by Victor Davis Hanson<\/p>\n
PJ Media<\/em><\/p>\n What should we expect as the campaign heats up in the final four months?<\/p>\n 1.\u00a0Follow the money<\/em>. Both candidates, in a way unlike the 2008 campaign, are well-funded. Romney will probably match Obama dollar for dollar and, in fact, outraised him last month by several million. The super-PACS may prove for Romney, more than for Obama, a force-multiplier.<\/p>\n The significance of that money-raising parity transcends just tit-for-tit commercials, ads, and well-staffed campaign headquarters of the sort a McCain campaign simply could not afford. Obama\u2019s forte is the open-air rally. In 2008, the more that the money poured in, the more Obama was freed to crisscross the country, doing his hope-and-change routine and warning hysterical crowds about fainting from ebullition.<\/p>\n But this time because both sides are roughly equally financed, Obama must continue with his record pace of private $40,000-$50,000-a-head fundraisers. This is not healthy for two reasons: one, it takes time away from his natural showmanship in the public arena (and to a lesser extent from being president); and, two, these Upper West Side and Santa Monica meet-and-greeters are at odds with the rhetoric of \u201cfat cat bankers<\/a>\u00a0[1],\u201d \u201ccorporate jet owners<\/a>\u00a0[2],\u201d at some point you\u2019ve made \u201cenough money,\u201d \u201cnot the time\u201d to profit, and \u201cspread the wealth.\u201d Obama earns hypocrisy for shaking down capitalists whom he derides, while running the risk of hearing just that complaint from one or two upstart fat cats in his small crowds.<\/p>\n 2.\u00a0The polls<\/em>. It is very important for Romney to run within 1-2 points in the polls for the next few months. That closeness forces out the real Obama \u2014 of the Chicago sort who used to sue to get opponents off the ballot or had his supporters leak rivals\u2019 divorce records. In such a mode, it is not decorous for a president\u2019s campaign to suggest that Romney probably committed a \u201cfelony<\/a>[3],\u201d or to claim that Bain Capital was\u00a0a serial outsourcer<\/a>\u00a0[4] in the sense that the US-subsidized green industry or\u00a0the space agency<\/a>\u00a0[5] is not. In contrast, if Obama surges by 5 points or so, he will revert back to hope-and-change-II banalities; but, again, in a tight race we will see quite enough of the new-old, inner-Chicago Obama, a persona that he did not need to reveal from 2004-8.<\/p>\n 3.\u00a0Michelle Obama<\/em>. The first lady\u2019s poll numbers are high because she has been stateswoman-like when diverted from partisan politics since the late summer of 2008. But do we remember why she was marooned in the closing days of the 2008 race? Try \u201cfor the first time in my adult lifetime, I\u2019m really proud,\u201d \u201craise the bar,\u201d \u201cdownright mean\u201d country, \u201cdeign to\u201d run, \u201c\u2026uniformed, uninvolved lives,\u201d\u00a0\u201cour souls are broken\u201d<\/a>\u00a0[6]\u2026 and a host of other angry and usually incoherent denunciations.<\/p>\n Almost instinctively Michelle Obama reverts to the Chicago style when she goes into a partisan campaign mode. This week the frequenter of Costa del Sol, Martha\u2019s Vineyard, and Vail, whose third-of-a-million-dollar job in Chicago was largely a political perk, was at a graduation address once again in monotonous 2008 fashion decrying \u201call the traditional markers of success \u2014 the fat paycheck, the fancy office, the impressive line on our resumes.\u201d That class-warfare trope should go over well next week when she is begging still more of those with the fat paychecks and fancy offices to fork over $50,000 to make up for the lack of grassroots $10 and $20 donations. This year Michelle seems to have forgotten that the Obama strategy is not whipping up 10,000 devotees at a rally to send in $5 each to net $50,000, but rather to schmooze one Hollywood producer or Citibank navigator over\u00a0foie gras<\/em>\u00a0to match what a stadium used to deliver.<\/p>\n At a political rally last week,\u00a0she roared<\/a>\u00a0[7], \u201cMultiply yourselves. \u2026 He needs you to keep making those calls, doing that hard work. Knocking on those doors. Treacherous work, right? \u2026 You know, that aren\u2019t registered and you gotta get \u2018em and shake \u2018em. Find them, get them registered.\u201d<\/p>\n What exactly does \u201ctreacherous\u201d here mean? Or, for that matter, \u201cmultiply yourselves\u201d?<\/p>\n If the first lady is sent out each day, I predict a repeat appearance of her anger of 2008, but in a year where there is no margin of error and she is first lady, not a partisan candidate\u2019s wife. Do we remember her January 2012 Queen Gertrude pushback at a sympathetic biography,\u00a0when she snapped<\/a>\u00a0[8] that she was not \u201csome kind of angry black woman.\u201d The lady doth protest too much, methinks.<\/p>\n 4.\u00a0Race<\/em>. Racial acrimony sadly is already rising. The more the growing irrelevance of race in society at large, the more the desperation of those careers that cannot continue without it. Rev. Wright, Obama pastor emeritus, last week was, in Alfred Rosenberg-fashion, bemoaning evil \u201cwhite DNA<\/a>\u00a0[9].