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<channel>
	<title>Obama&#039;s Enemies List: A Growing List of Obama&#039;s Enemies &#187; Stupid</title>
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	<description>Are you on OBAMASHITLIST?</description>
	<lastBuildDate>Thu, 09 Feb 2012 10:25:00 +0000</lastBuildDate>
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		<title>President Santorum</title>
		<link>http://www.obamashitlist.com/2012/02/08/president-santorum/</link>
		<comments>http://www.obamashitlist.com/2012/02/08/president-santorum/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Wed, 08 Feb 2012 21:05:00 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>WhittleseyObyrne184</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Barack Obama]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Stupid]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[conservatives]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[courageously]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[done-the-state]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[former-two-term]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[making-absolute]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[nomination]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[nominee]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[obama]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[pennsylvania]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[santorum]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[sliming-the-way]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[stupid]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[white]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.obamashitlist.com/2012/02/08/president-santorum/</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[ As I wrote 18 months ago, back in 2010 : It is folly, if not sheer madness, to think that a former U.S. senator who lost his last re-election campaign in a home-state landslide could possibly turn around and be elected president. Or at least that's what conventional wisdom would say. It's a good thing for Rick Santorum that conventional wisdom, especially in politics, is usually preternaturally stupid. It's also a good thing for Rick Santorum that he has a history of making absolute fools of the Washington chattering classes. Santorum, the courageously conservative former two-term U.S. House member and two-term senator from Pennsylvania, is openly considering a run for the White House. Conservative leaders and voters are preternaturally stupid if they don't at least give him a serious hearing... I wake up this morning to hear pundits and DC activists still discounting Santorum's chances. Again, they are wrong. The shape of the nomination fight to come is now clear: With Ron Paul continuing to take his minority share of the votes, other conservatives will rally around Santorum rather than Gingrich. Eventually, a weak Romney, without a personal "connection" to voters and without any strongly philosophically committed base, will succumb. Santorum will be the nominee. Obama will overplay his hand attacking Santorum's allegedly awful remarks about homosexuals. He'll try to slime Santorum in other ways, too. But Santorum isn't really vulnerable to sliming the way other candidates are. He'll win swing states in the heartland and will make a good enough VP choice to shore up weaknesses elsewhere. I haven't done the state-by-state math, but he'll end up with about 300 electoral votes to Obama's 238 or so. Santorum will be the next president. And he'll govern very, very well. ]]></description>
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		<item>
		<title>Excommunicate the Bishops.</title>
		<link>http://www.obamashitlist.com/2012/02/05/excommunicate-the-bishops/</link>
		<comments>http://www.obamashitlist.com/2012/02/05/excommunicate-the-bishops/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Sun, 05 Feb 2012 09:48:26 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>BrennanShawna20</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Barack Obama]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Health Care]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Nuclear]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Ronald Reagan]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Stupid]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Uncategorized]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[abortion]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[church]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[council]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[country]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[democratic]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[easter]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[faith]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[health]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[obama]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[secretary]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[social]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[stupid]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[thoughts]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[writing]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.obamashitlist.com/2012/02/05/excommunicate-the-bishops/</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[ Promoted from the diaries Most of my writing is on foreign policy. There are few other topic areas other than the law on which I&#8217;m comfortable writing. However, as streiff notes , I, like most other Catholics, got to hear a heartfelt letter from my Bishop &#8212; a living