Congressman Allen West Concedes

For two weeks since Election Day, we have been working to ensure every vote is counted accurately and fairly.  We have made progress towards that goal, thanks to the dedication of our supporters and their unrelenting efforts to protect the integrity of the democratic process.  While many questions remain unanswered, today I am announcing that I will take no further action to contest the outcome of this election.

While there are certainly still inaccuracies in the results, and the actions of the St. Lucie County and Palm Beach County Supervisors of Elections rightly raise questions in my mind and for many voters, after much analysis and this past weekend’s recount in St. Lucie County, our legal team does not believe there are enough over-counted, undercounted or fraudulent votes to change the outcome of the election.

While a contest of the election results might have changed the vote totals, we do not have evidence that the outcome would change.  Given the extremely high evidentiary hurdles involved in a successful challenge, I will not ask my generous supporters to help fund a drawn-out, expensive legal effort with little chance of success. Therefore, we will not contest the certification or challenge the seating of Congressman-elect Murphy.

Serving the people in the House of Representatives has been among the highest honors of my life, but this seat does not belong to me, or for that matter, to any individual.  It belongs to the people.

I want to congratulate my opponent, Patrick Murphy, as the new Congressman from the 18th Congressional District. I pray he will serve his constituents with honor and integrity, and put the interests of our nation before his own.

I must thank my wife Angela, and my daughters Aubrey and Austen for their support, patience, understanding and most of all, love. These are three of the toughest women I know. They have sent me off to defend our nation overseas at war, and to Capitol Hill to serve our nation in the House of Representatives. They have all handled the challenges of these last few months, and the last many years, with amazing grace. I know they will be by my side for whatever is our next chapter.

I want to thank my congressional and campaign staff for their service, and most importantly, I want to thank all of our tremendous supporters who provided their time and money to power our campaign. I am humbled by the dedication and perseverance of our supporters, and their commitment to a free and prosperous America.  I cannot thank them enough for all they have done for our campaign, but most importantly, what they have done, and will continue to do for our country.  None of us should let the outcome discourage us. We should only redouble our resolve.

Above all, I want to thank God for his blessings, and for blessing me with the opportunity to serve.

Only God knows what is in store for each of us. I have dedicated my life to serving this nation, and the results of this election will not change my purpose. Just as I did in the deserts of Iraq and Afghanistan, just as I did on Capitol Hill, I will continue to fight for our Republic.

Our nation will not overcome our challenges overnight, and the road ahead for each one of us will not be easy. But this nation would never have become that shining beacon of light if our founders had chosen the easy path 236 years ago.  We all must proudly continue their legacy.

For the protection and preservation of our life, liberty and pursuit of happiness, I shall remain steadfast and loyal.  God bless you and God bless these United States of America

For those that are sticking with the falsehood that their 900 votes cast in a precinct that has only 7 registered voters.  It simply isn’t true.  You can look for yourself, it is precinct 93, there were 6 votes cast 3 for West, 3 for Murphy.   There is nothing about these numbers that are glaring errors that would cause a court to require a complete recount.  Believing internet rumors without doing your own fact checking is never a good idea.  This is also the county that the rumors are that there was 141% of the vote.  That number is cards cast, not ballots.  The ballot was 2 pages long due to 11 amendments that were put on the ballot.  The number should have really been 200%, but apparently not everyone answered every ballot question.

Congressman West did the right thing, a long drawn out court battle that would have no chance of changing the outcome isn’t good for anyone.  He did what he could to talk about the counting problems in this county.  But this county has close to 30,000 more registered democrats than republicans, that is a very large hill to climb.  Congressman West is great to stir up the base, but when you are a bomb thrower; as Congressman West is, you had better be in a very safe district, or the chances are you will only serve one term, if you get elected at all.

Advertisement

Post Election Rant

Obviously I am very disappointed in the results from election night.  So much so, that I really have not had the heart to even write this.  But, Kathleen Parker got me out of that and quickly too.

The truth is, Romney was better than the GOP deserved. Party nitwits undermined him, and the self-righteous tried to bring him down. The nitwits are well-enough known at this point — those farthest-right social conservatives who couldn’t find it in their hearts to keep their traps shut. No abortion for rape or incest? Sit down.Legitimate rape? Put on your clown suit and go play in the street.

