Obama Round 2!

The inauguration of a president to his second term is historically a little divisive, at least in my life time. I think of the GOP surprised that Pres Bill Clinton was re-elected during several scandals in his administration, or the (D) horror when Pres G W Bush was re-elected. Now it’s sheer amazement on the GOP side that a man with absolutely no pedigree for leadership and a first term full of divisive rhetoric, no successful agenda, and an economy that looks more like 1977 than anytime in our history. I find it bewildering that no one on the GOP side can understand the phenomenon of President Obama. It seems pretty simple to me.

President Obama was elected on a wave of emotion and anti-Bush feelings throughout the country. A war-weary people chose another path and yes, it could just as easily have been Hillary Clinton. The very interesting thing that happened between 2010, when the Tea Party took back the House of Reps for the GOP and the 2012 election, is the GOP lost its own identity. The “establishment” Republicans decided that the principals that spurred the birth of the Tea Party were somehow excessively conservative for the GOP. A microcosm of this identity loss happened (and appears to be continuing) here in Alaska. A fracture in the Grand Ole Party was exposed. I don’t know why it happened, but I can tell you it is simply amazing to watch. Somehow limiting the federal government’s reach into our daily lives is “too conservative” for the GOP.  I guess the big spending Bush years (exploited by an even bigger spending Obama team) were enough to push our country over the ledge of free people and market based economic policies to a collective people with limited liberty and a group economy that keeps us all on “a level playing field”.

The leadership of the GOP stutters and stammers helplessly trying to coddle together a strategy to beat back the (D) party’s domination of the agenda and it seems like they have no clue. I am ready to tell you the answer to their problem. It is simple. Stop acting like President Obama is some sort of political powerhouse with grand ideas to save the world. President Obama is nothing but a liberal, pure and simple. He believes, as all liberals do, that the federal government can solve all the woes of the American people. He thinks another $30 of contraception or $100 in food stamps will stop the outrageous out of wedlock birth rate or make people responsible citizens who take care of their family first. He believes we can tax the rich and spend like Imelda Marcos in a shoe store with no repercussions. Irresponsibility is the hallmark of liberalism; freedom of action with no consequences for those actions. The GOP needs only to make the argument that President Obama is a typical tax and spend liberal. He is no visionary, he is just another liberal president that happens to have the ability to shamelessly slander his opposition and quietly forgive his own defects. This president wants to talk about issues that have no urgent need. I am not saying that cultural issues are not important. However, most of the issues he wants to drag into the lime light are state issues. They are of limited relevance on a federal level, particularly when we have almost 10% of our population out of work. The GOP must stop shying away from the conflict that President Obama seeks. He is a liberal, not some transcendent leader; he is a liberal, nothing more.