examplar of St. John Chrysostom&#8217;s famous (possibly apocryphal) maxim &#8212; explaining that clear out of nowhere, somehow, the Obama Administration decided to make Catholic institutions pay for abortifacents, birth control, and sterilization procedures, all of which are actually explicitly mortal sins in my faith, which is to say, one can be in danger of Hell merely for helping to provide them. As Sts. Nicholas and Chrysostom would not, in their unenlightened days, have likely had warm feelings for His Excellency, it is perhaps incumbent upon me to note that my Bishop neglected a few details in the sermon he had our deacon read aloud. His Excellency was absolutely silent on the possible election of a man who actively defended the post-uterine execution of neonatal infants, which I ascribe to moral laziness and cowardice, though it may have been instead interest in funding a short lived billboard campaign in Atlanta extolling Catholics who believe him and the Pope evil to come on back for a quick round of communion. The Secretary of Health and Human Services is a self-professing Catholic who is one of the most ardent defenders of the abortion license in our country. Obamacare was passed through the good offices of numerous nominally-Catholic Senators and Representatives, despite warnings from Catholic groups (such as the Knights of Columbus, who fought tooth and nail) and without so much as a peep of the same from our esteemed Bishops, that maybe, just maybe, the Obama Administration might be vaguely interested in making free abortion on demand and contraceptives available to all, conscience exceptions be damned. No pun. Instead, in that pastoral letter, there was a general note that this was bad, and we should all be aware of it. In the background, I believe I heard someone dropping bread into a bowl of milk. I may have also heard someone washing his hands before a condemned man, but I&#8217;m not sure about that. Back when there was a New Ledger , I wrote a now long-forgotten piece excoriating the Bishops in this country for complicity in its passage, for not speaking up, for not excommunicating the public officials who actively fight for the abortion license despite the infallible teachings of our Church &#8212; and by extension, for enabling a culture of license that enables the Culture of Death. (Piece stolen here ; TNL no longer publishes essays.) I stand by every word, and would like to add a few things. Let me start with the most basic one. You can all, each of you, and I say this after a week of prayerful meditation and with all of the respect I can give, go straight to the darkest pit in the lowest valley of the Ninth Layer of Hell and burn there. It was easy to sell out the unborn, wasn&#8217;t it? To just wish away an infallible teaching that &#8212; let&#8217;s be honest &#8212; has been such a headache since a Catholic Supreme Court Justice helped its mass breaking, and Catholic Democrats abandoned everything else to protect that breach, right? To let others commit a sin that our Church treats as so grave that it incurs the automatic sanction of excommunication? All in return for a goal you&#8217;ve shared with your Democrat masters since the 1940s &#8212; a chance to drive healthcare costs through the roof with the fig leaf of social caring. All so you could work with the sorts of people who are elected to office by publicly calling you theocrats and misogynists for more-or-less upholding the two-thousand-year-old Tradition of our Church. Thirty pieces of silver must buy one Hell of a lot more for you than it does for me. Who among you has stepped forward to say, Whoops! Or, We are infallible on matters of faith expressed through the Tradition or through an ecumenical Council, but we can err on policy, and hoo-boy, did we blow this one . Who among you spoke out last week and said, Attention my flock: I must now inform you that the Democratic Party has proven once and for all that if you vote for a Democrat in this country, you engage in material cooperation with evil. We will now be holding weekly mass Confession to handle the backlog until it clears. Because that is truth. In 2009 and 2010, nominally faithful Catholics who value all of the policy choices you do &#8212; labor unions, forced charity, high rates of taxation, urban ghettoes, and of course, universal &#8220;health care&#8221; &#8212; and who claimed to be ardent defenders of the unborn sold out to a one , sacrificed millions of babies and betrayed the infallible teaching of their faith so they could get one gigantic step closer to the social justice you so crave. And for that, for that moment when they put aside their baptismal and confirmation vows, repeated every Easter, and their recitation of whatever version of the Nicene Creed you&#8217;ve settled on this week, your response was &#8230; applause. Silence. Satisfaction. A professed willingness to work with the Administration. You made all of this possible. For almost my entire life, you have given my fellow Catholics every reason to believe they can freely sin, and hey, no problem, so long as they favor higher taxation and government spending. They can murder the unborn, and I have had all of two homilies, two, in my entire time as a Catholic, which is to say from birth and for the thirty-five years after, in parishes and dioceses across the country, in which a priest has said, If you have had, caused, or aided in obtaining an abortion, and you take communion today, you will go to Hell . You look out into your emptying pews, terrified of the wood you see and the flesh you don&#8217;t, through families of one, two, or sometimes amazingly three children, and think, Well, at least they&#8217;re still coming , as if you do not understand