Matt Damon has spouted off about Obama- again. He says Obama lacks the leadership qualities necessary to be President, and I agree with him.
“I’ve talked to a lot of people who worked for Obama at the grassroots level,” says Damon. “One of them said to me, ‘Never again. I will never be fooled again by a politician.’”
Right on.
Obama has been a terrible leader. Love him or hate them, Reagan and Clinton knew how to lead. George W. Bush also lead as well. Obama, not so much. Mr. Wishy Washy.
For example, Obama has all but checked out of the debate on the Keystone XL pipeline, out sourcing the decision making to Hillary and not even making a statement on it. I don’t mind a President who delegates, in fact I think that is a good thing. But delegation without a clear focused goal puts disarray into the process. In this case, Obama should have given a public goal with regard to the decision. Some actual and realistic metrics so everyone could measure.
In decision after decision, Obama has followed a similar pattern. It’s why Senate Democrats can’t get a budget together. What has it been? Close to a 1000 days without a budget? That’s almost three years and the length of Obama’s term in office.
Most of the discontent that we see in America is from either poor leadership or lack of it. In the Tea Party’s case, it’s the direction of leadership. They want smaller, limited government. That is in direct opposition to the Democrat/Obama/Union/BigGovernment agenda. There is no middle ground between them and that’s why they are so eager for another election. The Tea Party whupped em in 2010 and in 2012 they’ll do it again.
Contrast that to the Occupy Wall Street crowd. Ideologically, they are in Obama’s camp. They have empathy for what he wanted to accomplish and thought that he would be a very different kind of politician. In practice, he is just another Democratic hack. Crony capitalism reigns, big government programs are helping out big gigantic corporations and the little guy doesn’t have a chance. In a fit of rage, they took to the streets and tried to get their message across.
There were empathetic ears in the disenchanted Tea Party. But once the OWS agenda became plain, most of America dismissed them.
Currently, we are engaged in a payroll tax debate that is one of the stupidest things I have ever seen. A payroll tax holiday for two months? No economics professor in the world can show that this sort of thing is stimulative to the economy. Both Republicans and Democrats want it, but because of Obama’s failure to lead on Keystone, Republicans have taken the initiative and tied that project to the tax decrease. Instead, he is checking out to Hawaii to play golf.
This leaves Democrats standing naked. It leaves Tea Party Republicans in the back of the bus trying to show something for their efforts, and it leaves establishment Republicans pointing fingers at everyone.
Much of Congress disarray can be blamed not on Congress but on the White House. At least when Gingrich engaged Clinton back in 1993, both knew what they wanted and weren’t afraid to come out strongly for it. Think of protons and electrons. Now, we are getting the taste of an Alfred E. Neumann presidency. We can’t afford four more years of any of it.
The Republican that shows he can lead the country in a direction that will be the most palatable to the party, and independents will beat Obama in a landslide. Absent that, the election becomes close. If I were a betting man today, I’d bet on Romney or Perry becoming that candidate, with a large edge to Romney.