Casting Stones

Mitt Romney has become the favorite punching bag of many Republicans, as they point the finger of blame for a lost election.  What's the point in that?  It's nonproductive and focused on the past.  

There is nothing Romney could have done differently that would have won this election for him.  Conservative talk show hosts are fond of saying that this is a "center-right" country, but could it be that that is no longer true?  As secularism has grown in this country, increasing numbers of people are shutting God out of their lives and becoming more lax and tolerant of things that used to be frowned upon, if not condemned outright.  

Couple this with the formidable data-gathering machinery of the Obama campaign and you have a nearly insurmountable obstacle.  President Obama has been campaigning the whole time he's been in office and has accumulated a great wealth of information about donors, as well as psychological information about how various groups are likely to respond to different messages.  This has allowed them to tailor different messages to various groups of potential voters.  

Let's give Mitt Romney a well-deserved rest as we look to the future.  Republicans should, of course, learn from past mistakes, but they would also do well to become more technologically savvy about nurturing likely constituents and attracting new voters.  We have much to look forward to, so let's get busy!

Obama the Bloodless

The violence in Egypt and Libya the last few days that resulted in the death of ambassador Christopher Stevens and others is spreading like a cancer, not only in the Middle East, but also to London and to American college campuses today. Hillary Clinton has continued to try to mollify the fanatics, to no avail.  I wish the administration would get a clue and realize that these guys only understand and respect force. They view tolerance and appeasement as weakness, not virtues. Why does the Secretary of State keep referring to the video that allegedly spawned this situation?  It wasn't the video, Mrs. Clinton.  It's the mindset of the eternally aggrieved that's the problem. The video is merely an excuse.  

As the chaos spreads, the president is out campaigning and fund-raising as if everything were wonderful.  He has always seemed aloof to me, but he now appears to be completely detached from the real danger confronting us.  The day after the ambassador's death, he made a brief, cold announcement that was utterly devoid of passion or anger, then took off for Las Vegas to campaign.  Then came the big announcement yesterday that Obama raised more money than Romney in August, as if that were the most important news of the day. Could he be any less caring?

This country is hungry for real leadership and strength. In these dangerous times, we need a serious, responsible person in the oval office, and I feel that we don't even have a president; we have a campaigner-in-chief.  The United States needs and deserves better.

Falling or Climbing?

Words have power:  the power to inform and the power to deceive.  The Obama administration is adept at using words to mislead.  Sometimes, they cross the line into outright lies.


As printed in the Wall Street Journal's main editorial today, the Obama campaign is running an ad "blitz" trumpeting that during Romney's tenure as governor, Massachusetts "fell" to 47th place in the country for job creation.  The truth is that when Mr. Romney became governor, Massachusetts was 50th in job creation, at the bottom of the barrel.  So, when Mitt Romney was governor, Massachusetts actually climbed to 47th place.  This is a distinction the Obama campaign doesn't want to make and, unfortunately, many people won't look any further to discern the truth.


Mr. Obama doesn't want to put his own record out there as justification for a second administration, so he's trying to make his opponent look bad, taking the focus off his own pathetic record.  So far, it hasn't seemed to work.  I think many people now know that Mr. Obama's figures are, at best, half-truths, if that.