the connection between these things. In the wake of the sex abuse scandal, I got to hear read to me and my wife and small baby a heartfelt letter from a bishop not even in office when the terrible events at issue took place, making a sincere apology. In 2006, I got to get lectured at Easter about the importance of having lots of illegal immigrants in our country, from the same Bishop who told me last week he&#8217;s kinda confused about what happened with this whole Obama thing. As a child, the only time I read of the bishops taking a unified stand was on the evil of Ronald Reagan attempting to dismantle the greatest threat Christianity has known since the height of the Ottoman Empire. While I&#8217;m to the left of many of the readers and writers here on the issue of illegal immigration and how to resolve it, I&#8217;m struck by the fact that my Church seems to care more about defending the right to stay here of people whose first act on entering this country is to break its laws &#8212; a right not dogmatically defined by my faith &#8212; and on the evil of producing nuclear weapons than what it by its very teaching describes as the slaughter of one million innocent babies year in and year out. I am utterly appalled to realize that they are either too gullible, too cowardly, too stupid, or too dishonest with themselves and others to realize that if they tell Catholics that abortion can be traded off for more social welfare, a significant number of Catholics will make that trade, today, now, this instant. You have materially cooperated with evil, and I have yet to hear mea culpa, mea culpa, mea maxima culpa . (Try the older Confiteor if you prefer: I confess to Almighty God, and to you, my brothers and sisters, that I have sinned through my own fault. In my thoughts, and in my words ; in what I have done, and what I have failed to do . ) You are abetting scandal. You are aiding in the all-but-literal poisoning of political discourse in this country. And you are lying . You are lying by your words, by your acts, by your omissions. Whatever your rationales, you hide from the truth of what has been before you for forty years , and you aid in that deception to your flock. And the net result is that you now need to either (1) give in; (2) dump all of your employees into public healthcare (a double win, right?); or (3) disband . Given how you acted when Mitt Romney&#8217;s reign in Massachusetts forced you into the same corner, I fully expect (1). Heck, if you can provide abortifacents and prophylactics in New England, why not in Arizona? In a purer time, you would have been haled before an Ecumenical Council and been required to give an account of yourself, or been summarily excommunicated on the spot. In an emergency, the Pope would do this thing. I was born into the Faith. I was confirmed before my twelfth birthday. I nearly applied to seminary twice. I married in the Church. I am raising my many-more-than-two-children in the Faith. And every time I see something like this come down the pike, complete with passive-voice verbs and hand washing everywhere, the only things keeping me from joining one of the Orthodox Churches are my dislike of incense, my desire to avoid being as dim as poor Donatist Rod Dreher , and my firm belief that the Church teaches Truth, even though its princes are men by genetics only. But as you now reap what you have sown for twice my lifetime, I say, with all the charity I can muster, that you can rot. ]]></description>
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		<title>MSNBC’s Bashir: Why Can’t American Politics Be More “Socialist” Like The NFL…</title>
		<link>http://www.obamashitlist.com/2012/02/03/msnbcs-bashir-why-cant-american-politics-be-more-socialist-like-the-nfl-2/</link>
		<comments>http://www.obamashitlist.com/2012/02/03/msnbcs-bashir-why-cant-american-politics-be-more-socialist-like-the-nfl-2/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Fri, 03 Feb 2012 09:41:38 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Bob R</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Barack Obama]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Stupid]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[asinine]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[breitbart]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[brian]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[rare-breed]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[stupid]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[weasel wonk]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.obamashitlist.com/2012/02/03/msnbcs-bashir-why-cant-american-politics-be-more-socialist-like-the-nfl-2/</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[It takes a rare breed of stupid to make an analogy this asinine. HT: Brian B. via BreitbartTV]]></description>
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		<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
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		<title>MSNBC’s Bashir: Why Can’t American Politics Be More “Socialist” Like The NFL…</title>
		<link>http://www.obamashitlist.com/2012/02/03/msnbcs-bashir-why-cant-american-politics-be-more-socialist-like-the-nfl/</link>
