A common narrative among Democrats is that the Republican presidential candidates are not of very high caliber. Following this partisan logic, none of them would stand much chance against President Obama. This gives great comfort to many on the Left who view the Republican primary battle as a circular firing squad that will leave the incumbent President with a fatally-weakened opponent. Nothing could be further from the truth.
Firstly, the winning candidate will be immeasurably stronger as a result of parrying the repeated onslaughts of his opponents. Now, we should never “mis-underestimate” the creative abilities of the NFM (non-Fox media) to come up with new, clever attacks on a Republican candidate. (Remember Dan Rather’s faked documents against George Bush that “mysteriously” surfaced on the eve of the 2004 election?) Even so, the eventual Republican candidate for President should be ready, willing, and able to deal with the inevitable attacks from the Democrats and the media.
Secondly, President Obama now has a record he must defend, and it’s not a very good one. His supporters routinely trot out lists of his “accomplishments.” Ironically, most of the macro items on the lists have negative connotations to many voters - - economic stimulus (unprecedented deficits, 5.5 trillion dollar national debt, high unemployment, no budget in 3 plus years), ObamaCare (Big Brother statism, cost overruns, $500 billion cuts in Medicare), Green Energy (Solyndra-type crony-capitalism scandals, denying Keystone pipeline, curtailing drilling, skyrocketing gas prices), entitlements (no ideas, no plans).
Thirdly, Obama’s naivete in foreign affairs (think serial apologies, “open mic” with Medvedev) will not sit well with the electorate. This un-vetted President has stumbled through his first term shielded from scrutiny by a fawning press. That changes soon, and his Republican opponent will expose the glaring weaknesses of an inept administration.
Jim Littlejohn
Concerned Coastal Voters
Gualala, CA
