Here’s a winning formula for any Republican that wants to go
after President Obama in the general election. Call him the
“teacher’s pet.” It gets to the heart of everything Americans don’t
like about Obama and all his glaring weaknesses.
First and foremost, he is a pure product of academia.
There’s nothing of the real world about him. He’s done nothing but
sit in law school classes, conduct seminars, and gossip about
what’s going on out there beyond the campus gates. Every opinion he
expresses about the world resonates of some discussion in the
faculty lounge. The comment that rural Americans live frustrating
lives that make them cling to their guns and religion — where else
do you hear that kind of remark except on college campuses? That’s
why Obama has no idea of how to deal with opponents such as Michele
Bachman and Rick Perry. Where do these people come from? They
didn’t attend Ivy League colleges. They’ve never been to a session
sponsored by Aspen Institute. Who are they? It’s like Katie Couric
sitting in the studio the morning of George Bush, Jr.’s re-election
in 2004 and asking, “Who are these
voters?”
Second, “teacher’s pet” suggests what everybody knows
about Obama — that he’s been coddled every step of the way in his
climb up the academic ladder. He was never felt to feel like he
might fail. That’s why he’s so bewildered finding himself facing
failure. Where are all those people who always told me what a
wonderful job I was doing? John F. Kennedy had the same privileged
background but he understood that everything wasn’t all going to be
roses. When he failed in the first years as President he had the
nerve to go on television and confess what a difficult and lonely
job it was. Can you imagine Obama doing the same thing? With him
it’s always someone else’s fault. The first three years were George
Bush’s fault. Now it’s all the Tea Party’s fault. He’s never
emerged out of that nirvana where everything he did won
praise.
I’ve felt all along that if a truly formidable candidate
like Rick Perry got into the race, he was going to make Obama seem
like a little boy. Now it’s going to happen. “Teacher’s pet” sums
up the difference between them.
TIM PAWLENTY HAS BECOME living proof of the veracity of
President Reagan’s 11th commandment — “never speak ill of another
Republican.” By going after Michele Bachmann instead of sticking to
his own record, Pawlenty has proved there’s nothing worse for the
party as a whole than watching one Republican try to win the
Presidency by trashing another.
What better spectacle for the Democrats than the way
Pawlenty went after Bachmann in the campaign. All they have to do
except is pick up his lines once the primaries are over. It works
for both parties. It is generally acknowledged that Teddy Kennedy’s
attempt to unseat Jimmy Carter in the 1980 primaries paved the way
for Carter’s loss in the general election. It’s bad for Democrats
but particularly bad for Republicans, since they are never going to
be a natural majority.
A few weeks ago, a Democratic leader was fretting about
the turnout of the party’s base in 2012 and described it as “single
women, young people, blacks and Hispanics.” Those are large
constituencies lost to Republicans. As long as single women want to
be dependent on the government, as long as there are young people
being educated in American colleges, as long as African-Americans
continue to vote 90 percent for the same candidates and as long as
Chuck Schumer continues to push for voter registration booths
greeting illegal immigrants at the Mexican border, the Democrats
will have a solid core of constituents. Add to them the millions of
public employees who see the Democrats as benign bosses and you’ve
got yourself a near majority of the electorate.
The Republican core is much more fragile. All those Tea
Party fanatics out there are basically small business people who
have gotten sick of the federal government intruding in their
lives. That’s a naturally limited minority. The Democrats represent
government while the Republicans represent commerce and people
involved in commerce will always be outnumbered by people looking
for a handout from the government. Even if commerce supplies us
with our daily bread, there will always be more buyers of bread
than there are bakers. And if we decide to set the price of bread
by majority vote — which is basically what Democrats want — then
we end up with the kind of economy we have now, which only makes
people dissatisfied with the system. Republicans have to stand
together and say; “We know what’s wrong with the system. Choose any
one of us but either way you’ve going to get less government.”
That’s the only way to win.
So it’s not disappointing to see Pawlenty drop out of the
race, even though he seemed like a promising candidate at the
start. That soricidal attempt on Bachmann was exactly the wrong way
to go.
WHILE PRESIDENT OBAMA is blaming George Bush and the Tea
Party for the economy he has created, he ought to take a look at
one Republican he professes to admire, Ronald Reagan. The huge
losses on the stock market last week only highlighted what remains
the worst single day in market history — October 19, 1987, when
the market lost 22.6 percent of its value in one day, almost twice
the second-worst loss of 12.8 percent on “Black Friday,” October
28, 1929. (Seven days later, October 26, 1987, also stands as the
eighth largest loss in history at 8.0 percent.) If ever there was a
market collapse that seemed to signal a depression, this was
it.
So what did Reagan do? Absolutely nothing. “Some people
are talking panic,” he calmly noted in his diary. “Chm. of stock
exchange very upset.” But Reagan made not the slightest move to
“rescue” the economy with government spending. The New
York Times shouted itself hoarse urging Reagan to
follow the Keynesian rules with a grand “stimulus,” but the
President wasn’t fazed. He expressed confidence the market would
bounce back without government help and it did. Except for a brief
recession in real estate, the economy kept stamping out jobs so
that by the 1988 election all Michael Dukakis had going for him was
dropping the Pledge of Allegiance.
Just think of what our economy would be like now if Obama
had Reagan’s wisdom? Score another downgrade for the teacher’s
pet.