		<comments>http://www.obamashitlist.com/2012/02/03/msnbcs-bashir-why-cant-american-politics-be-more-socialist-like-the-nfl/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Fri, 03 Feb 2012 09:41:38 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>ebliversidge</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Barack Obama]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Stupid]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[asinine]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[breitbart]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[brian]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[rare-breed]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[stupid]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[weasel wonk]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.obamashitlist.com/2012/02/03/msnbcs-bashir-why-cant-american-politics-be-more-socialist-like-the-nfl/</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[It takes a rare breed of stupid to make an analogy this asinine. HT: Brian B. via BreitbartTV]]></description>
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		<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
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		<title>Weak Organization Engages in Useless Exercise</title>
		<link>http://www.obamashitlist.com/2012/02/03/weak-organization-engages-in-useless-exercise/</link>
		<comments>http://www.obamashitlist.com/2012/02/03/weak-organization-engages-in-useless-exercise/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Fri, 03 Feb 2012 08:44:30 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Bob R</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Barack Obama]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Stupid]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[actual-votes]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[left-the-party]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[maine]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[maine-caucuses]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[party]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[results]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[stupid]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[stupid-party]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[week]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.obamashitlist.com/2012/02/03/weak-organization-engages-in-useless-exercise/</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[ The Maine Caucuses are happening this week. No actual votes and the results are nonbinding. If anyone wonders why I left the party, look no further than this. The GOP leadership in Maine decided that an insignificant gabfest was preferable to an actual primary. If I were still a Republican, I would quite literally have no say in choosing my party's nominee. Great job, Stupid Party! ]]></description>
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		<item>
		<title>Weak Organization Engages in Useless Exercise</title>
		<link>http://www.obamashitlist.com/2012/02/03/weak-organization-engages-in-useless-exercise-2/</link>
		<comments>http://www.obamashitlist.com/2012/02/03/weak-organization-engages-in-useless-exercise-2/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Fri, 03 Feb 2012 08:44:30 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>IDontThinkSo0001</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Barack Obama]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Stupid]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[actual-votes]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[left-the-party]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[maine]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[maine-caucuses]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[party]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[results]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[stupid]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[stupid-party]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[week]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.obamashitlist.com/2012/02/03/weak-organization-engages-in-useless-exercise-2/</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[ The Maine Caucuses are happening this week. No actual votes and the results are nonbinding. If anyone wonders why I left the party, look no further than this. The GOP leadership in Maine decided that an insignificant gabfest was preferable to an actual primary. If I were still a Republican, I would quite literally have no say in choosing my party's nominee. Great job, Stupid Party! ]]></description>
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		<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
		</item>
		<item>
		<title>Mid-Week Open Thread</title>
		<link>http://www.obamashitlist.com/2012/02/01/mid-week-open-thread/</link>
		<comments>http://www.obamashitlist.com/2012/02/01/mid-week-open-thread/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Thu, 02 Feb 2012 02:00:55 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>richwas</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Barack Obama]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Stupid]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Uncategorized]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[country]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[kick-things]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[mrc]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[still-some]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[stupid]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.obamashitlist.com/2012/02/01/mid-week-open-thread/</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[ To kick things off, via the MRC , we have a reminder that there are still some people in this country who are ignorant, racist trash. Language warning. Open thread! ]]></description>
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		<title>The Earmarxists are Back</title>
		<link>http://www.obamashitlist.com/2012/02/01/the-earmarxists-are-back/</link>
