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WHY OBAMA LOST THE PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION

It wasn’t supposed to be a public forum but you know how it is nowadays. Someone always has a smart phone or some other recording device. I was watching a re-run of "The Truman Show" the other night with various images of the Jim Carey character being transmitted to a world wide audience via cameras as tiny as a button. That’s about the way it is everywhere today. Life isn’t just imitating art. It’s validating it. So there he was, Barack Obama explaining to his big backers why he lost to President Elect Romney.

Those in attendance included the heads of every major U.S. union, agents of the Muslim Brotherhood, George Soros , at least three Black Panthers, Barbara Streisand, Oprah Winfrey and the entire Chicago Bulls Roster. The recording reveals the President telling them that while he was trying to convince voters that his ideas were the ones that would move the country forward and provide for a brighter future, he just wasn’t able to compete against Romney’s promises to give things to people. For example, by promising to eliminate all federal taxes for people with incomes in excess of $500,000, he was able to pull in a lot of rich white males. When he proposed quadrupling the tax deduction for moving companies overseas, he pulled in a lot of very rich white males. When he made his so called joke about their being no doubt about where he was born and nobody asking to see his birth certificate, he gave a poorly disguised nod and a wink to the birthers and pulled in a lot of nutty white people of both sexes.. When he stood smiling to receive the endorsement of Donald Trump, he pulled in a bunch of crazy white people. When he promised to get rid of "Obama Care" on his first day in office, he pulled in a bunch of delusional white people. He was just able to pull together a coalition that was hard to beat.

We tried, the President said, to explain that the kind of entitlement society being proposed by Mr. Romney, could propel us down the road to disaster - with national expenditures going through the roof and revenue falling close to zero. The President said he tried to explain that there was no way that the middle class and the poor could support government all by themselves - but when so many people become dependent and are comfortable being dependent on the government giving them the kind of things that George W Bush started giving them, and with Romney promising to give them more and more of the same - that was a force that was difficult to overcome.

But the most important reason that he was unable to beat Mr. Romney, the President explained to his financial backers, many of whom had donated more than $127.50 on at least four occasions, was mathematics. It was clear going in that 53% of the public were going to support Romney. Most, if not all of them actually paid federal income tax - and a good many of them paid more that 14%!! We knew our only hope was to chip away at that 53%. It was technically possible. After all, if we could just get 3% to come over to our side, we’d be even and if some kind of miracle happened - say something like a devastating storm that caused unbelievable destruction of property and loss of life so that we could look Presidential responding to it, we could well pick up that other point that would put us over the top. Well, as you know, the President continued, the storm did happen and we were able to look Presidential but Bill O’Reilly and Rush Limbaugh explained to their vast audiences that we had arranged the whole thing just so we could look Presidential - and there went that three plus one percent.

But the news wasn’t all bad, the President concluded. He had learned his lesson. In order to win the presidency, he had to reach out to rich, white, mostly middle aged males and promise them things!! But, a Black Panther member asked him, isn’t it too late to change campaign tactics after you've already lost the election? Not at all, the President answered with a smile. I’m talking about 2016 when I’ll be running for an interrupted second term. The camera got switched off right after Hillary Clinton fainted and they needed to use the smart phone to call 911.

This has been a What’s All This Then exclusive report.

posted by Jeff Smith at 11/16/2012 11:04:00 AM

 
MULTIDIMENSIONAL VIEWS OF THE PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION RESULT

The election was four days ago and I’m still trying to figure out what happened, which is the reason I have withheld comment until now. As a member of Romney’s forty seven percent, I fully expected to be preparing myself for four years of a Romney administration, the abolition of all taxes, the renaming of the Supreme Court to the Tea Party Court, the reintroduction of the draft in order to beef up the military which would be called upon to pursue the war against Russia which would be declared on January 22, 2013 and which would be paid for by selling off four of the poorest performing states to Bain Capital, which in turn would break them up and sell the parts at a several thousand percent profit.

I was never very good at math at school and when new math came along later in life, I pretty much gave up trying to understand it. But I could always add and subtract, so when I learned that we voters were divided 53 to 47 percent - the 47 who would vote for Obama and the 53 for Romney, I couldn’t understand why the television networks kept "calling" states for Obama and eventually declaring him a winner. How could 47 be greater than 52? T’was indeed a conundrum. So I turned to Fox News for enlightenment - on election night and on four subsequent days. And the answer was revealed. Obama had not won reelection. Evil forces had conspired to foist him on an unsuspecting public for the next four years.

