After the recall
election in Wisconsin ,
where Democrats and their Union allies wasted tens of millions of campaign
money that cannot be replaced in a futile effort to defeat Gov. Scott Walker,
almost every pundit and political observer commented that Wisconsin, a reliably
Democrat state may go Republican this fall.
Even Mr. Romney could not be criticized
for a little crowing. His campaign now thinks he will be competitive in Wisconsin,
with some justification
Romney can hope to
replicate Walker ’s
model in two areas. The first is money. Walker
raised more than $30 million for his recall campaign, including some
donations that exceeded the normal limits because of the laws governing recall
elections. Barrett brought in almost $4 million. Romney won’t amass
significantly more than Obama, but he can count on super PACs to give him an
overall advantage.
Unconfirmed reports
have Mr. Romney saying something to the effect, “How can I lose to these
people?”
Adding to the evidence of complete lack of
competence on the part of Democrats is recent comments by one of the most
ineffective and obnoxious economic officials of recent years. Larry Summers, former Treasury Chief under
President Clinton was bounced from the Presidency of Harvard because, and yes
this is impossible to conceive of, he was regarded too arrogant to lead
Harvard.
Mr. Summers has suggested that all of the Bush tax
cuts be extended, or maybe he didn’t suggest it, or may he suggested it and
then realized what he said and so he wants to say
he didn’t suggest it when he did. On
a morning show on MSNBC Mr. Summers seemed to indicate that he favored
extending all the Bush era tax cuts. But
then
Mr.
Summers, in an e-mail after the interview, said he was not contradicting Mr.
Obama, who has vowed to let tax cuts for the wealthy expire.
“I
fully support President Obama’s position on tax cuts,” Mr. Summers said. “I
have often said and continue to believe that promoting demand is the most
critical short-run priority for the American economy. Extending the high-income
tax cut does little for demand and poses substantial problems of fairness and
fiscal prudence.”
Later
in the MSNBC interview, which also included Gretchen Morgenson of The New York
Times, Mr. Summers clearly supported tax increases on the rich, but was less
clear on the time frame.
And this comes right after former President Clinton
made equally confusing remarks on the subject.
Mr.
Summers’s comments came
a day after Mr. Clinton, in an interview on CNBC, appeared to say that
tax increases and Republican-led spending cuts should be temporarily set aside
until the economy regains its footing. Those comments angered the Obama
re-election campaign and were quickly followed by a retraction. A Clinton spokesman said
later on Tuesday that the former president did not believe tax cuts for the
wealthy need be extended.
In the end, of course, it doesn’t matter what these
people say. The Bush era tax cuts will
be made permanent, because either Mr. Romney will be elected President, and his
first month in office will include signing legislation to that effect, or Mr.
Obama will be re-elected and he will agree to extend the Bush era tax cuts
because he will give in to Republicans in Congress who will insist on it.
Really, he will, just look at the videotape of
December 2010. As for the politics of
all this, it is just another small nail in the coffin of Democratic prospects
for the fall.
Regardless
of intent, political damage may have been done. Public opinion polls have
consistently shown strong majorities of Americans favor deficit reduction that
includes spending cuts and tax increases on the wealthy. But Republicans, who
oppose any tax hikes, are on offense — thanks in part to the mixed Democratic
messages.
Speaker
John A. Boehner of Ohio
cited both Mr. Summers and Mr. Clinton, who “came out for it before he was
against it,” in calling for the extension of all the tax cuts “for at least a
year.”
Senator
Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, the Senate minority leader, said President Obama
justified the extension of the Bush tax cuts for two years in December 2010
because of a struggling economy. At 1.9 percent, the growth rate in the first
three months of this year was slower than the end of 2010, when the economy
grew 2.8 percent.
This one nail won’t prevent the zombie campaign of
Democrats from rising from the coffin, it’s not that big a nail, but put enough
of them in the coffin and even a zombie cannot rise from the political grave of campaign ineptitude.
No comments:
Post a Comment