Watch for Obama's Missing Records--

Speculation has it that Obama’s rift with his leftist base over the tax rate extension deal is no big deal; that Obama is calculating that he can ride it out over the next two years as the economy recovers and then regain the base’s support for 2012. With a recovering economy and no alternative for the leftist base, the theory is Obama can cobble together enough votes to win a second term.

We have a different perspective.

First, forget isolated government statistics trying desperately to show an economic recovery. It’s not happening, and it won’t happen by 2012. The extension of current tax rates merely avoided making a bad economy worse. This administration has not changed its core hostility to free markets; there remain more than enough dark clouds of regulatory restriction and interference, as well as threats of czarist-type rule by executive fiat, to dampen the spirit of entrepreneurship that truly drives the American economy.

Even more important, the government’s spending insanity has not been addressed and cannot be reversed in two years while the Senate is still controlled by Democrats. This reckless spending—also at the state level in every state that has been controlled by Democrats—is a very real drag on the economy in terms of sucking capital out of the market that could be used for growing something other than governments. Moreover, unless and until there is clear direction toward reducing the absolute level of government spending at all levels, the specter of municipal and state level defaults will remain, adding more unease to business decision-makers. A minor yielding to the inevitability of extending current tax rates is not nearly enough to restore confidence in the seriousness and competence of Obama administration economic policies.

Add it all up, and the premise of a recovering economy in 2012 just doesn’t hold up.

Second, it’s laughable the way the mainstream media speaks of the leftist ‘base’ in America, as if it is some electoral juggernaut. It is maybe 30% of the population, and there is no way it will be as fired up in 2012 as it was in 2008. And the rest of the population is decidedly right of center and is extremely unlikely to get comfortable with Obama after having felt so completely defrauded by the differences between who they thought they were voting for, and who has acted as President these past two years.

With no better than a stagnant, sputtering economy in 2012, and a disillusioned base of an already small segment of the American electorate, Obama will not be riding high in 2012.

But forget the policy wonk and political strategy angles. The angry left is truly angry with Obama, and they are nasty. But they and others like them throughout the country have been part of the team preserving the façade of Obama from the very beginning. Such things as missing college transcripts, missing information as to college financing, and yes, even the official birth certificate, have been kept out of public view from the time of Obama’s candidacy because of ideological loyalty to him. Never mind official explanations about privacy laws. Had the same officials had the chance to disqualify an ideological opponent of Obama, you would have seen the records mysteriously appear at just the right time to destroy that opponent.

Count us as highly curious to watch what will surface about Obama’s past in the next few months. A bunch of betrayed left-wing bureaucrats will soon have the opportunity, including very likely the prospect of payoff, to ‘mistakenly’ push a button that discloses previously undisclosed, key records. WikiLeaks isn’t the only set of hackers determined to bring down whatever and whomever they consider unworthy.

Obama’s hold on the presidency is not anywhere near ‘situation normal’. He hasn’t even begun to experience the challenge to his authority and his philosophy that is set to arrive in Washington in January. He’ll be taking on fierce opposition from both right and left, and there’s nothing about the man’s past to indicate he has the temperament or character to lead and manage his way through it. If George Soros decides Obama needs to be fired, Obama’s hold on the presidency will be the next step below ‘tenuous’—as in, gone.

Paul Gable

December 8, 2010