\u201d I\u2019ll pass on the NAACP convention other than to note that the media sought to accuse Romney of racism because he had the fortitude to give his plain message to an audience\u00a0without pandering<\/a>\u00a0[10]. Somehow skipping a sympathetic national NAACP meeting is expected, but venturing into a hostile crowd and trying to win it over with racially blind arguments to economic reason is racist. Suddenly, in the last month or so, everyone from Morgan Freeman, Chris Rock, and James Earl Jones \u2014 fading careers all \u2014 to the Congressional Black Caucus have weighed in with charges of racism, and sometimes incoherently and in racialist fashion themselves. In the cases of Freeman and Rock, obsession with \u201cwhite\u201d has become a serial habit.<\/p>\n This is only the beginning. Expect a lot more brief suspensions at MSNBC or CNN as commentators indulge in racially polarizing smears. Eric Holder has already trumped \u201ccowards,\u201d \u201cmy people,\u201d and the release of the Black Panthers with accusations that congressional inquirers were racist, as was the Arizona immigration law, as was asking for an ID to vote\u2026 as is about everything. And before October passes, \u201cclingers,\u201d \u201ctypical white person,\u201d \u201cpunish our enemies,\u201d and the quips about Skip Gates and Trayvon Martin will seem pass\u00e9 and mild. It is not going to be an easy thing to watch, because the no-win logic demands that voting for Obama in 2008 won racial redemption and voting against him in 2012 is\u00a0proof of racism<\/a>\u00a0[11]. End of story. Anything less than 45% of the white vote for Obama is proof of racism; more than 95% of the black vote for Obama is\u00a0proof of sobriety and open-mindedness<\/a>\u00a0[12]. Without evil white men behind the curtain with gears and pulleys, there is only disinterested judgment of the economic record that the Congressional Black Caucus and Barack Obama helped craft \u2014 one that has set back the inner city and race relations in general two decades.<\/p>\n We have an ugly summer ahead of us.<\/p>\n 5.\u00a0October surprise<\/em>. This is an old charge against every incumbent, but we all know presidents facing reelection or impeachment can time foreign adventures at opportune times. Nixon went to high-defense alert during Watergate. Bill Clinton wagged the dog against terrorist targets during Monicagate. We never quite knew what Carter was trying to do with Iran as his polls in the last two weeks slumped or what he accused the Reagan campaign of trying to do. The first siege of Fallujah was called off in 2004\u2014only to be renewed after the election. Obama has already\u00a0tipped his hand on Russia<\/a>\u00a0[13], with assurances that after the election he will do things he will not do now. And so on. I would expect a real chance for a preemptive strike against Iran, or perhaps even a few UN-approved lead-from-behind bombings in Syria\u2014but only if Obama were 5 points or more behind in the polls<\/em>\u00a0and Putin gave him permission. The Right would rally to American soldiers under fire and the national interest, and, as we saw with renditions, preventative detentions, Guantanamo, the Patriot Act, predators, and military tribunals, the Left worries only about supposedly anti-constitutional protocols and the use of military force as clubs to bash conservative presidents. The Left would complain about a strike on Iran about as much as they did an open Guantanamo or a 2,000+ Predator assassination tally\u2014as former Bush (\u201ctorturer in chief\u201d) critic Harold Koh would write yet another State Department legal brief reminding us that bombing the hell out of an opponent was not really a military operation. Bottom line: watch U.S. naval and air deployments in late September.<\/p>\n California AD 476 Update<\/strong><\/p>\n After five years, I quit riding my rural tri-weekly rides and will confine them to the Sierra, as 14 days ago I was attacked and bitten by dogs on a major rural avenue\u2014no licenses, no vaccinations, no leashes, and presumed owners had no English and no apparent worries over their unleashed pets\u2014and am waiting patiently for the animal control officers to tell me the biters are still tied up and still healthy and that I don\u2019t have to go through rabies shots. Time to accept these landscapes of my half-century remembrance are forever changed.<\/p>\n While driving back from postmodern Palo Alto on this week\u2019s trip, I zoomed over Pacheco Pass and heard these two tragedies on radio as I entered our premodern Valley. I had been listening to Bay Area accounts of Joe Biden warning the NAACP about voter ID laws, the supposedly new poll tax, when more familiar valley radio news came on.