Prior to his September 9th, health care "make or break" press conference, the estimated that President Barack Obama had by that time already given 27 speeches entirely devoted to health care and he had mentioned the issue prominently in another 92. While the September 9th presser bumped approval of Obamacare all the way up to 51% in Rasmussen's tracking poll by September 13th, today that number is down to 43% with Undaunted the White House again plastered President Obama on as many friendly media outlets as possible this weekend. Yesterday he appeared on five Sunday news shows (every major network excluding FOX News, but including Univision), and tonight Obama will appear on David Letterman.
The result of this latest media blitz? Nothing. Politico reports: "In the interviews taped Friday – the first time a sitting president has done five Sunday shows back-to-back – Obama broke little new ground in how he tried to sell his own program, which has sharply divided his own party and left many in the public confused and deeply skeptical." Asked by ABC's George Stephanopoulos if he "lost control" of the health care debate, President Obama : "Well, not so much lost control, but where I've said to myself, somehow I'm not breaking through."
Mr. President, if you didn't break through the first 32 times, maybe it is not the message that is the problem. Maybe the problem is that the American people do understand what your health care plan will mean for them, and they just don't like it.
That's the thing that liberals never seem to understand - people genuinely disagree with them on substantive policy issues, simply because of the substance of those issues. It's not a race thing, it's not a hate thing, it's not an ignorance thing; it's a genuine disagreement based on thoughtful consideration of the issue, and the reaching of a different philosophical conclusion. Liberals can't handle that because they truly believe they know better than all of us non-coastal schlubs, and that we should therefore just follow them blindly to whatever destination they see fit for us. It's the reason that they never acknowledge losing an election -- it was RIGGED and STOLEN! -- because the people don't want their policies; they just can't believe that people would be that stupid.
The opinion goes on to talk about a number of new mandates and tax increases that the various proposals currently being debated would establish. The American people don't want those, either. Never have, never will, at least not in any significant numbers. The bottom line is that, no matter what their political affiliation is, most people simply don't want the government meddling in their lives and telling them what to do. That's what we mean when we say that America is a fundamentally right of center nation.
But that sort of government meddling is exactly what will happen if Obama gets his way.
A recent Gallup poll speaks directly to this idea. A huge majority of the American people -- 57% -- already think that the government is trying to do too much. That's 80% of Republicans, 63% of Independents, and even 1 out of 3 Democrats. Americans have seen that Obama is not the centrist he billed himself to be during the campaign, and they are now greatly concerned that he's going to continue growing government and creeping into their lives.
That's exactly what's at stake here, and that's why we need to stop it now. Government just doesn't get smaller, so the time to act is now, before it becomes too big to control. And, of course, along the way we need to tie the anchor of expanding government firmly around the necks responsible - Barack Obama and the Democrat leadership.
There's my two cents.
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