Equally damaging were the primary leeches who embarrassed the party and wouldn’t leave the stage. Nine-nine-nine, we’re talking about you, Herman Cain. And Gov. Oops? You, too. And then there were Rick Santorum and Michele Bachmann, who never had a real shot at the nomination and certainly could never win a national election, yet they refused to surrender to the certain nominee.

Did they have a right to persist in their own fantasies? Sure. But not if they were serious about getting a Republican in the White House. Thus, for months and months, Romney had to spend his energy and, as important, his money to prevail in the primaries against opponents who had no chance and who ultimately hurt him. During that same precious time, Obama’s campaign was busy pinpointing specific voters, practically learning the names of their dogs, and buying ads in niche markets.

Wow, so it is my fault.  Not that I am even “furthest right” when it comes to social issues. I have made no bones about it, I didn’t like Mitt Romney as the nominee.  I have been saying for over a year that had he got the nomination he would lose.  I didn’t even think that because of his wishy washiness on social issues.  To me social issues are not really the purview of the federal government, and I don’t care which side is trying to make the case that they are.  You cannot legislate your sense of morality onto someone else, it comes from within.   That said, people still want to see that you have core convictions.

I also have seen many of the more moderate republicans all across social media blaming the tea party and SoCons.  Really?  I will say it again, I didn’t like Romney as the nominee.  I didn’t want to vote for him.  When push came to shove, I went out and I did it.  Not only did I vote for him, I went out and worked my ass off trying to get him elected.  I spent the final six weeks of the cycle on trains, planes, and automobiles crisscrossing the country from swing state to swing state.  I spent 7 to 8 hours per day knocking on doors, then spend another few hours making phone calls.  I did this in close to freezing temperatures and pouring rain one more than one occasion.  I slept in hotel that I had to keep changing rooms because of bugs.  Don’t tell me that I didn’t take one for the team.

Every Tea Party minded person I know personally did similar things as well.  Americans for Prosperity, one of the tea party umbrella groups, helped get people like me out to swing states.  Do you think that Romney was their initial choice?  Not likely, but we will never know as they don’t endorse candidates.  But, you still saw them working night and day on the GOTV effort.  Like me, they understood the stakes.

Now, what did the squishy middle do?  Were they there?  Did the same people who are throwing this blame around at people like me get out from in front of their computers and make the same personal sacrifices that I made?  Many of the ones that I know didn’t.  They sat around posting things through social media to people who already agreed with them.  Boy, that was helpful.

One thing that was proven without a doubt is that the moderate wing of the party cannot the presidency without the crazies from the far right.  To the people who believe that all life is sacred and is worth fighting for.  I will admit that some go too far for my tastes.  I refuse to engage with people who show horrific pictures of dead babies and ask me if I think it is ok to rip babies out of their mothers wombs.  That is emotional blackmail.  But, if you think that same tactic isn’t used on the left you are sadly mistaken.  They take one person out 45,000 that has some obscure sob story and then tries to pass a law that forces everyone in the country to change their life in order to accommodate their plea of the day.  While of course the opposite is true as well.  But I am sick to death of hearing that I caused the loss of the senate and I am somehow personally responsible for Romney’s loss.

I was there, I was in a tightly contested county in a swing state on election day.  No kidding, they had me knocking on doors that already had literature on it.  I called and told them that this was happening.  I was told to just keep going.  I walked seven miles on election day, going door to door.  At one point I had to find a woody area so I could go to the bathroom because I knew that one of the drivers wouldn’t be able to get me in time, I was so far out from the victory office.  Luckily I had napkins with me.

After returning from day of door knocking I was making calls all day.  I was calling Minnesota.  You know what, 3 out 5 calls were wrong numbers due to bad area codes.  How the heck is that my fault?  Didn’t the campaign bother to update the phone lists?  Apparently not.  The campaign is denying the story of software they created for the GOTV effort, but I can tell it was true, at least in Ohio.  It wasn’t working properly.