		<comments>http://www.obamashitlist.com/2012/02/01/the-earmarxists-are-back/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Wed, 01 Feb 2012 20:30:13 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>SchoensteinNassr661</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Barack Obama]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Congress]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Stupid]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Uncategorized]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[career]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[country]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[from-the-senate]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[issue]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[majority-leader]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[pat toomey]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[pork]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[senators-toomey]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[spending]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[waive-the-point]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[week]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[white]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.obamashitlist.com/2012/02/01/the-earmarxists-are-back/</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[ It’s another week in the Senate, and there’s another battle over earmarks.  Senators Toomey and McCaskill are proposing an amendment to the STOCK Act (“insider trading bill”S. 2038) to permanently ban earmarks in the Senate.  Not surprisingly, there is pushback from Harry Reid…and a number of Republicans as well. As always, there are those who argue that earmarks are just inconsequential “drop in the bucket” expenditures; that we must focus on more impactful issues.  This from Senator Cornyn : He continued, &#8220;I wish we would focus on what the American people are most concerned about rather than some of these other issues that have their importance but are tangential to the main issues we ought to be focused on.&#8221; &#8220;I think we ought to [instead] be looking at other ways to &#8230; address people&#8217;s concerns about jobs and the debt,&#8221; Cornyn said. Yes, there are more pressing issues, but we can walk and chew gum at the same time.  We can spend a half hour voting on one amendment to scrub earmarks from the Senate once and for all.  Moreover, it is precisely because eliminating earmarks is such an easy, low-hanging fruit that we should deal with it immediately.  If senators are unwilling to relinquish millions in pork projects, how will they have the courage to cut billions from welfare programs and reform entitlements? There are also the usual suspects who hold earmarks to be a moral and constitutional responsibility. &#8220;It&#8217;s just stupid, it&#8217;s childish, it&#8217;s demagoguery,&#8221; Sen. James Inhofe (R-Okla.) said. &#8220;There is not a lot of courage in our conference [on the issue.] They all know better. They all know by banning earmarks &#8230; they are just giving the authority to the president. But they are afraid of it because people don&#8217;t understand the issue out there.&#8221; &#8220;We have an obligation as Members of Congress to fulfill our Constitutional duty. One of those duties is to make sure that we do Congressionally directed spending. I object and do not believe that all these decisions should be made at the White House,&#8221; Reid said. Then there&#8217;s this gem from the esteemed Majority Leader : “I’ve done earmarks all my career, and I’m happy I’ve done earmarks all my career. They’ve helped my state and they’ve helped different projects around the country.” Toomey’s amendment would permanently ban all earmarks, defined as any congressionally directed spending item, limited tax benefit, or limited tariff benefit.  It would also create a point of order against any legislation containing an earmark, requiring a two-thirds vote to waive the point of order. If this is really such a small issue, then we should bury it this week – once and for all.  Find out if your senator is supporting the bipartisan amendment to ban earmarks. Cross-posted from The Madison Project ]]></description>
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		<title>Obama&#8217;s Calculated Deception</title>
		<link>http://www.obamashitlist.com/2012/02/01/obamas-calculated-deception/</link>
		<comments>http://www.obamashitlist.com/2012/02/01/obamas-calculated-deception/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Wed, 01 Feb 2012 16:08:00 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Linda</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Barack Obama]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Congress]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Stimulus]]></category>
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		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.obamashitlist.com/2012/02/01/obamas-calculated-deception/</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[ Calculated deception as a central public manipulation strategy practiced by President Obama involves the President taking advantage of what he thinks the average person doesn't know and won't be told by a compliant media. Such calculated deception was central to last week's State of the Union Address. That address is useful only as an outline of the President's reelection strategy. A powerful practical answer will come at the end of March in the form of House Budget Committee Chairman Paul Ryan's 2013 budget proposal, which will be passed by the Republican-controlled House. That budget, which all the Republicans will run on, and the President's State of the Union Address will frame the 2012 election debate. He