For some time now, scientists have been investigating the concept of String Theory which, among other things visualizes multiple dimensions - way more than the three - four if you count time - that we are aware of and live with. Well dear readers, the era of speculation is over. String Theory is a reality. Multiple dimensions exist and at least one of them can be found on Fox News and another most certainly on the radio waves that carry Rush Limbaugh’s voice to an adoring though mindless audience. From the Fox News dimension it soon became clear to me that there is a newnew math which explains everything.

From the view of the world available from - what we’ll call the "Fox Dimension"- I learned that the Democrats had engaged in voter suppression. They did this by "demonizing" Romney - accusing him of being a vulture capitalist who paid a smaller percentage of taxes than the average voter, even before he was the official nominee.(Remember, during the selection process that took place inside the Republican primary dimension, there was a moment in space/time when Newt Gingrich announced that he was the "Nom-inee.") Anyway, those early attacks on Romney, according to the Fox News department of extra dimensional punditry, scared many of the 53% voters away from the polls. But that wasn’t all. Romney voters also became fearful when they became aware that "this" was not "their United States." In fact, looking at the election from within the Limbaugh dimension - the United States had become LOST! But seemingly, only lost to the 53 percent while the 47 percent crowd mysteriously were able to find their way to some part of the country to vote, even though many were forced to stand in line for hours to exercise that privilege.

Evidence of String Theory and multiple dimensions wasn’t confined to the field of broadcasting punditry. On November 7, 2012, the Chicago Tribune, the paper that I read seven days a week, informed me that the election was the "cleanest" in HISTORY. This despite voter suppression by the Democrats and the theft of the country by 47 percent of us. If that’s "clean" you have to wonder what is dirty in the Chicago Tribune dimension - I think that’s the seventh dimension. Well, actually, they tell us. It’s attacking the other guy’s religion. It’s "swift boating." And a few other things. You can read them here. Lies on the other hand and a wink and a nod to the Birthers by Mr. Romney, are just playful political jousting.

Meanwhile, back in the three dimensional world in which the rest of us live, I think many of us who applaud the election results , view the post election reaction of right wing punditry with dismay. They have been speaking of changing demographics which they failed to recognize as the reason for their loss, while at the same time insulting the people populating those changed demographics by continuing to speak of those who voted for the President as people who want "things" and look to government to provide them. They continue to speak of "their" America which someone has taken away and they want it back. Not from a political point of view. The losing political party is always determined to win the next election. But from an ownership point of view.

I know it’s an easy throwaway phrase to mock such people as living in "another world" - and that was certainly my reaction listening to four days of right wing post-mortem - but while it may not be another dimension as postulated by String Theory scientists, it was and is a refutation of Barack Obama’s insistence at the 2004 Democratic convention that despite being sliced and diced by pundits into red and blue states we are all "one people." It sounded good when he said it, but it isn’t true and I’m sure he knew it then and knows it now. After 236 years, becoming one people is still a work in progress and this election and the reaction of those who lost it, proves that there’s still a great deal of work left to do.

posted by Jeff Smith at 11/10/2012 08:23:00 PM

 
CHICAGO TRIBUNE QUOTE ACROSIC ANSWER FOR NOVEMBER 4, 2012

A fairly simple puzzle today, compiled by Pat Cohen from the words of the late, great George Carlin with a most appropriate punch line as you will see.

There is one thing I know for sure. Deep down in my heart I am most definitely not an atheist and I am also not an agnostic. I guess I am just an acrostic because it is all an incredible puzzle to me.

You’re welcome.
posted by Jeff Smith at 11/04/2012 11:04:00 AM

 
BARACK OBAMA FOR PRESIDENT

I have already voted for president and while I was and never have been influenced by newspaper endorsements, I was glad to see the paper that I read seven days a week agree with my choice for president and, atheist as I may be, it pleases me to visualize Colonel McCormick rotating in his grave.

Not that I think Barack Obama has been a perfect president. Like so many people who voted enthusiastically for him in 2008, I am somewhat disappointed at the lack of change that we hoped would take place. Part of that lack can be blamed on partisan politics that got in the way almost from the moment of his inauguration. If you can believe the account in Robert Draper’s book - it did indeed begin that day when key members of the House and Senate met and devised a plan to block the President’s agenda at every turn. But Obama disappointed in other ways. I won’t dwell on them because those of us who supported and campaigned for him know what they are - just as we know the good things. And we still support and will vote for him for a second term.

His opponent is a man who I believe the Republicans chose with reluctance as the best of a bad bunch. He will get the votes of millions of Americans, which doesn’t astonish as much as it saddens me. How anyone could cast their vote to elect this man as the leader of the free world is beyond any sense of reason or understanding. Any one who reads this blog with some regularity knows that as far as I’m concerned , Romney’s infamous car trip with his dog confined to a cage strapped to the top of his vehicle was enough to remove him for consideration for any kind of elective office and most assuredly for the presidency. Some might think of this as a frivolous reason to vote against him, but I believe that how humans treat animals in their care, reveals much of what there is to know of their character and indeed of their humanity. On this issue alone, Romney fails badly. But putting this issue aside, which as I have indicated, will likely not resonate with millions as it did with me, there are many other reasons why I could not vote for this man to be president but to avoid rambling too much, I’ll confine them to just seven.

