Lessons Learned

 

 

“We get the government we deserve.”

Alexis de Tocqueville

Democracy in America

 

It is with heavy heart I write this post. I was going to wait until tomorrow morning, but since sleep has escaped me, I thought I would put some thoughts down while they were fresh.

How in the world could this have happened? With the economy, the developing scandals and the lack of agenda, Obama should have been beat by at least 20 points. In case one has not noticed, the country is a mess. We have now voted for four more years of the same mess. 

The Candyman Theory - "Two chickens in every pot" has been a campaign promise for generations. It still works. Truth tellers do not do well with a growing portion of the population. Much has been promised, little will be delivered. There is not enough tea in China to pay for what is expected. Painful and disappointing days are ahead for many that voted for the Candyman. Sorry, raising the rates on the rich will not help and only result in our economy sinking further into malaise. Buckle up - the shock is coming.

Mr. Nice Guy - I like Mitt Romney. He is a high quality man. He is nice - way too nice for this arena. In the third debate, he had Obama. He could have taken what was known about Benghazi and pounded Obama so hard, he would have been speechless. But he did not. He and his team went up against the "win at all odds" thugs from the Windy City and got their lunch eaten. They allowed the machine to paint Mitt as something he was not. Mitt could not counter punch nor could he define his agenda.

The Storm - From a political standpoint, what really fascinated me about Hurricane Sandy was it demonstrated the "Mad Men" aspect of the storm. Obama flew into the storm zone, acted like the "Consoler in Chief" (like all presidents do), met with a fawning Chris Christy in New Jersey, and then flew off to continue the campaign. The East Coast was then and still is a mess. Yet, exit polls gave Obama high marks for his handling of the crisis. He did not do anything! The short attention span audience just saw the pics and they looked good. When the Gov of NJ almost "french kissed" Obama on the Jersey Shore, the audience loved the bipartisen image. Meanwhile, misery continues and very hard lifting is in the future to clean this up.

Scandals - With the Republicans retaining control of the House, get ready for full speed ahead on the two international festering wounds, Benghazi and then Fast and Furious. There is going to be many ugly facts coming out that are going to soil people high up the totem pole. It is going to be messy and ugly. When all the facts come out, get ready for some delayed "buyer's remorse".

The Cliff - Coming up in less than 60 days is our financial Waterloo. The president will continue to want a "balanced approach" (which means soaking the rich) and the House will first want to see some honest to goodness financial realism resulting from budget cuts. Failure to agree on a viable solution will send our slowly healing economy into a tailspin. To further complicate the issue is sequestration and the next debt limit which will hit about the same time. 

There are others, but they will be fodder for another day. The message for Mitt was fine and he was a truth teller. When 49% of the population don't pay any Federal Tax, why vote for a guy that tells you the truth? Everybody's taxes are going up, even those who are paying nothing. Many deductions are going away, even for the middle class. Many will feel pissed and betrayed. This is why we have Truth in Advertising laws in this country.