<\/p>\n You see, in our environs the issue is not that residents should have to show driver\u2019s licenses to vote, but rather whether they need to have licenses at all to drive\u2014with tragically fatal results for anyone on foot or in a wheelchair unfortunate enough to be caught in their reckless paths. Here are two items I heard last Thursday; both show the indifference to driver\u2019s licenses in the new California (emphases below added):<\/p>\n 1)\u00a0Construction worker killed in Highway 99 hit-and-run; driver arrested on DUI charges<\/a>\u00a0[14] The hit-and-run driver who allegedly killed a construction worker on Highway 99 in Fresno early Wednesday is suspected of being intoxicated and was driving with a suspended license because of a prior DUI conviction, according to Fresno County jail booking records.<\/p>\n Alyssa Marie Villanueva, 26, of Fresno is accused of driving her car into a closed area to pass slower traffic about 2 a.m. as a construction crew was resurfacing a stretch of the northbound lanes of the highway near Clinton Avenue, the California Highway Patrol said.<\/p>\n Regan Johnson, 24, of Reedley died in the crash, the Fresno County Coroner\u2019s Office said.<\/p>\n Johnson\u2019s hit-and-run death has her co-workers mourning the loss of a young woman who was \u201ca good employee and nice person,\u201d the company\u2019s owner said\u2026<\/p>\n Villanueva was arrested late Wednesday morning after Fresno police received an anonymous call about a car matching the description of the one involved in the crash. Police and CHP officers found the car at an apartment complex on Ashlan Avenue just east of Valentine Avenue, less than a mile from the hit-and-run scene. CHP officer Sean Duncan said Villanueva lives at the complex.<\/p>\n He said she was driving alone in the 2007 dark gray Nissan Altima at the time of the crash.<\/p>\n Villanueva faces charges of murder, driving while intoxicated causing death, hit and run, and\u00a0driving with a suspended license because of a prior DUI conviction<\/em>, according to jail booking records.<\/p>\n Her bail is just over $1 million.<\/p>\n Her stepfather, Antonio Rios, 40, of Fresno, is accused of draping a cover over the car to try and conceal it, Duncan said. Rios was booked at the jail for the formal charge, resisting a police officer. He was later released.<\/p>\n Johnson, a traffic control specialist, was moving cones when she was hit, Telfer said. She was a seasonal worker for Windsor Fuel Co., which had contracted with Caltrans for the highway project. Windsor is a division of Telfer\u2019s company, based in Martinez in the Bay Area.<\/p>\n Johnson had worked for Windsor for the past two years, Telfer said. Her supervisor, Trevor Dormire, knew Johnson and her family, and hired her.<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s particularly tragic for him,\u201d Telfer said\u2026<\/p>\n 2)\u00a0Cutler man charged after fatal collision with man in wheelchair<\/a>[15] A Cutler man faces charges of misdemeanor manslaughter after a fatal collision involving his SUV and a wheelchair in Orosi on Tuesday, the California Highway Patrol said.<\/p>\n The collision happened about 9:30 a.m. at the intersection of Highway 63 and Miller Avenue. The CHP said the 86-year-old victim was crossing Highway 63 from west to east in the wheelchair as Julio Dominguez, 52, of Cutler was northbound on the highway at a speed of 35 mph in a Jeep Cherokee. Dominguez apparently did not see the wheelchair until his 8-year-old grandson shouted, \u201cWatch out!\u201d<\/p>\n The CHP said Dominguez panicked and stepped on the accelerator instead of the brake and slammed into the wheelchair, throwing the victim, a resident of Orosi. The victim was taken to Community Regional Medical Center, where he died. The CHP said that\u00a0Dominguez was also cited for driving without a license<\/em>.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n Animae eorum et animae omnium fidelium defunctorum per Dei misericordiamrequiescant in pace<\/a>\u00a0[16] \u2026<\/p>\n And God help us all as the world out here struggles with\u00a0a new uncertain age<\/a>[17].<\/p>\n URLs in this post:<\/p>\n [1] fat cat bankers:\u00a0http:\/\/www.politisite.com\/2011\/12\/28\/losing-gordon-gekko-wall-street-has-gone-over-to-the-democrats-should-conservatives-miss-it\/<\/a> \u00a92012 Victor Davis Hanson<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" by Victor Davis Hanson PJ Media What should we expect as the campaign heats up in the final four months?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false,"jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false}}},"categories":[96],"tags":[12,207,1026,1015,94,1044,134,32,269,270,1042,1037],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p466Sb-aa","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":726,"url":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/romney-fights-back\/","url_meta":{"origin":630,"position":0},"title":"Romney Fights Back","author":"victorhanson","date":"June 9, 2012","format":false,"excerpt":"by Victor Davis Hanson National Review Online Mitt Romney was recently derided by the Obama campaign for his appearance with Donald Trump. Trump is supposed to be radioactive because of his stubborn insistence that the Obama birth certificate is inauthentic. Romney\u2019s supporters, however, ignored the complaint and pointed instead to\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Election 2012"","block_context":{"text":"Election 