The real title of this post is "How to get re-elected when doing little to nothing in the first term of office to deserve it?" It just was a wee bit too long to fit up above..
It takes great skill to be an incumbent who has done very little to nothing to improve the US economy after four years and still be in a very good position to win re-election in November. Of course running against a deeply out-of-touch candidate with no empathy or true understanding for the bottom 99% (Romney) helps considerably..
But let's go beyond that-- Our question isn't so much how the President will be able to hoodwink most people into believing that magically a 2nd term will make their lives dramatically better. Rather, how he was able to successfully hold back the economic and military floodgates that would normally have doomed his re-election chances, until after November 6th?
Here's how:
1) Push any debate/decision on raising the National Debt ceiling until after the election:
On August 1, 2011, an agreement was met between the President and Congress to raise the National Debt by around $2.4 Trillion. Prior to the agreement, it was quite a nasty debate full of political posturing.
In order for Obama to agree to any escalation, Congress would have to agree on a figure large enough that another debate and vote would be delayed until after the election so the President wouldn't have to deal with this hot-potato topic.
Because Congress is full of cowards who also have to run for re-election including 1/3 of the Senate and every member of the House of Representative, they readily agreed.
Prior to the debt ceiling crisis of 2011, the debt ceiling was last raised on February 12, 2010 to $14.294 trillion
The current National Debt is at $16.074 Trillion. Federal Tax Revenue is at $2.3 Trillion, meaning if 100% of all taxes collected went solely to pay the US debt and not a penny going to any other Department or Government program, it would take about 5 full years to pay off the Debt.
Because the current Debt ceiling is at $16.4T, that gives everyone running for relection the opportunity to wipe the topic under the rug (and distract the public from focusing upon it) until after November.
2) Avert a market crisis by any hook, trick or scheme necessary:
A couple weeks ago, the Fed Chairman decided to play dispense with all illusions that his position is not political by stating the Fed was going to purchase $40bil/month in Mortgage backed securities until... well until forever. This was known as QE3.
That's what happens when the Presidential challenger says if elected President he's going to get rid of you because you're terrible (which in the case of the bearded bastard, Bernanke is 100% true) Wouldn't you do the same if you were a little power-hungry worm wanting to keep your title?
It was meant to spark the stock market to keep rising. So far as predicted, it has succeeded, causing the market to rise over 2% in just a couple weeks. This makes the soulless money hungry Investors very happy and they tend to show their pleasure via political donations.
In addition, to the vast multitude of deeply ignorant Americans who know next to nothing about the economy or finance, they see a rising stock market and infer the economy 'must' be improving. Even those with no financial connection, their simple brains translate Dow UP to 'hope'.. Thus, 'let's' reward the incumbent with 'our' vote.
In the case of Europe, former Goldman Sachs VP Mario Draghi, the one directly responsible to hiding Greek debts so the poor nation could fake its way into the Eurozone, decided a month ago to play 'Fed' and open the euro spigots with hundreds of billions in free money for Europe's markets.. just enough to calm it until... yes... you got it.. November.
3) Convey an improving economy without having to actually fix it:
How do you get just under 15% true unemployment to appear to look like 8.1% Oh there's lots of ways-- First you change the parameters of who is counted unemployed. This goes back to the Clinton years and still in effect today.. the 'U6' factors just don't matter in tabulating the joblessness figures.
Then when no one is hiring but you need to show steady decline in the unemployment rate, you just roll hundreds of thousands of people off the statistical rolls... they're no longer 'unemployed' even though they are... Ta Da!
The Bureau of Labor Statistics complies the data.. They are part of the Labor Department. Each President has a Secretary of Labor who runs it... Are you connecting the dots yet? And how is the figures compiled? The BLS samples 5% of the top fortune 500 companies and from those findings, represent the greater US jobs picture.
A person out of work for years with no real reason to feel optimistic will see the unemployment figure drop, not have the slightest clue why, and feel... yes... Hopeful. And guess who gets his/her vote? Not the challenger...
Manipulative polling by the Consumer Confidence Board and other polling agencies help too. The more people spend and get into debt, the "better" the consumer is supposedly feeling about the economy. When people are increasing their card use, its not because they've run out of cash... no no.. its because they feel so confident, they are excited to shop... etc...etc..