Where was the Romney campaign in Wisconsin?  Why didn’t they use the popularity of Paul Ryan as the hometown boy with the all the advantages they had with Governor Walker’s grassroots efforts?  They didn’t put enough resources in that state.  That is my fault how?

I am sick to death of hearing that my voice shouldn’t matter in the party.  That my views are somehow less important than theirs.  That I should be giving up on my principles to tack left.  Because heaven knows that is what the democrats do when they lose elections.  They moderate.

I happen to believe that we need immigration reform in this country.  But I am not willing to sell out my principles in order to get it.  The facts are President Reagan signed immigration reform decades ago, did that help bring Hispanics into the party?  No it did not.  Did the democratically controlled congress keep their end of the bargain?  If they had we wouldn’t have millions more in the country.  Read the law that Reagan signed Ms. Parker.  The borders were supposed to be secured.  The law was supposed to go after employers that violated the law by giving any additional positions to illegals, oh excuse me, undocumented workers.  None of that has happened.  So I am supposed to put my trust into the democrats doing the same again?  I guess if I am stupid I should.

What people like you Ms. Parker are really saying is that my views matter so little that I should be just cast aside.  Lets also take a stroll down memory lane of the past few GOP presidential candidates.  McCain, a moderate.  Dole, a moderate, Bush I who governed as a moderate and destroyed the yacht industry while president.  An industry that all these decades that has never come back, and never will.  Thanks to his “luxury” tax thousands upon thousands lost their jobs, companies went out of business, and America, once the #1 exporter of said yachts is now the #1 importer.  The industry died and it cost the tax payers millions and millions of dollars.  Yes, that is the leadership that the right should be looking for.

President Bush 2 is the only one of them that was ran as conservative unabashedly.  He was successful not just once, but twice.  Now, he still ended up with big government polices and spent money like a drunken sailor (sorry to all you drunken sailors) that has gotten us to the point where we are now.  Above and beyond all the money and the big government policies that President Bush promoted and acted upon during his presidency, his biggest sin was acting like you are suggesting.   He rolled over and allowed the left to control the narrative.  He didn’t fight back on all the lies.  He felt that the presidency shouldn’t be used in that way.  While in theory I agree with him on that.  I, to have a great deal of respect for the office of the presidency, but times have changed.  We have 24 hour news cycles and cable channels that do nothing but spit out a point of view and will use lies if necessary to promote their agenda.  That must be countered and countered hard.  His refusal to do it, is a big part of the reason we even have a President Obama.  So no, Ms. Parker I reject your advice.  The protection of religious liberties matter.  I will fight for them from shore to shore in this country.  The word marriage has meaning.  If gay marriage was simply about benefits, the problems would have been solved years ago.  If DADT tell was simply about serving in the military we would not have seen people in uniforms marching in Gay Pride parades this year, even though that is clear violation of military code of conduct.  You wouldn’t see gay couples suing conservative churches to perform marriage ceremonies.  They are trying to say that my beliefs are bad, that there is something inherently wrong with them.  I don’t care what a gay couple does in the privacy of their bedrooms, but I do care what they are trying to do to my church.  They want tax write-offs and hospital visitation fine.  But stay out of my place of worship.

Did it ever occur to you Ms. Parker that Romney was never able to make the connection to voters?  Did it ever occur to you that he never gave a coherent reason of why he should be president other than he wasn’t Obama?  Now that was more than enough for me, but for the low information voter it wasn’t.  Most people don’t like change just for the sake of change.  They will dance with the devil they know.  That is part of human nature.  Did it every occur to you that people in this country don’t want to elect someone who is wealthy as he is?  The left, that you seem all too willing to model after, has done a great job in creating a society that wealth is a bad thing, that people with money are ogres, evil, and someone who isn’t compassionate.

People in this country want conviction Ms. Parker.  Romney didn’t show that he really had that.  People want real conviction because it is a sign of leadership.  Stop blaming me and put the blame where it belongs, on the left who have convinced people that anyone that dares calls themselves a republican, or gasp even worse a conservative, lacks compassion and is racist.   Look in the mirror Ms. Parker, because you yourself have bought into that argument.

