Obama vs. Romney: Thoughts from a Dead Frenchman

I have been struck by the striking incompetence shown by the Obama campaign in the past few weeks.  It has been truly remarkable. The once slick, well-oiled campaign panzer that rolled over all opponents four years ago seems to have a broken tread and going in crazy circles.  In fact, nothing at all seems working.

The campaign, thus far, has no core message except, "Obama . . .  just because." As I noted before, the Obama campaign, with the support of 99% of the media, is desperately trying to throw together a disparate coalition of groups perceived as victims, holding a grudge against the system, and demanding compensation. It has not worked very well, so far.

The theme that the GOP is conducting a "war against women" seemed initially promising. The compliant press went into action puffing up the silly Sandra Fluke as representative of American womanhood, and viciously attacking Rush Limbaugh for having the temerity to point out that she wanted taxpayers to pay for her sex life. The appropriately named Fluke turned out a thin reed to grasp, and--horrors!--not even the media could cover up her upper-class, snooty air of entitlement. Americans, male AND female, saw through the false "right-to-contraception" argument, and realized that the Obama administration sought to bend religious institutions to the power of the state. It, pardon the hyperbole, has sparked an American version of Mexico's "Cristero War," although our version will be fought with courts of law and of public opinion, not with guns and bullets as in the original Mexican version. This is not the fight the administration wants as the election draws near. Americans accept a secular state. They, however, do not accept kneeling before Caesar on issues of core belief.

In a frantic attempt to resurrect the "war on women" theme, the Obama campaign came up with the virtual "Julia," which laid out a bizarre version of a "typical" American woman's life after receiving the blessings of Barrack Obama. This hideous and unintentionally hilarious effort has been laughed into virtual oblivion, and one wonders if the Obama campaign has any adults with real life experience in the brick-and-mortar world.

As per a prior posting, the campaign also stumbled into the gay marriage issue. After years of assuring Americans that he saw marriage as a union between one man and one woman, the President suddenly announced that he had flip-flopped "evolved" to "personally support" gay marriage. This "evolution" led to an intense but ultimately brief outburst of media and Hollywood donor fawning and drooling over the President's "courage." As with nearly everything else this President "does," however, it soon became apparent that, in the immortal phrasing of the British philosophical giants, the Bee-Gees, the President's "brave" pronouncement was "only words/And words are all I have/ To take your heart away." He did nothing except collect several million dollars in cash from swooning Hollywood "one percenters" on America's Left Coast. Polling of real Americans, however, show that some 67 percent saw his "bravery" as a political maneuver, not something "as right to do." This arrogant stupidity could cost Obama significant numbers of votes in some critical "swing" states (Note: Feel free to insert joke here.)

The crude attacks on the wealthy and on Bain, in particular, have begun to backfire. Moderate Democrats, defined as people who have real life experience trying to run things, have begun creating distance between themselves and the cheap Marxistoid class warfare lingo coming from the campaign.  Obama has invited comparison between his record on jobs and that of Romney. That is not an invitation Obama should issue; it is not a comparison Obama can win.

The list of missteps goes on. The crude attacks on Anne Romney by campaign surrogates backfired with housewives all across the country. The silly attack on Governor Romney as cruel to dogs fell apart as Obama's boasting in "his" autobiography of having eaten dog in Indonesia came snarling and growling out of his past. Low-road attempts to attack the Governor's religion, now risk revisiting the whole Jeremiah Wright fiasco, and at a time when Wright is mightily sore at Obama and talking. Attacking Romney for alleged high school pranks has reopened the issue of Obama's own mysterious past, put back into the spotlight his confessed drug use, and his bullying of a girl classmate in middle school.  Suing Arizona, another swing state, on behalf of illegal aliens straining the state's public resources and generating crime is a potential electoral disaster. Getting involved in and trying to demagogue the Florida Zimmerman-Martin case could have an electoral impact in Florida; it's admittedly anecdotal, but friends in Florida tell me of anger in the Latin and white community over what they see as persecution of Zimmerman, and over the possibility that the DOJ might bring "hate crime" charges against Zimmerman.

President Obama has a serious problem. He needs to change the topic of the election from his dismal failure on the economy, his wasting of his considerable initial political capital on the disastrous Obamacare, and his wasting of hundreds of billions of dollars on phony stimulus projects. The one hope he has is to try what Hollande pulled off in France: convince voters that the crisis is not real, that the party can continue, and that the "rich" will pay the bills.

After this long intro, let me get to the topic of this posting.  Emperor Napoleon can almost rival Winston Churchill for great quotes that have applicability to a wide range of topics. One of my favorites, and great advice for the Romney campaign is, "Never interrupt your enemy when he is making a mistake." Words to live by; words to win an election by.