Political Marketing

Tonight, President Obama fills us in on his plan for economic recovery. This is obviously not going to be a bipartisan entry. The Fairness Doctrine has not been put in place yet *wink*. Anything in quotes here is not direct, but a paraphrase as I listen in. Let see what he has to say:

- Right off the bat he deflects responsibility and is sure to make clear it was not him that put us in this financial crisis. True, but not the talk of a leader. This is not about deflecting responsibility, but offering solutions.

- "Look beyond our own short term interests, to the wider needs of all." Yikes. This sounds nice, but is dangerous rhetoric and a very slippery slope. Mr. President, I have a hard time as a tax payer bailing out those who got into mortgages that they could not afford, while I am stuck in a house that I could not break even on if I tried. It is a house I can afford, and I make my payments on time. Where is my cap reduction? If I had bought a house that I could not afford then I would qualify for government assistance, "for the greater good." This sir, is unfair. For responsibility I receive nothing, but for irresponsibility you receive bailouts. Perhaps if the likes of Barney Frank had not forced Fannie and Freddie to hand out loans to people who could not afford them, we would not have all of these bad assets and much of the housing crisis may have been avoided.

- Who the heck is Chuck Todd? "What should the public be sacrificing?" Come on Chuck. Lob that one in there so the President can jump in and say that they are already sacrificing. What a bald faced setup... this is reporting? The guy has one question and this was his choice.

- Cap and trade is a government scam, with them as the auctioneers. The way it is structured it will only pass down costs to consumers via higher energy prices. I fully support reduced carbon emissions, but the idea that you can force this through cap and trade only pushes cost down to the consumer. You may get a tax credit, but you will pay for it in higher energy costs later.

- Some good questioning by the gentleman in the front row about the deficit. I did not catch his name. Calling out Obama's rhetoric of cutting the deficit in half. The fact is, he has already almost doubled it and then after 6 years the budget deficit continues to GROW, not shrink. Obama talks about the long term, but in the long term the Obama deficit only gets bigger and bigger, with only a SHORT TERM reduction.

- Nice work on the Mexico deflection. I can already see the headlines tomorrow. Obama Tackles Cross Border Violence. I agree that the Mexican drug cartel problem is extremely dangerous, with ever increasing bloodshed, but its acknowledgment here feels forced. With the amount of bloodshed in Pakistan and Afghanistan daily, where we are currently engaged and focused militarily,this seems weird.

- Really pushing health care reform as the nexus of the economic problems. This will help his public opinion polls on the socialization of medicine.

- Major Garrett. You cheeky bastard. You never know what comment will come out of him. "What do you think when center-left and socialist European countries say no to more stimulus and overreaching spending?" lol. *jab*

- Wow, "it is not going to cripple them, they will still be well to do." This anti-rich stance is dangerous. His whole BS line that he thinks that the bus driver who earns $50,000 a year should have the same deduction as the wealthy businessman is a shameless downplay on this charitable contribution deduction program. The fact is, the rich are doing the large majority of the charitable contributions and with a reduced deduction their contributions will become less, and the CHARITIES WILL SUFFER. It is not that the rich will be less rich, but that they will adjust their contributions down in order for them to maintain their quality of life and still make charitable contributions. This will have an extremely negative effect on charities of all kinds. It is a blind tax grab to fulfill a bloated budget.

- The stem cell talk has thrown him off. He certainly is having trouble eloquently spinning positive rhetoric versus ethics on this one.

OK, I may get beat up here, but these are my thoughts as the press conference moved along. Interesting choice in reporters, eh? No WSJ, NY Times? No financial networks or publications? Thanks Fox, for pointing this out!

Till next time.