 

Mitt Romney Concession Speech

For those that didn’t make it, here it is.

It is no secret, I don’t agree with Mitt Romney politically, but he is a good man.  It is too bad that the majority of the country didn’t see it.

Some Things to Remember When Placing your Ballot Today

The military families have had to sue to get this administration to tell the truth that the Fort Hood shooting was a terrorist attack on U.S. soil and not “workplace violence”.

President Obama has repeatedly lied misled the American people on the terrorist attack that caused four deaths at our consulate in Benghazi, Libya.  60 minutes finally decided to release part of their interview two days before the election proving conclusively that the President did not call it a terrorist attack even though the White House watched the attack in real-time.

We have $16 Trillion in debt, under President Obama that will only increase.  He is on course to bring that number to over $20 Trillion.  On Jay Leno he not only said this isn’t a problem he didn’t know what the number was.  Remember, he said this was unpatriotic when President Bush was in office.  He increased the debt in less than four years than President Bush did in eight.  President Bush added $5T in 8 eight years, President Obama added $6 in less than four.

The stimulus money went largely to buddies of the left.  Unions, green energy companies, and the like.  The vast majority of the green energy companies have since gone bankrupt.  Solyndra was given a loan that allowed the company’s shareholders were given first rights to any assets that were sold before the tax payer.  The American tax payers lost a half a billion dollars in this deal.  This loan was turned down under the Bush administration due to the fact that all evidence showed that company was unstable and was at high risk of not being able to repay the loan.

There is no way to tax the “rich” to cover our debts.  The math just isn’t there.  The tax code needs to be reformed.  The base needs to be flattened to bring and the tax loop holes must be dealt with.  Without this, we will never get out of this mess.  President Obama will not do this.  It goes against everything he believes in.  He will continue the divisive rhetoric of class warfare.  Which will not solve our problems.

The amount of regulation that is killing industries such as the energy sector, will only increase under President Obama.  Green energy is years away from being financial viable.  We still need fossil fuels to run this country.  That is just fact.

I could go on and on.  But time is short for me today.

When placing your ballot today, vote for the country that you want your children to inherit.  A country that will finally start putting the paying off our massive debt to allow more money to flow into the economy, or a country that will only increase in debt and make growth stagnant.  A country that will make its way back to individual freedoms or a country that has a government that is large enough to reach into the lunch bag of a four-year old, tell you what size soda you can buy, how much salt a restaurant can put into the food they sell, and basically run your life.  They believe they can raise your families better than you can.  The choice is yours.

President Obama has admitted that he can’t fix Washington.  Washington must be fixed or this country as we know it, won’t survive.

Get Out The Vote

Mitt’s Momentum – New Ad – Video

All the momentum is on the side of Romney.  This is a good encapsulation of it.

The Debates – Romney/Ryan 2.35 Obama/Biden 1.65

Wow, what a snooze fest last night.  I doubt that anyone except the media (who is paid to watch) and political junkies stayed until the end of that one.  Which was unfortunate for Romney, as he improved as the night went on.  His opening statement was rambling and almost incoherent.

Now most of the polls are showing a Obama win by a slight margin.  I have to say I agree with that.  But, one must remember that a sitting president is always going to have an advantage on foreign policy compared to a challenger.  That said, Obama needed a knock out last night, and he didn’t do that.

Gov. Romney was able to hold his own.  Now, many conservatives are upset that he didn’t hit Libya more.  I personally feel he did the right thing.  Romney is in a very good position right now with 14 days left until the election.  Caution was the word of the night, as I think it should have been.  Romney got a little burned with pushing Libya last week.  Unfairly of course, but that doesn’t change the fact that it hurt him a bit last week.

Romney needed to pass the CIC test.  I believe he did that.  He was steady under the constant attempts of Obama to paint him as some sort of war monger who would be pulling the trigger on Iran on day one.  No one wants to go to war.  That is just a caricature that is painted of the right.  Romney was able to stay steady and say that he wants to try to use diplomacy first.  Of course military action can’t be taken off the table, but it isn’t the first, or even second or third option.

President Obama again tried to mischaracterize Romney’s past statements, mostly by not providing the proper context.  Romney (and even some of the fact checkers) have done a good job at setting the record straight on those.

