At Play in the Fields of the Lord

Contrary to what some might imagine, and what the mainstream media would have you believe, the 2012 presidential election is not about Mitt Romney…it’s not about Clint Eastwood…it’s all about Barack Obama.

The recent brouhaha over comments made by Clint Eastwood, an actor, I will remind you, is nothing but a smokescreen by the Obama administration. You or I could easily find 100 instances of Democrats doing or saying the same type of things or worse.

So, what it really comes down to in November is who do we want for president for the next four years?

Mr. Obama, you might remember, said this about the economy which, by the way, is still in shambles: “If I don’t have this done in three years, then there’s going to be a one-term proposition.” Essentially, Mr. Obama was telling us that he would fix the economy and if he didn’t he did not deserve a second term. Eastwood was only agreeing with him when he said, “When someone isn’t doing the job, we’ve got to let him go.”

On Jan. 9, 2009, prior to his assuming the presidency, the office of then president-elect Barack Obama issued a report entitled “The Job Impact of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Plan.” On page four of that report we were treated to a chart that showed the unemployment levels with and without Barack Obama’s proposed stimulus. That’s the $819 billion stimulus that Mr. Obama promised would prevent unemployment from ever rising over 8 percent. The prediction was that unemployment would peak at just under 8 percent in the third quarter of 2009 and then steadily decline to 5.6 percent by now. The prediction without the stimulus was that unemployment would peak around 9 percent and then decline to around 6 percent by the third quarter of 2010. What happened?

In late 2009, the unemployment rate reached 10.1 percent and, while declining since then, has remained above 8 percent for an abysmal 41 straight months. Can we really take any more of this?

As Mr. Obama continues to harp for more stimulus money to give away at the taxpayers’ expense under the guise of a jobs bill, do you really think we can afford to borrow 40 ¢ on every dollar the government spends? Are you really willing to give more money to “green” energy start-ups staffed by Obama supporters and campaign bundlers that are unable to achieve solvency and go bankrupt leaving the taxpayer holding the bag while the private investors, all friends of the Obama administration, walk away with their fortunes intact? It’s called a guaranteed loan and it basically guarantees the investors that the taxpayer will foot the bill of any losses. Can you say “Solyndra?"

Additionally, why do we send money to countries like Brazil to develop their energy (oil) industry to produce energy for sale on the open market while we refuse to develop that same kind of energy here? We have all the potential energy resources we need to make us independent sitting underground? Every time the subject is brought up that we can develop our own energy with what we have here in the U.S., we are reminded that it will take 10 years before any such energy would be ready for market. All well and good but we have heard the same rhetoric from the Democrats pandering to radical environmentalists for almost 40 years now. "Ten years" has come and gone multiple times over. Remember waiting in line for gasoline in the 1970s and hearing promises that we would break our dependence on foreign oil and become energy independent? All empty promises.

Here’s the deal as best as I can understand it. When a sitting politician is running for re-election, he or she has everything on their side. In other words, the election is really for them to win or lose. The challenger has to run against the office of an entrenched candidate. Look at any of our recent elections and see that when an incumbent is running the election is less about "A" versus "B" and more about a mandate on the incumbent; all about whether we want to get rid of the sitting candidate and give someone else a chance.

This presidential election is all about Barack Obama and whether we want to give him four more years. While Mitt Romney may or may not be a worthy candidate for president in your eyes, you’re really voting on whether you want to give Barack Obama more time. You see, we don’t really know exactly what Mr. Romney will do or not do as president, but we do know everything that Mr. Obama has promised to do and whether he has achieved those things or not.

Candidate Obama made some outrageous predictions in 2008-2009 along with those listed above. One of the more outrageous claims came in a speech made upon winning the Democratic primary to run for the office of president in 2008. Candidate Obama predicted that if he was elected we would be able to look back and tell our children that “…this was the moment when the rise of the oceans began to slow and our planet began to heal…” (time stamp 0.40). That sounds absolutely otherworldly. I’ve heard soaring rhetoric before but I’m not sure if anyone has ever tried to achieve the heights of sublimity that Candidate Obama attempted to reach that day. That gives new meaning to the cliché, “From the sublime to the ridiculous.” Do the gods now walk among us?

So, yes, understand that the contest we face is not about Mitt Romney, or Paul Ryan, or George Bush, or Clint Eastwood…it’s all about Barack Obama and whether the United States of  America can afford to allow this man to remain “At Play in the Fields of the Lord” for four more years.

Remember, Republicans vote on Tuesday and Democrats vote on Wednesday. See you at the polls:-)