Obama: My mistakes.....

  October 21, 2012   

  We need more than a storyteller

On a TV news show recently, Charlie Rose asked Barack Obama if he could share any mistakes he had made in his presidency. His answer: "When I think about what we've done well and what we haven't done well, the mistake of my first term was thinking this job was just about getting the policy right. That's important, but the nature of this office is to also to tell a story to the American people that gives them a sense of unity and purpose and optimism, especially during tough times."

Our president's answer to this question struck me like an arrow in the heart because it demonstrates how little he understands the American people and the depths of our collective concerns for our nation's economy — let alone what needs to be done to begin its healing.

I must confess that I remain stunned and almost speechless every time I relive his words. Is he kidding? Does he really not understand that the American people don't want or need an inspiring storyteller to lead our nation? We don't even need to like the person.

What most Americans understand from what they see and experience every day is a nation in deep economic trouble. Americans know their family's futures have never been more threatened. What most Americans crave and desperately need is a leader who is practical and pragmatic and who has a proven track record of private-sector experiences, a proven understanding of capitalism and the skills and wisdom to actually collaborate with the opposite party to find the best solutions for all Americans. What America really needs is effective leadership, not better stories.

When Mr. Obama was elected, I was wary of him being qualified to lead our nation during these difficult times. He simply had no practical work experience of any kind to prepare him to effectively deal with the huge economic challenges our nation faces.

The main driver of our nation's economy is a powerful symbiotic relationship between workers (jobs) who provide the labor for businesses in exchange for wages, and then use these earnings for purchases from businesses in order to continuously provide the primary fuel for the economy. This is a complicated interdependent relationship in which both businesses and labor must be equally sustainable in order for the overall economy to flourish for the maximum benefits of our citizenry.

Today, it seems clear we should never have rationally trusted this complicated economy's leadership to an amateur who had never held a job within, let alone led, a single capitalist organization. He is smart, has a wonderful smile, can do a good job of delivering a teleprompter speech, is a great evangelical-style speaker on the stump, and is really great at promising hope and change. Do these characteristics alone qualify someone to lead the largest and most complex economy in the world, especially when that economy has been growing steadily weaker over the past 50 or 60 years?

Mr. Obama has been telling a story with his words and actions. His story has been consistent throughout his term — just blame others! Blame the Bush administration. Blame the Republicans. Then blame the continuation of our problems on global economic challenges faced by other countries. His only notable actions, passing economic stimulus and health care reform laws, in reality only assured those most rewarded were the same folks who were allowed to write the legislation: the powerful special interests!

He has repeatedly shown he didn't and doesn't have a clue about what actions to take. Unfortunately, he has further enhanced his own deficits by surrounding himself with czars and advisers who are much like him: perhaps great at social theory but woefully short on practical experience.

Mr. Obama knows he has shared his story with Americans. And, as the first debate on Oct. 3 painfully demonstrated for him and his supporters, his results just can't be spun enough to inspire us. Americans have enough common sense to know that results are what count, and they simply have not been delivered.

If the best he has to offer is his belief that he failed to come up with an inspirational story — and we re-elect him — our nation is truly up the proverbial creek without a paddle. Amateur hour simply hasn't worked, and it won't in the future.

For those of you who will ask what evidence we have that Mitt Romney is the right person, the short answer is that we don't know for sure. However, we only have two choices, and we do know President Obama's past actions and results speak much more eloquently than any story he can deliver.

It seems to me that we have a lot more to risk going forward if we don't give Mitt a chance. This must not come down to what's best for Democrats or Republicans. What is desperately needed is what's best for all Americans.

A good salesperson might need a better story. True leaders don't worry about the story — they just lead and allow the results to speak for themselves.

These are my opinions. What do you think?

Mike Tower 

Please visit:  Citizens Against Politics As Usual

Contact me:  Mike Tower

American Unemployment down to 7.8%..baloney!

October 7, 2012

Unemployment down to 7.8%

Many Americans will take this single number as a sign the economy is indeed recovering, and worse, many will make their presidential voting decision accordingly. The media has for months been repeating the story about no president since FDR being re-elected with a rate above 8%. To these folks, this means the corollary must also be true...if the rate falls below 8%, the president should be re-elected.

I wonder how even the most casual observer can reconcile this number to the truth they observe daily about our overall sick economy and continuing lack of job creation. As long as the process used to determine the unemployment rate excludes from the equation those who have given up the job search, this rate is meaningless. No matter what the rate shows, the overall labor force participation rate for the past months remains the lowest it has been since 1981. No matter what this rate can be spun to suggest, we still have between 23 and 25 million Americans and their families either totally unemployed or horribly

underemployed. In addition, wages and purchasing power have been declining in real terms since the middle 1960s, while the fundamental prices of most staples needed to survive just keep climbing.

