, 7.3% of Americans were unemployed and 9.1% are unemployed today.
As the Times article points out, this isn't too fair because Obama inherited an economic mess from former President Bush. The Wall Street and bank bailouts occurred even before Obama was sworn in. The real estate bubble was already bursting and the economy was swirling downwards. Still, those figures do hold some truth with respect to just how Obama managed the problems he inherited, which was not very well.
Instead of an emphasis on a stimulus package which would have put Americans back to work, which in turn would have increased revenues, Obama chose to continue the bailouts without tying the monies to increased hiring. Instead of scaling back military operations, he increased troop levels in Afghanistan and is currently burning millions of dollars on missiles being fired by drones in Libya.
To use the metaphor favored by Matthews, Obama fumbled the ball handed off to him by Bush.
Will Obama lose to Perry should he become the nominee? It's hard to tell. After all, Governor Perry is a bit of a loon, threatening at one point to pull his state out of the union. And Perry hasn't even entered the GOP race, much less been tested by debates and personal appearances. But it is an intriguing scenario.
Labels: Election 2012
posted by Diane at 4:14 AM
3 Comments:
hmmm, Osama bin Laden is dead and Perry is a nut from Texas
well, it would be more correct to say that Obama recovered the ball fumbled by Dubya. But it's still fourth and a long way to go for a first down.
Oh Obama will ride the Osama wave for as long as he can - at least right into the next election.
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