Perhaps the first reason is that the man seems to have wanted to be president for years - almost as though he feels he is entitled to the mantle of the office. Although his official quest began in 2006, one gets the impression that he’s been running for a much longer time. Ann Romney I believe made clear how what she and her husband believe. "It’s our turn."

Second, the famous or infamous flip flops, begging the question - which Romney is running for office? When considering who to vote for in a presidential election - unless one is a blind partisan or a single issue voter, you’d want to know the candidate’s beliefs and opinions and ideas on a variety of topics. That’s certainly something you get with Romney - as the saying goes - in spades. However the problem with trying to get a handle on what those beliefs, opinions and ideas are is that voters are faced with - to quite the late Ted Kennedy on Romney - a multiple choice candidate - or to use my own words, a political chameleon . Again for the sake of brevity I won’t try listing all of his contradictory positions here. They are easily found on the Internet. And they reveal a man who is whatever you want him to be at any given time and at any given location. A man without any core beliefs other than the belief that it’s his time to be president.

Third is his claim that he "knows how the economy works." The trouble is, he doesn’t explain which economy. He certainly knows how his economy works - the economy of making money as a vulture capitalist. A little research on line will show how he and Bain Capital made their money - and you can see that it had nothing to do with his other claim, that he knows how to create jobs - except maybe in China. Knowing how to make money by investing in companies and pulling as much profit out of them in as short a time as possible , often at the expense of ordinary working men and women, does not qualify Mr. Romney as a "job creator."

Fourth - and this is related to my first reason, is the arrogance that Romney and his wife displayed with regard to their income tax returns. There is no question in my mind that if the way he made his money over the past eight or nine years was to be revealed, his poll numbers would drop like a bomb. Ann Romney complained that if more tax returns were made public, they would be picked over to make them look bad. Certainly they would be picked over by experts, who would be the only people who could make sense of them. But we’ll never see them. Again, as Ann Romney put it - "we've given all you people need to know and understand about our financial situation and about how we live our lives." You people. You know who you are. Stay in your place.

Fifth, the total lack of compassion and understanding of people who are not of "their class." That’s "you people." Romney can try all the gimmicks he likes to show that he can relate to ordinary folks. He could even get film crews to follow him checking out blue jeans at a Target store or rip off the price of a half a dozen grocery items. But when he had a real chance to show that he’s someone who cares, someone who wants to keep jobs in the United States and not have them shipped off to China, he showed who he really is - someone who doesn’t give a damn about ordinary people. The workers at the Sensata Company in Freeport, Illinois, have asked Mr. Romney to intercede on their behalf with owners Bain Capital, which is shipping the entire company - a highly profitable company - to CHINA. Romney wouldn’t lift a finger. Does any more need to be said?

Sixth, the lies. Unfortunately, lying and distorting has become a regular part - if not the central part of political campaigning in the United States. Both sides do it. I could list all the lies and distortions uttered by the candidates in this election, including those uttered by or on behalf of the presidential candidates. But even with political lies, there has to be a limit. Mr. Romney has stepped beyond it a few times, but now he has distorted that limit beyond recognition. In a desperate attempt to woo voters in Ohio, he is polluting the atmosphere with claims that Chrysler is moving its Jeep production to China and General Motors is also shipping thousands of jobs there. This evoked the extraordinary scenario of two major American automobile companies using euphemistic language to call a presidential candidate a liar.

Finally, the Supreme Court. It is highly likely that the next president will make one, perhaps two Supreme Court appointments. In so many ways, the Supreme Court exercises more power over the affairs of the nation than does the President or the Congress. Appointments by Romney could shift the court farther to the right than the current alignment. That could not only mean the reversal of Roe v Wade but even greater power in the hands of the super rich. Citizens United would recede into history as the tip of an iceberg that sunk the ship of state as we have come to know it.

I could list many more reasons why I believe Mr. Romney would be the wrong choice for the United States - including his ideas on taxes, which, if he had his way, would make the rich richer, the poor poorer and the middle class disappear - and his concept of foreign policy diplomacy, which we saw displayed in London during the Olympics and in his citing of Russia as our number one enemy in the world. But, if you’ll pardon a religious reference from an atheist, the seven deadly sins I have mentioned should be more then enough reasons to reject this man.

posted by Jeff Smith at 11/03/2012 11:26:00 AM