And gas prices.. its still high... but always time to get them lower by November. Just negotiate a backdoor deal with Saudi Arabia... or spread the threat of opening up US oil reserves to get the price of oil to temporary drop to the $80 range by election... After that, ehh~
4) Convey that Administration is taking leading role in prosecuting Wall St ONLY when polls show a tightening race
President Obama's mortgage fraud task force, set up at the beginning of the year to snuff out illegal practices that occurred during the height of the U.S. financial crisis, finally brought its first big case Monday.
JPMorgan Chase (JPM) has been slapped with a $2 billion lawsuit, one that alleges fraud in the residential mortgage-backed securities operations at Bear Stearns, which at the time was an independent firm, during 2005 into 2007.
Prior to Monday, big banks have faced few civil cases and no criminal cases and this first case, prosecuted by the NY Atty General is after the government spent over $1Trillion of taxpayer money to save the rotten, shit banking system. So technically, if the government wins its case, its simply recouping two-tenths of one percent of the funds it doled out.
More important to the Administration, its a way to say prior to the first Presidential Debate this coming Wed that Obama is tough on Wall Street.
Is it a political ploy? Most likely.. Will it work? Undoubtedly.. We can not emphasize enough how deeply uninformed most people are when it comes to both the US economy and the current economic crisis which has not been fixed in any way, shape or form.. only shoved into a figurative 'box' that says "Safe from exploding open until November 6th"
By the way, these political strategies of deception and bait/switch are not exclusive to the President nor to Democrats.. Lots and lots of rotten politicians who've done nothing and yet get re-elected on lies and charm.. Generations of them.
Its quite reminiscent of when gangsters and mobsters would get arrested for some financial crime or murder. So the baddie would have his attorney successfully get the trial moved to a small town, then prior to trial, put on a PR campaign to sway the public and eventual jurors; walk around town holding a Bible or donate $$ to local churches and/or civic endeavors, or give out free turkeys for the holidays..
When you think about it, its really surprising the President didn't stall for another year or so, and capture and kill Osama Bin Laden now.. He'd win in a super-landslide..
5) Prevent any international tensions from flaring up-- Stall.. Stall..
Israel knows Iran plans on building nuclear weapons and in all likelihood would use it to destroy the Jewish state at the first possible opportunity. Everyone knows Iran hates Israel and says the most hate-filled vitriol to describe it. And everyone knows Israel will not sit idly by why Iran builds a bomb--they will pre-emptive strike.
Problem for Obama is, that strike would look really bad and hurt re-election chances if done before election. So what to do?
The President tried to completely ignore Israel's Prime Minister by chatting with David Letterman and the bitches on 'The View' instead. Obama also tried to seriously weaken Israel's ability to strike by taking weapon systems away and dramatically limiting the number of US soldiers who were scheduled to run military exercises in October.
But that Netanyahu-- he's one persistent puppy. He was adamant that the President speak with him.. And so they did yesterday, and according to the USA Today, everyone got what they wanted... Obama got a promise from Israel that they would not strike Iran before Nov 6th and Israel got... well.. they got more empty words that the US would not allow Iran to develop a bomb.
Wonder what happens on Nov 6th? Hmm.. oh yes... US elections..
Wonder what arm twisting or threats or blackmail the President had to impose to get this Israeli retreat?
So that's how you put yourself in the best position to win re-election when you've truly done very little in your first term and do not deserve a second...
Its really amazing-- when you see how much has gotten 'done' by the President in the last few weeks, it makes one wish elections were twice a year.. Just imagine how much an incumbent could get done!
On the 'positive' though, every President's second term in the last 40 years has been Far Worse (and sometimes scandalous) than the first term... (Nixon: Watergate, Reagan: Iran Contra, Clinton (MonicaGate & Impeachment) and Bush 43: Iraq War & Lehman Bros collapse)
Also, no matter who wins in November, 2013 is going to be a genuinely difficult year for the President and the nation to experience, so that isn't going to be much fun for whoever is sitting in Office.
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