Barack Obama is out to win the 2016 election, but he won’t participate in a single debate. He won’t be on any primary ballots. He’ll no doubt make an appearance at the Democratic Convention, but he won’t be a contender even though he stands a good chance of winning the race without even throwing his hat into the ring.
How can that happen?
17 conservative personalities battle one voice and each other
The fact that 17 conservative personalities had to be divided into winners and losers could be an early death knell for Republicans. Several years after a presidential election rout that left the GOP questioning its survival skills, the learning curve still seems too impossibly steep to climb. Parties that stick together win elections.
Democrats don’t have that problem because they don’t have to sell personalities. They only have to sell what Obama has been building. While Republicans are engaged in a personality contest on a battleground occupied by each other, the president is still winning hearts and minds.
10 ways to win the 2016 election
There are ten ways Obama could win this election for Bernie Sanders, Hillary Clinton, or the dark horse we haven’t seen yet, one for every Republican who participated in last night’s winner’s debate.
Politicians call these “issues.”
Let’s start with education …
Higher education:
Student loan debt, free community college, and cheap degrees guaranteed by government to land you a comfortable, middle class job are what college life is all about in Obamaland. Regulating colleges so they don’t ask too much in return is important, too, something no Republican in his or her right mind will endorse, or at least not yet. Giveaways will never be a party mainstay, but Obama knows they get votes.
Elementary and secondary education:
You can call this lower education if you wish. K-12 is about broke schools, No Child Left Behind, teachers whose pay and benefits are never lavish enough, and racial disparities in everything from school spending to discipline (see: Universal Preschool: Civil Rights or Bad Kids?).
When Congress didn’t follow Obama’s instructions on what to do with the Elementary and Secondary Education Act, America’s schools got ESEA flexibility. Listening to Obama’s Education lackey, Arne Duncan, our schools have never been better off:
The last six years have seen dramatic progress for America’s school children. The high school dropout rate is down, and graduation rates are higher than they have ever been,” said U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan. “As a result of our partnerships with state and district leaders to couple flexibility with reform, we are seeing remarkable strides and bold actions to improve student outcomes. States, districts, principals and teachers are showing incredible creativity in using different means to achieve the same goal—getting every student in America college- and career-ready.1
Dramatic, remarkable, bold, incredible. How do you argue with that? Republicans gave us the Student Success Act as an alternative to Obama’s fixes that:
… contains a number of conservative reforms to reduce the federal footprint, restore local control, and empower parents and local leaders to hold schools accountable.2
Anyone ever heard of it?
Climate change:
Obama used Richard Nixon and George H.W. Bush’s environmental efforts to make his point on climate control.3 Then he promised to help displaced families of coal workers, the poster children behind the outcry of states over his proposed regulations:
Communities across America have been losing coal jobs for decades. I want to work with Congress to help them, not to use them as a political football. Partisan press releases aren’t going to help those families.4
Thank heavens. Now we don’t have to worry about Republicans or coal miners.
Immigration:
Led by their president, the Democratic Party is convincing us that we should make life better for hard-working Americans-in-waiting. Republicans got behind this one way too late. Sometimes it’s a good idea to make your move when you can and not wait until the problem can’t be solved without doing something despicable your party can take credit for, like forcing a presidential order for amnesty.
Health care:
Obama’s greatest victory. The masses get Medicaid. Americans love their health plans, or at least that’s what the White House says. Anyone who disagrees should try taking away the ACA subsidies and Medicaid handouts. What do you think would happen? Exactly. That’s how government making the people dependent works. It makes them dependent.
War on Women:
This one is almost too dangerous to touch with abortion and equal pay thrown into the mix. Just ask Jeb Bush.
Middle Class economics:
Incomes aren’t growing very fast even while the economy chugs along. Too many of Obama’s Main Streeters aren’t seeing the results of his efforts in their bank accounts. It’s easy to blame the president and his party for this, as well we should. It’s easier for them to blame Republicans because success is a work in progress. With a near 50% approval rating for Obama it seems that a lot of Americans will do just that.
Entitlements:
Middle America knows that Republicans want to take away their old age security. How do they know this? Obama has been telling them for seven years. What have Republicans done? They tried to fix Congress’s spending addiction, got blamed for a shutdown and obstructionism, and ended up playing ball with the liberal dark side. Too bad for them that threats from the Oval Office are a lot easier to understand than economics.
Gun control:
Every shooting is an opportunity, but politics is best served when it’s a cop behind the gun and someone of color on the receiving end. Facts, figures, statistics, and common sense don’t matter here. We’ve all heard the argument: people don’t shoot people. Guns and the police do.
Iran:
Just kidding. Everyone hates this one. Liberals must not like terrorists, after all.
They call these “issues,” not personalities
So after reading this, you might be asking yourself “So what?” This is just a list of issues.
No, it’s not.
This is Obama’s Democrat Party platform for 2016, already in place and ready to go. It’s a one size fits all sort of affair. There is not a Democrat alive who won’t support it, Iran deal excepted, of course.
Meanwhile, we listened to seventeen Republicans yesterday. Ten are contenders. Seven had to settle for the chump prize. That’s how conservatism’s best hopes were presented to the nation.
Meanwhile, Obama keeps campaigning.
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