Still getting my head around the routing Democrats took last Tuesday. Lots of things play into the bloodbath but there are several things that I think were avoidable and that Democrats need to do much, much better.
This one in particular makes my blood boil: Poll: Americans Don’t Know Economy Expanded With Tax Cuts.
The Obama administration cut taxes for middle-class Americans, expects to make a profit on the hundreds of billions of dollars spent to rescue Wall Street banks and has overseen an economy that has grown for the past five quarters.Most voters don’t believe it.
A Bloomberg National Poll conducted Oct. 24-26 finds that by a two-to-one margin, likely voters in the Nov. 2 midterm elections think taxes have gone up, the economy has shrunk, and the billions lent to banks as part of the Troubled Asset Relief Program won’t be recovered.
This view, this entirely incorrect and patently false view, informed our voting electorate. Two-thirds of them think their taxes went up. Two-thirds of them think we won’t get any of the money back from the banks we bailed out. Two-thirds of them, apparently, have never seen this:
Meanwhile, how many people do you think believed the utterly ridiculous claim that Obama’s trip to India is going to cost taxpayers $200 million per day for the entire 10-day trip for a total of $2 BILLION? It got widely reported and was repeated by Congresswoman Michele Bachmann until she was disabused of the notion by CNN’s Anderson Cooper. This was a particularly humorous response in the right wing blogosphere
And he says he’s worried about the poor in America? Please! Talk about out of touch. President Obama’s little election aftermath escape to India is going to cost us $200 million per day!The US would be spending a whopping $200 million (Rs. 900 crore approx) per day on President Barack Obama’s visit to the city.
“The huge amount of around $200 million would be spent on security, stay and other aspects of the Presidential visit,” a top official of the Maharashtra Government privy to the arrangements for the high-profile visit said.
About 3,000 people including Secret Service agents, US government officials and journalists would accompany the President. Several officials from the White House and US security agencies are already here for the past one week with helicopters, a ship and high-end security instruments.
Update: I’m not sure if the 34 US warships headed over to India are included in the total. I certainly hope so. Sheesh!
Update 2: It gets worse – Bill Zwerger tells me:
And to this, you can add the ridiculous irony of the humongous carbon foot-print for this wholly unnecessary jaunt. Including 40 planes, 34 ships, and 6 armored vehicles, the total output comes to a whopping 8,469 metric tons of CO2 emitted for the Washington-to-Bombay round trip. That’s roughly the equivalent of the CO2 output for the City of Raleigh, NC…for an ENTIRE YEAR! Come on all you greenies out there, where’s all your outrage now?
Is there any wonder why the elections turned out like they did?
A lot more people than Obama couldever have imagined in is narcissistic little mind are now paying closer attention to his rampant hypocrisy.
Ouch!
And then there’s this odd piece of news:
All coconuts around the city’s Gandhi museum, one of Mr Obama’s stops in the city, are being taken down.
Mani Bhavan, where Mahatma Gandhi stayed during his freedom struggle against the British, is among five places the US president is visiting in Mumbai.
“We told the authorities to remove the dry coconuts from trees near the building. Why take a chance?” Mani Bhavan’s executive secretary, Meghshyam Ajgaonkar, told the BBC.
It keeps getting worse!
The US military is building a special air conditioned tunnel so Obama can visit the Ghandi museum!
People believe these things but refuse to believe their taxes have gone down? This is 100% on the Democrats. Yes, it’s true that our mainstream media is failing us on a daily basis with regard to reporting the factual news. It is true that the ring wing media machine is handing the liberals their asses on a daily basis. It’s true that Fox News, Rush Limbaugh, Glenn Beck, and Sean Hannity have the ears and minds of far too many people considering that they lie so blatantly simply to affect opinion. All of these things are true.
But that doesn’t matter. The Dems simply have to figure out a way to change the narrative. They need to come out with new ways to circumvent the new media reality and find paths to getting out the news that Americans need to be hearing.
Ask the average American if “Obamacare” will increase their taxes and reduce their medical choices. I can guarantee you most of them will say yes to both when neither is true. That’s a failure to communicate and that’s the fault of President Obama and the Democrats. They need to figure this out and they have a very short period of time to do it.
I’m just sayin’…
By the way, the false news story about the cost of the president’s trip started with the Press Trust of India, the largest news agency in India. Thiroy at Daily Kos made this hilarious comment:
Geebus, they’ve outsourced LYING too?What else will Republicans take away from Americans?
