The never-ending campaign

It depends on one’s perspective the virtue of certain candidates for President next year. There are a number of reasons, beyond simple partisan politics, that this country should elect a new President next year even though the incumbent is running for re-election.

The current President was elected on a wave of charisma and sloganeering making sweeping proclamations, blaming President Bush for every ill in the country and winning on a thin resume that was mostly ignored by the media believing in the nebulous hope and change. Unemployment is worse than at his inauguration and at any point during the prior President’s tenure, and is much higher than that promised by the President if his “stimulus” package were passed. It was passed and benefits are hard to identify. Instead it has opened the gate to further proliferate spending leading to a two year increase in the nation’s deficit that is worse than that of the previous eight combined.

The President does not identify policies implemented throughout his tenure as deficient for not meeting his grandiose assurances, instead continuing to blame President Bush and asking for more of the same as if the problem isn’t with spending money that doesn’t exist, instead the problem is that we do not spend enough of what we do not have. We are expected to accept higher prices and more control in the private sector because we are told that central planners better understand the best interests of 300 million people in countless disparate communities and across thousands of industries better than ourselves and that our planet’s security is best suited by unproven at best methodologies. We are expected to accept indeterminate metrics such as jobs “saved”. Corporations are demonized for “sitting” on trillions of dollars while changing and growing regulations increase the cost of employment and doing business.

The President has already begun his campaign for re-election and is running as the same unknown quantity in face of a resume as President. Will it work? It depends. Much of the added deficit has been dedicated to increasing unemployment benefits and increasing welfare rolls to unprecedented levels, increasing dependency on government. The President’s case rests in the idea that the failures of his policies as stated are attributable to past events or require more time than projected. It also requires a significant portion of the electorate to believe that they cannot do any better than the just enough provided them by government programs once meant only to be a safety net but are now considered entitlements. Enough, the only thing that this President seems to be able to do is campaign. This President has failed by any real metric and does not deserve to be President for another four years.