Thinks You're Stupid The Obama SOTU exhibited again Obama's core "progressive" conviction that the average American is hopelessly stupid. Obama bemoans America as "a country where a shrinking number of people do really well, while a growing number of Americans barely get by." You may identify with that statement, as it correctly applies to Obama's America today. But not to Reagan's America, or my America. As Henry R. Nau explained in the January 26 Wall Street Journal , "the U.S. grew by more than 3% per year [in real terms] from 1980 to 2007, and created more than 50 million new jobs, massively expanding a middle class of working women, African-Americans and legal as well as illegal immigrants. Per capita income increased by 65%, and household income went up substantially in all income categories." But Obama continued last week, "Long before the recession, jobs and manufacturing began leaving our shores." Mr. Obama, let me introduce you to Mr. Nau, who, unlike you, is a real professor. The 25-year Reagan boom from 1982 to 2007 added 50 million jobs. The recession began in December, 2007 , and it is your policies that have prevented America from recovering from it. Obama recalled, "[T]he basic American promise that if you worked hard, you could do well enough to raise a family, own a home, send your kids to college, and put a little away for retirement." He said, "The defining issue of our time is how to keep that promise alive. No challenge is more urgent. No debate is more important." ]]></description>
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		<title>Why Mitt Romney’s Electability is Not Inevitable</title>
		<link>http://www.obamashitlist.com/2012/01/29/why-mitt-romneys-electability-is-not-inevitable/</link>
		<comments>http://www.obamashitlist.com/2012/01/29/why-mitt-romneys-electability-is-not-inevitable/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Mon, 30 Jan 2012 00:44:49 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>DixiePeters</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Barack Obama]]></category>
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		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.obamashitlist.com/2012/01/29/why-mitt-romneys-electability-is-not-inevitable/</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[ After many months of getting a pass, it seems that the other candidates are willing to finally start hitting Governor Mitt Romney on his major weakness: The Massachusetts Health Care Insurance Reform Law.  The bill, known by most as Romneycare, is (as we all have been saying for many moons) the basis for the much maligned Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, otherwise affectionately known as Obamacare. I&#8217;ve been in endless debates and discussions with Romney supporters and surrogates for some time now as they paint a beautiful picture of the ultimate State&#8217;s Rights battle. They claim that Romneycare vs Obamacare isn&#8217;t about socialized medicine vs the free market. They say it&#8217;s actually the core of the Federalist struggle and that Romney will channel Mr. Smith Goes to Washington and march onto the capital steps, fulfilling the dreams and desires of tea partiers nationwide by finally standing up and saying, &#8220;Enough is enough! Let the state&#8217;s make their decisions Obama! Your days of tyranny are at an end!&#8221; And they all rejoiced. Yet, continually when Romney is approached on this subject in the debates with fellow Republicans, he seems incapable of defending any other point and seems befuddled at the idea that there might be more than one part about Obamacare that American&#8217;s had wholly objected to. For him, it&#8217;s all about the mandate. But it&#8217;s important to keep in mind, Mitt Romney does not object to the concept of mandates. Far from it actually. In case you haven&#8217;t already heard it a dozen times, let me try to explain the premise of Mitt Romney&#8217;s defense of the individual mandate that exists in Massachusetts.  From his perspective, it&#8217;s a simple matter of mathematics combined with certainty of human behavior.  In Massachusetts they had a serious problem, one which has presented itself in every state in the country: people without insurance were racking up enormous hospital bills and then skipping out on the debt.  This put the state in a position where healthcare costs were continually rising in order to compensate for the loss that was generated by these &#8220;free riders.&#8221; It&#8217;s a legitimate issue which has been something that everyone has tried to figure out how to tackle for generations.  Ron Paul&#8217;s answer to the question of people who couldn&#8217;t afford insurance nor their hospital bill seemed to be something along the lines of &#8220;screw them.&#8221;  By and large, this has been considered a bad answer so conservatives have continually looked for other solutions. Over the years, everyone from Newt Gingrich to the Heritage Foundation (and some claim that even Santorum ) has at one time or another come to the conclusion that the only answer is to force everyone to pay up ahead of time.  Either by requiring them to have insurance, forcing them onto government run insurance like medicare, or having them pay some type of annual fee if they refused to do either of those two things.  Heritage &#038; Gingrich have both changed their position on this.  Romney has not. As recently as 2008, the mandate question was not a hot button issue.  On the campaign trail, Romney was still touting his healthcare bill as a solution that the entire nation could use to solve this ever growing problem.  