Six ‘Shovel Ready Projects’ for Obama’s 2012 Chances

Six ways for Barack Obama to get reelected in 2012 and the sole reason he won’t use any of them.

Dealing effectively with any one of these six areas will play well with American voters that are truly paying attention. An effort to turn things around by turning ones’ self around (ideologically and methodologically) will have a major impact toward securing another four years for the Obama family at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue. Its that whole redemption concept that Americans love to see played out.

But none of them will ever happen because he is ……

Incumbency and the bully pulpit are powerful assets for any politician. While President Obama’s approval numbers have improved by six points to the mid 40’s over the last few weeks it’s still a long way to securing a second term. Easily mollified moderates who are happy just to see something getting done in DC jumped back on the running boards of the Obama train as they watched the business of the lame duck Congress. Never mind any sense of reasoned debate and sense of ownership behind their busy-ness or that the band of employees passing the long term legislation had been fired for cause a few weeks earlier. Add in a State of the Union performance that reignited memories of Obama’s oratorical majesty in terms of the words used and the common man’s most optimistic imagination of what those words might mean. It’s amazing the depth of American’s desire to see someone do well and the shallowness of their memory to remember past performance. This recent approval jump is soon to reach it’s apogee and will return back to earth shortly.

Unless …… Barack Obama embraces one or more of these policy diversions.

1.) Reopen (for real) drilling in the Gulf of Mexico, open ANWAR. The current US energy policy is a total mess, environmentalists have hijacked the debate and Americans aren’t buying the administrations heavy handed regulatory response in the Gulf of Mexico. Despite the President’s rhetoric of lifting the gulf moratorium, actual permits are down 88% due to governmental regulatory action. And ANWAR; is still beautiful, frozen, uninhabited, our potential ‘get of energy jail free’ card, and regrettably a dead issue.

2.) Rethink and Reformulate ObamaCare. This time show some presidential leadership in terms of direction, concept, and fiscal discipline; not just delegation of policy architecture duties. Include both political parties, ideologically diverse professionals from the medical, financial,and  insurance industries, actuaries, and professional ethics communities and construct something worthy of 2200 pages.

3.) Embrace allies, get tough with enemies. Trying to be everyone’s friend never works out in the end. Not everybody wants to our friend or even talk honestly to us about our mutual relationship. Iran, North Korea, and China have played us like a piano for the last two years because they sense our bark has become far worse than our bite – kind of like the United Nations. President Obama needs to embrace America’s power, not apologize for it.  

4.) Deal effectively with our Homeland Security. The one area where is there is little Constitutional dispute is the responsibility to ensure our national defense. Whether it be in Afghanistan, our airports, the southern border, the sovereignty of our allies (once we decide who they are), or the spectrum of cyberspace as it impacts our security, the administration must show unwavering strength or it will continue to not only lose respect globally but confidence from within as well. Over the last few years we have treated  our enemies with more deference and tolerance than we have our established allies. That must change.

5.) Demonstrate an immediate entrenched policy of fiscal austerity. In spite of our fiscal ticking time bomb the first two years of the Obama administration and their allies in Congress doubled down on where the previous administration left off as the antithesis of fiscal discipline. We all know the grim debt and deficit figures. It is no surprise that more than a few states are facing insolvency due in large part to unfunded federal mandates. In an insidious manner, the US won’t lose its global position of strength because it lacks power projection, but rather because it has eroded away its financial backbone through profligate entitlement spending. Fiscal discipline is an essential ingredient for sustaining national security.

6.) Cultivate a pro-business climate for all industries to succeed. Embracing private enterprise with the same zeal and deference as is shown for organized labor industries is a step in the right direction. If Obama took to encouraging all industry regardless of political or environmental motivations, while seizing the spirit of free enterprise capitalism, risk / reward entrepreneurism, and limiting governmental impediments of overregulation, he wouldn’t have to overtly make nice with the Chamber of Commerce; they’d reestablish the relationship on their own..  

If President Obama were to latch onto any one of these six themes that are popular with those other than the far left, he could coopt a pragmatist label which would go further toward garnerong votes in 2012 then his well earned social progressive label will take him. An effort to turn things around by turning ones’ self around (ideologically and methodologically) will have a major impact toward securing another four years for the Obama family at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue.

Forget Barack’s oratory prowess. Forget the coolness of a mixed race American president. Forget the smugness portrayed in those ‘teaching moments’ and the insolent “I won” admonition delivered to his political adversaries. Actions over the next 12 months will speak louder than any words in determining if Barack Obama will be given a Hawaiian retirement in 2013. Mere words and focus group posturing won’t work this time around. President Obama has lost too much political capital in his first two years in addition to loosing his bullet proof Congress.

These are six shovel ready projects for Obama to personally espouse. No stimulus money will be used and he could achieve favorable results with his political rivals. Its scary to imagine that even we conservatives could actuallyfind  benefit from this shift in his thinking. Yikes.

But none of them will ever happen. He is a stubbornly hardcore progressive ideologue on the domestic front. He’ll talk toward the center but the far left is the home he will never leave. Unfortunately for him domestic issues will determine the election in 2012 and conservatives have seized the upper hand on these issues.