What I found the most amusing was the fact that Obama kept saying that Romney agreed with much of what he was doing in the arena of foreign policy.  What Obama (and the media for that matter) hasn’t mentioned is that much of what Obama has done was continuing policies put in place by President Bush.  An irony that has largely been lost on the left.

Now, Romney’s closing statement was a thing of beauty:

ROMNEY: Thank you.

Bob, Mr. President, folks at Lynn University, good to be with you. I’m optimistic about the future. I’m excited about our prospects as a nation. I want to see peace. I want to see growing peace in this country. It’s our objective.

We have an opportunity to have real leadership. America’s going to have that kind of leadership and continue to promote principles of peace to make a world a safer place and make people in this country more confident that their future is secure. I also want to make sure that we get this economy going. And there are two very different paths the country can take. One is a path represented by the president, which at the end of four years would mean we’d have $20 trillion in debt heading towards Greece. I’ll get us on track to a balanced budget.

The president’s path will mean continuing declining in take-home pay. I want to make sure our take-home pay turns around and starts to grow.

The president’s path will mean continuing declining in take-home pay. I want to make sure take-home pay turns around and starts to grow. The president’s path means 20 million people out of work struggling for a good job. I’ll get people back to work with 12 million new jobs.

I’m going to make sure that we get people off of food stamps, not by cutting the program, but by getting them good jobs.

America’s going to come back, and for that to happen, we’re going to have to have a president who can work across the aisle. I was in a state where my legislature was 87 percent Democrat. I learned how to get along on the other side of the aisle. We’ve got to do that in Washington. Washington is broken. I know what it takes to get this country back, and will work with good Democrats and good Republicans to do that.

This nation is the hope of the earth. We’ve been blessed by having a nation that’s free and prosperous thanks to the contributions of the greatest generation. They’ve held a torch for the world to see – the torch of freedom and hope and opportunity. Now, it’s our turn to take that torch. I’m convinced we’ll do it.

We need strong leadership. I’d like to be that leader with your support. I’ll work with you. I’ll lead you in an open and honest way, and I ask for your vote. I’d like to be the next president of the United States to support and help this great nation and to make sure that we all together remain America as the hope of the earth.

Thank you so much.

I especially loved how Romney kept bringing it back to economic issues.  On this Romney and I agree 100% – a economically weak America is a danger to the entire world.  I was very happy to see him bringing that up and bringing it up often.  The two are very closely connected.

Romney needed to be bloodied last night to change the momentum in the race – Obama couldn’t accomplish that.  Obama may have a slight win last night – but it seems it is too little too late.

Healed? New Romney Ad Reminding us of Candidate Obama’s Words and Actions – Video

Mitt Romney “Uniquely Qualified” – Video

The Romney campaign has come out with a new video of former colleagues of Mitt.  They talk about his qualifications for the job of president in this time of economic uncertainty.

When You Lose Vanity Fair……..

 

@VanityFair

 

Good LORD Obama wouldn’t win a student council election against a chubby nerd with that closing argument.

Wow.

Ouch, Mr. President.

 

Do You Hug Your Garbage Collector? Union Attacks Romney

This guy is upset that Mitt and Ann Romney don’t come out and shake their hands and hug them while they are out collecting garbage.

I have never met my garbage collector.  I am normally busy when they come around and most of my neighbors are at work.  My garbage is collected about noon or so, if I am not mistaken.

Now Ann and Mitt do pay property taxes on this home.  This is their home in California, which they don’t live in full-time.  If I am not mistaken those taxes are quite high.  Those taxes pay his salary as well as his benefits.   If this is the worse thing that someone can say about Mitt Romney, I would say that he is someone that belongs in elected office considering some of the other imbeciles  we deal with.

Too Many Americans – New Romney Ad – Video

He is absolutely right, we need to get people off of welfare and back to work.  Helping people subsist may seem compassionate, but it is a difficult life.  People are far better off getting a better paying job so they can provide for themselves.

Mute Button – New Romney Ad – Fabulous Video

I am about 2/3’s done with the book mentioned in this ad.  It is very damning indeed.  I am glad to see them using it.