Whether his view of &#8220;nationwide solution&#8221; meant state by state or federally done is still debated to this day. Thanks to Obamacare and the backlash from conservatives, libertarians, and independents nationwide, individual mandates moved to the front of everyone&#8217;s minds.  This would of  course be a problem for a guy who wants to run for president and also &#8220;loves mandates.&#8221;  But then a beautiful thing happened: it started to be challenged in courts across the country as a 10th amendment issue.  Eureka! This isn&#8217;t about whether or not it&#8217;s good policy! It&#8217;s about the process which brought it about and the fact that it trumped the desires of the states!  At last! An intellectual justification for how Romney could enact Romneycare, call for its nationwide implementation, and still run on a ticket that promises to repeal legislation that does this very thing.  It&#8217;s the Federalism stupid! But there&#8217;s a problem that all of the fanatical screaming about &#8220;electability&#8221; simply won&#8217;t or can&#8217;t address.  This path may work great to convince committed conservatives that Romney is on their side, but it will not work so well in the general elections against Barack Obama and his $1 billion reelection campaign machine. Currently when Romneycare is assaulted (mostly by primary opponents and their surrogates on the right), conservatives that support the Governor come out in droves to explain away all of the issues in ways that they think will mostly appeal to rationality and reason.  Case in point is Ms. Ann Coulter who currently believes that a vote for anyone but Mitt is a vote for Barack Obama. The other day, David Limbaugh tweeted a statement out of frustration with Romney supporters (he&#8217;s in the Santorum camp): Ms. Coulter, a leader in defending Romney on national television and elsewhere, replied to this concern with what I&#8217;m assuming she thought would be a satisfactory answer: This isn&#8217;t the only example of the committed conservative&#8217;s defense of Romneycare.  For example, Ms. Coulter also retweeted Jim Pethokoukis who had tweeted one of the points of a study recently released on the effects of Romneycare: And she&#8217;s not alone.  Today on Fox &#038; Friends, Florida Attorney General Pam Bondi defended the Governor as well: She twists and turns around the issue that the Fox host&#8217;s are trying to squeeze out of her and ultimately fail to do.  The issue is: beyond the 10th amendment issue, how does Mitt Romney defend his attacks on the basis of Obamacare?  Obamacare is in philosophy, execution, and in many ways application, the same as Romneycare. With the tweets above as the example of what substantive defenses the Romney campaign will use to battle in the generals,, Ms. Coulter gives us a preview of the rationale.  And it&#8217;s all right out of the Obama playbook and talking points.  Their plan actually seems to be to take the fight to the capital by saying: Public health insurance didn&#8217;t crowd out employer sponsored insurance in Massachusetts That any mandate, be it for public schools or for car insurance, is evidence that a mandate is perfectly acceptable even when it&#8217;s a mandate related to your right to exist. That costs are being contained and kept down as a result of the bill and that the uninsured are now insured and the free rides are over. That the mandate is only a technicality because anyone can choose not to be a part of it by simply paying a fee every year. That the people of Massachusetts wanted healthcare reform and that a duly elected legislature passed the bill and thus it&#8217;s perfectly acceptable and reasonable. If these defenses sound familiar it&#8217;s because they are virtually identical to the defenses we heard for a year and a half leading up to the passage of Obamacare. And this is only the low hanging fruit.  Obama could easily run ads defending the tenants of Obamacare at this point and use the likes of Ann Coulter and Pam Bondi (who is actually suing the Fed over Obamacare) to make the case for them that it&#8217;s a great bill. I would love for Mr. Coulter or Ms. Bondi to explain exactly how it is that Mitt Romney is going to get in front of millions of Americans, the majority of which couldn&#8217;t tell you the name of the Speaker of the House, and convince them that this slick, polished banker who for many will represent the very institutions that spent the last few years bankrupting the country, is totally not a hypocrite because after all, the 10th amendment and stuff.  Yes he agrees with mandates.  Yes he agrees with more bureaucracy around healthcare.  Yes he agrees with top down government solutions.  But federalism!!! For many Americans, they will hear Democrats for 10 months defending the basics of socialized medicine and they&#8217;ll also hear Republicans for 10 months defending the basics of socialized medicine.  We&#8217;ll finally be in unison as each side tries to convince the middle that their plan was best with the only variation being one side didn&#8217;t like the process taken under by the other.  That ultimately, socialized medicine and mandates are the only viable solution and that all sides they have a chance to vote on agree. Whether or not the entire caricature is accurate is entirely irrelevant.  The Obama campaign can and will successfully paint him as a flip flopper who is only changing his mind on the tenants of Obamacare because his banking overlords told him to. If he&#8217;s got some other fantastic policy positions that will make up for this wide gap in electability I&#8217;m happy to hear them.  But to borrow from Mr. Gingrich, frankly, I think he&#8217;s fundamentally the wrong candidate. Cross-Posted at  BenHoweShow.com ]]></description>
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