• He’s fighting to restructure healthcare in the country while the economy collapses.
• He’s had a string of tax cheating nominees and appointments to his cabinet.
• He’s reneged on his commitment to get out of Iraq, taking longer to end ‘combat’ than he promised, and he’ll leave 50,000 troops there after.
• He campaigned to veto all earmarks and yet is ok with a budget containing thousands.
• His trillion dollar ’stimulus’ program does not seem to have impressed anyone, except politicians bringing useless pork-barrel projects to their districts.
• After just 5 weeks, he plans to balloon the deficit to exceed the total of all deficits during the 8 years of the Bush (II) administration.
• He is planning to end tax breaks for sizable charitable donations by the wealthy which will really hurt charities AND small businesses.
• His vice-president has made gaffe after gaffe after gaffe.
• His vice-president met, just today, in a SECRET meeting with AFL-CIO at their swanky conference in Miami. The Obama administration plans to end privacy for union votes.
• Instead of trying to inspire a nation, his speeches have been consistently negative, talking of crisis and catastrophe. He pathetically said this week maybe it’s time for people to put money in the stock market. The market plunged right after.
• He keeps the White House heated like an oven, is doing massive and expensive renovations, yet wants everyone else to conserve.
• He’s talking about ‘green jobs’, but there’s no energy policy.
• He still hasn’t filled his cabinet.
• He has waged a PR war with a radio blow hard (Rush Limbaugh) which is completely irrelevant, and just a distraction.
• His treasury secretary (Geithner) has no lieutenants and so the senate banking committee got no treasury representative to attend their inquiry into AIG bailout because Geithner was being grilled in the House on another matter.
• One day the President declared Geithner would speak with details the next day on the banking and other plans, and the next day Geithner gave no details, and weeks later, still has no details or plan.
• Perhaps this is Obama’s actual plan – to drive the economy into the dirt, so he can then establish some ‘emergency powers’ or something, and turn the U.S. into the socialist economy he wants.
• I do believe he LOATHES small business because everything so far has been aimed AGAINST that. Why? Because small businesses are hard to control. Europe began a war on small business decades ago and killed most of them. European governments prefer big companies with back room ‘deals’ because they can keep an eye on them and control them better.
• I think it’s fair to say he’s off to a horrible start. Wall St. has ZERO confidence in what they’ve done and what they haven’t done.
• I believe we are witnessing the END of America and any American dream as we have understood it. Thanks a lot Obama.

If you voted for him, shame on you. Fooled you good.

Presidency: Obama by 188 electoral votes! (vs. 100)

Senate: Dems gain 5 or 6? (vs. 6)

House: Dems gain 18-25 (vs. 25)

Now let’s hope Obama truly leads and doesn’t cave to Reid and Pelosi’s agendas…

I’m still wading through “Dreams of my father” by Barack Obama, a dreary, depressing book so far.

Maybe it will get more interesting when the Obama/Clinton battle is officially over and the McCain vs. Dem. debates occur.

The article also lays out nicely why Hillary Clinton’s “skills” and her campaign are so lacking. Despite her, her husband, and surrounding team having just about all the credentials and contacts anyone could dream of, they have almost succeeded in snatching defeat from a certain victory.

The Rolling Stone piece also mentions Barack Obama’s semi-autobiographical book, Dreams from My Father, which I just ordered from Amazon.com.

There are strong, and I believe valid, reasons why the U.S. should and should not have gone into Iraq, but frankly that doesn’t matter now – all that matters is what comes next. Whoever becomes the next President will have to deal with a struggling economy, a tense global situation, escalating arms and space races, out of control government spending, and much more. I think the U.S. will be served well by either John McCain or Barack Obama.

I consider it unlikely Obama will win both states, especially since the governor of Ohio has endorsed Clinton, but if he does, and considering that Bill Clinton has already basically said his wife must win both states, will she gracefully bow out QUICKLY?

I somehow doubt it after strutting around for so long with an arrogant air of ‘inevitability’. And besides the 60 minutes show tonight and the Ellen show, has she done ANY interviews of any substance? I don’t think Obama has either. Strange times.

I think for most people Tuesday can’t come and go soon enough, but this ’saga’ will be drawn out longer if it isn’t decisive for Obama.

Hillary Clinton (and Bill) are certainly not about to go down without a fight, but she’s looking increasingly like a flailing wrestler pinned to the floor. She’s being outspent, outperformed, and outclassed. You’ve got to hand it to Barack Obama and his team – they’ve done an amazing job. It’s not over yet, but if Hillary Clinton doesn’t win the Democrat nomination, I think it’s safe to say she blew it in many ways. Let’s go through some.

1. Massively overconfident. With a former President for a husband who had and has high approval ratings (despite scandals), with tons of money when they started, with huge leads in all polls, and with little apparent competition in sight, how could she lose?
2. Letting Bill Clinton play the attack dog. After her surprise loss in Iowa (of all places!), she ‘unleashed’ Bill. Problem is, when you unleash a pit bull it doesn’t always bite or fight in the way you expect. Well he went wild alright, and his angry comments, picking on audience people and the media, all made him look not only Presidential, but just a rank amateur. Maybe he’s just been out of the arena too long or maybe he didn’t have enough ‘handlers’, but I think he is a HUGE reason she may lose. I think voters began to think… oh yeah, that’s the other side of the Clintons.
3. Dirty tricks. First it was Barack’s use of drugs decades ago. Then it was (ugh) race (thanks Bill). Then it was some taudry barely reported scandal about Barack having gay sex in 1999. And now we get the picture of Barack in Kenyan garb put out by the Clinton attack team to make people think he’s Muslim and ’scary’ and not ‘one of us’. These are despicable and may have worked in the past, but many of the old operatives don’t get the fact that the internet, bloggers (hey yeah), youtube, and the massive interest by the public in this race have changed the game forever.
4. Mismanagement. They thought they could deliver a knock-out blow on Super Duper Tuesday (Feb 5) and spent like mad, but it didn’t work. This left Hillary in a world of hurt.
5. And finally, I lost most of my respect for her when she DIDN’T dump Bill after the Monica Lewinsky saga. She might have stuck around until he left office. Maybe even used him to became a Senator. But to STILL be with him? WHY? It can only be because she believed he was very useful in her quest for the White House Part II.

A little part of me feels bad for Hillary if she doesn’t get the nomination, because she’s dreamed and schemed of this, and has worked tirelessly for this. But the much bigger part of me is ready to sing “Ding Dong The Wicked Witch Is Dead!” Have you watched her early speeches? The definition of vacuous, pandering, and insulting. She believes she’s smarter than everyone else, including Bill. She walks around, head stuck up, in her bumble bee yellow and black outfits (hello advisors? WHAT are you thinking?) pontificating about how great it’s going to be.

If she loses, my faith in the American public will be re-enforced. She deserves to lose.