Romney Hits President Obama on “I Can’t Change Washington” – Video

This seems like it is too long to be on television, so spread, spread, and spread some more.

R.I.P. America – Our Stupid Electorate

I realize it is unconstitutional to require any sort of test in order to vote, but if there was ever a reason to think that the founders were wrong on this issue, this is it.

These are the people who are deciding who will run the free world.  Truly frightening.

Torture is fine, but don’t kill bin Laden.  OMG

Marco Rubio Does Some Straight Talk on Medicare – Video

People need to understand this.  Medicare is going broke.  If you truly want to save it and believe that it should stay as service that is forced  offered to the seniors across our country, then you can’t vote for Obama.  He will not admit the facts that Medicare as it stands today will not survive without a major overhaul of how it is funded.

Next – New American Crossroads Ad on Obama’s Policies and Small Businesses – Video

About that NBC Poll

A new poll was released last week that was done by NBC/Marist for Virginia.  The poll has Obama leading Romney by 5.  Now Virginia is going to be a very important part of a Romney win.  He can still win without it, but his life will be much easier if he does indeed pull it out.  But as usual, the poll is very misleading.  The internals of the poll is always you need to look to see if you are being given proper information.

Virginia has a black population of 19% of the total.  This poll has 18% blacks out of 996 of likely voters.  They are being over-sampled.  One would have to assume that every black person in the state is going to vote.  In the last presidential election under 62% of eligible voters made it to the polls.  I can’t find that broken down demographically.  But one must assume that not every black person in the state voted, as you know, some are not 18.  This is also true with the Hispanic population in the state, which by 2010 census numbers are 7.9% of the total population and are 7% of this poll.  They also over-sampled women.

We then can look at the breakdown of locations across the state.  If you look at the most traditionally heavy democratic areas, they are where the majority of the where the sampling was done.

Gee one would think they wanted to Obama come out on top in this poll.  Every poll I have looked at has been skewed towards democrats.  I have not looked at the internals of the Rasmussen Polls because they give out that info to their paid subscribers.  But from what I have seen not one of the major polls has been done in a way that can be trusted.

We don’t register by party in this state, but the one thing that I know for sure is that the registration numbers are up in more traditional GOP areas of the state.  I don’t think anyone but the parties have a true picture of where the electorate is heading.  So all we can do is watch they are doing and how they are spending their resources and their time.

What is really sad is that the votes are driven by polling.  People think to themselves well so and so is going to win, so I don’t need to vote or they just go along with who they believe is going to win.  The media outlets who commission these polls are driving a false narrative and since most people won’t look at the internals of the polls, they don’t even realize that they are being manipulated.  A very sad commentary.

The Middle East on Fire – Some Observations

The deadly protests are spreading, and not just in the Muslim world.  They have now reached the shores of The United Kingdom.  Protesters have died in at least 3 countries, but it is still early yet.

We have seen verbal attacks on free speech, that should terrify every American.  Especially when they come for the press that is trying to carry water for the President.  Instead of focusing on the real issues, the press is attacking Governor Romney.  One can make the argument that the embassy in Cairo was trying to create calm by sending the message it did.  Fair enough.  But in President Obama’s speech on the matter the next day, it seems the press missed this sentence:

While the United States rejects efforts to denigrate the religious beliefs of others,

The United States does no such thing; Urine Jesus, The Da Vinci Code, The Last Temptation of Christ, and let us not forget the lovely billboards that the rabid atheists display every year at Christmas.  Governor Romney’s statement was not only accurate, it needed to be said.  The first, guttural, reaction of the Obama administration was to cower to the demands of lunatics that use any excuse to kill people, and then lecture us on what we should and should not say.

The really sad part is, that many of the people at these protests are useful idiots who can’t see for themselves that they are being used by extremists. They gin up these people about how America hates them and is trying to destroy Islam. The vast majority of Americans could have cared less about Islam before 9/11. Many didn’t even know who UBL even was, even though he already was involved in the deaths of Americans. The hatred they feel is something that the terrorists have brought upon them and they are too blind to see it.  But I am supposed to curtail my rights to free speech to make them feel better about themselves.  No such luck buddy, not happening.