While the methodology used to calculate the unemployment rate hasn't changed, the dynamics underlying our unemployment reality have. No matter how it's spun, the brutal truth is our economy is not even close to creating enough new jobs to even keep up with population growth...let alone bring significant job relief for our nation. American families, especially from the middle class and below, have never struggled harder for survival. Meanwhile, instead of trying to work together for real solutions, the two parties are in an equally brutal struggle for power. The Democrats and the liberal media are spinning this story to support their party's candidate, while the Republicans and their media partners are doing the exact same thing.

My advice is to continue to trust your own instincts for this particular election. Firing all incumbents is my personal recommendation as a reasonable start for taking back control of our nation from both parties. Since Mr. Obama is an incumbent we need to start with him.

Grrrr! That's how I feel every time I see the political spinning of the current unemployment report! Both sides have their lips moving...you know what it means.

I'm sure it won't be long before the rate is down to zero. Of course that won't change the number of citizens without jobs...but the rate will sure sound attractive won't it??

These are my opinions. What do you think?

Mike Tower

Please visit:  Citizens Against Politics As Usual

Contact Me:  Mike Tower

When an American politician's lips are moving....

October 7, 2012

When a politician's lips are moving ...

We rapidly approach an important decision point for voters. The presidential race appears to be too close to call, no matter what you read, see or hear from any source. It seems two critical tipping points will be the debates and overall voter turnout, and most pundits suggest the latter is especially so for Barack Obama.

The spin doctors for both parties are out in full force, trying every trick in the book to influence your decision. The political machines and the super PACs are spending obscene amounts of money. No matter how you receive information, you are going to be supplied with biased answers. 

There's an old joke: How do you know when a politician is lying? Answer: His lips are moving. This is more significant today than it has ever been because, using every possible form of media, the truth-spinning process has expanded and improved dramatically. Political campaign machines launder every tidbit of information, using polling survey results, to ensure that information shared matches up precisely with what intended target audiences want to hear.

The number of political polling organizations, with trustworthy-sounding names, has also dramatically expanded. How can a voter decide which ones to believe? With a bit of research, you will learn some are indeed unbiased, but even a cursory examination will show others are clearly aimed to favor one or the other party. We then hear news show hosts telling us how this or that poll is more or less biased than others. It remind me of the uncomfortable feeling we get in our gut when someone tells us "And I'm not

lying" just before telling us something.

We see multiple news stories saying the economy is improving. Then we see stories saying just the opposite. These usually contain just enough valid information to allow them to barely pass the smell test. But, if evaluated

more carefully, with a skeptical perspective, the biased influence intent clearly shows.

For example, on Sept. 25, a front-page story appeared in this newspaper from The Associated Press, headlined: "Americans are more confident in the economy than they have been in seven months." I read it carefully because I wanted to see in which parallel universe this writer lived. Clearly it is not from anywhere in the America I'm familiar with. The writer went on to say, just in case the intended reader was too stupid to get the story's intention, "This is an encouraging sign for President Barack Obama." 

The story quoted a person living in Washington, D.C. (surprise) and working for the government (surprise) saying: "Well, my 401(k) has improved, and housing prices around here are improving, and I feel like things are stabilizing." Even this person stated, in the conclusion of the story, that he was deferring his voting decision. Maybe, I thought, he is just waiting to hear from his bureaucratic bosses about who to support based on the likely winner. After all, it's not considered a good fundamental career practice to back a loser in D.C. The story concluded with: "Polling evidence indicates that Obama leads Romney in several important swing states."

Two days later, with a completely opposite conclusion, a news release from a conservative group called Americans for Limited Government stated: "The economy is continuing to falter as 2nd Quarter GDP revised downward to

1.3 percent by the government's Commerce Department." This release went on: "Suspicion existed indicating the previous report had been manipulated on purpose to inflate the results." The concluding sentence was: "Today's

report shows that the Obama economy continues to weaken, which is terrible news for those who were hoping to enter the holiday season with a new job and renewed hope."

These are only two examples of the many stories being shown by mainstream media that go beyond simple reporting and are aimed instead toward voter influence.

We are observing the continuation of decades of politics as usual by both sides, which has gotten our nation into such deep trouble. Fellow columnist LeRoy Goldman and I started an organization called Citizens Against Politics As Usual a year ago to try to fight back. If you have the time and inclination, please visit our website at capau.org to see what we believe and

why. I recently added a two-part self-shot video. Let me know what you think — but please understand we don't supply popcorn. :-)

The short version of our message: Don't ever participate in another poll.

Change your voter registration to independent. 

Vote against all incumbents for the next few election cycles. 

No spin needed here. We all know D.C. has

become so corrupted that the only logical choice is to fire the lot and start over. Unlike the NFL, the replacements cannot be any worse.

Most important of all: When you read/hear/see anything pertaining to any campaign from any source, always try to imagine the message is being delivered by a real politician. That way, as the imaginary politician's lips are moving, you will be reminded that it's a lot of politically spun BS!

Caveat emptor!

These are my opinions. What about yours? 

Please Visit:  Citizens Against Politics As usual

Contact Me:  Mike Tower