Free speech does not mean that people can say what they want as long as it doesn’t offend anyone else.  It means that people will be offended, because at some point an opinion that you don’t agree with will be voiced.

The statements that have come from the leaders in The Middle East contain the same type of asterisk.  The Prime Minister of Egypt:

“We ask the American government to take a firm position toward this film’s producers within the framework of international charters that criminalise acts that stir strife on the basis of race, colour or religion.”

Since this is a PG-13 site, you can read my response to him here.

The reports are saying that there was advanced warning of these attacks (which only goes to show this has nothing to do with some stupid movie trailer) yet the embassy in Cairo had marines without bullets and Benghazi had virtually no security whatsoever.  Whomever is in charge of the security for the oversees bases at State should be fired for cause.  Immediately.  This was posted online before the attacks even took place, it is hard to deny that there was not some form of advanced warnings of the attacks.

We keep hearing from the media and those on the left that we should be understanding of the feelings of Muslims.  One must then ask the question why then is the killing of bin Laden a cornerstone of the President’s re-election campaign?  Doesn’t this “hurt” their feelings too?  Details, details….

Before any of the violence broke out we heard reports that President Obama doesn’t meet with his security people to get his security briefing more than half the time since he became president.  I am not going to use that to base a false assumption that he isn’t reading the briefings.  The chances are he is.  President Bush wasn’t given this briefing face to face daily either.  But, where I will object is to the fact that the week leading up to the 11th anniversary of the 9/11 attacks the President couldn’t make time to meet face to face with these people at least once?  That I find almost unforgivable.  al Qaeda is very well-known for using symbolism in their attacks.  The probability for at least an attempt of an attack on that date was high.  He should be meeting with the security council face to face during that week.  The idea that you can gauge things the same way when you are talking to someone face to face as you do with the highly impersonal written report is simply stupid.  This should have been a priority.

Today the bodies of those who died were flown back to the U.S.  Both President Obama and Secretary Clinton were on hand to “greet” (a term that I hate) the bodies.  Both of which gave a speech that was directed at both the families in mourning as well as the entire country.  I am glad that he made time in his schedule for this duty.

To be fair, President Obama is in tough spot.  The campaign is 53 days (and counting) away.  He is behind Romney in the money race.  While the “polls” are showing Obama ahead in many of the swing states, anyone that knows how to read the internals of a poll, knows that isn’t really accurate.  The media driven polls are slanted (a post to come to show you what I mean) to show that Obama is ahead.  The problem is no polling agency has better polling then a major campaign.  The fact that OFA is now spending resources in Wisconsin is very telling indeed.  I do believe that they are fully aware that they are in trouble.  Their polling may not show him losing the campaign, but it shows that he is going to have to work far harder for it then he did in 08.  But none of this is going to make the optics any less shocking.  The first tweet from the OFA campaign today was this:

The election is in 53 days Pitch in $10 now

This was sent hours AFTER the news broke that the German embassy in The Sudan had been breached, an Islamic flag raised, and set on fire.  This comes on the heals of him spending the evening in Las Vegas, an announcement of a very expensive per plate fundraiser in Hollywood, and Jay-Z and Beyonce.  The thing is this, had he cancelled his appearance at least the Vegas fundraiser he would be in far better shape.  They could have sent Joe or some other Obama lackey to fill in.   The media and the left would have eaten up as proof of how hard he was working to for the American (gag) people.  Instead he goes, while there he tells a bunch of campaign volunteers that they are just like the embassy workers.  Really?  Did one of them just get murdered too?  The optics are horrible, and like it or not optics matter.

I can’t imagine all the above is helping in his effort to get re-elected.  But, we will have to wait and see.  53 days to go.

Obama’s Same Old, Same Old – Video

The man needs some new speech writers.  Oh, wait, he is the better speechwriter right?  One would think that after four years in office he would come up with different material.  Or maybe, since the problems are exactly the same as when he took office this is just further proof that he is unable to come up with solutions to the very serious problems this country faces.

Before You Decide Who to Vote For, Answer One Simple Question