2012","link":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/ahref=\/index.php\/categories\/angry-reader\/categorylink\/a\/obama-administration\/election-2012\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":769,"url":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/the-obama-romney-doggy-wars\/","url_meta":{"origin":630,"position":1},"title":"The Obama-Romney Doggy Wars","author":"victorhanson","date":"May 20, 2012","format":false,"excerpt":"by Victor Davis Hanson National Review Online Last week the\u00a0Washington Post\u00a0ran a piece on presumptive Republican nominee Mitt Romney\u2019s high-school years, in which he supposedly was cruel to a shy, perhaps gay fellow student. The piece,\u00a0mirabile dictu, appeared in the middle of the Biden-Obama reversal on gay marriage. Errors were\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Election 2012"","block_context":{"text":"Election 2012","link":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/ahref=\/index.php\/categories\/angry-reader\/categorylink\/a\/obama-administration\/election-2012\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":467,"url":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/obama-the-hare-romney-the-tortoise\/","url_meta":{"origin":630,"position":2},"title":"Obama the Hare, Romney the Tortoise","author":"victorhanson","date":"September 10, 2012","format":false,"excerpt":"by Victor Davis Hanson Tribune Media Services The 2012 race has turned into one of Aesop's classic fables. After each new media blitz against the no-frills Mitt Romney, a far cooler President Obama races ahead three or four points in the polls \u2014 only to fall back to about even\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Election 2012"","block_context":{"text":"Election 2012","link":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/ahref=\/index.php\/categories\/angry-reader\/categorylink\/a\/obama-administration\/election-2012\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":2386,"url":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/whats-off-the-table-in-2012\/","url_meta":{"origin":630,"position":3},"title":"What’s Off the Table in 2012?","author":"victorhanson","date":"September 5, 2011","format":false,"excerpt":"by Victor Davis Hanson Tribune Media Services What should we\u00a0not\u00a0expect during next summer\u2019s presidential campaign, given what was put off limits in 2008 and later? There is much talk about what some are perceiving as the fringe religiosity of Republican candidates such as Michele Bachman and Rick Perry. But the\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Campaign 2012"","block_context":{"text":"Campaign 2012","link":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/ahref=\/index.php\/categories\/angry-reader\/categorylink\/a\/obama-administration\/campaign-2012\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":712,"url":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/from-hope-and-change-to-fear-ad-smear\/","url_meta":{"origin":630,"position":4},"title":"From Hope and Change to Fear ad Smear","author":"victorhanson","date":"June 11, 2012","format":false,"excerpt":"by Victor Davis Hanson Tribune Media Services Barack Obama lately has been accusing presumptive rival Mitt Romney of not waging his campaign in the nice (but losing) manner of John McCain in 2008. But a more marked difference can be seen in Obama himself, whose style and record bear no\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Election 2012"","block_context":{"text":"Election 2012","link":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/ahref=\/index.php\/categories\/angry-reader\/categorylink\/a\/obama-administration\/election-2012\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":378,"url":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/what-the-debates-taught-us\/","url_meta":{"origin":630,"position":5},"title":"What the Debates Taught Us","author":"victorhanson","date":"October 31, 2012","format":false,"excerpt":"by Victor Davis Hanson Tribune Media Services The president of the United States in the last debate chose to go on the attack against his challenger, Mitt Romney \u2014 and once again largely failed to convince the American people that he was the more presidential alternative. But how did the\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Election 2012"","block_context":{"text":"Election 2012","link":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/ahref=\/index.php\/categories\/angry-reader\/categorylink\/a\/obama-administration\/election-2012\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/630"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=630"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/630\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":631,"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/630\/revisions\/631"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=630"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=630"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=630"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
\nAlleged hit-and-run driver faces charges including murder.
\nBy Eddie Jimenez \u2013 The Fresno Bee
\nWednesday, Jul. 11, 2012 | 07:11 AM<\/p>\n
\nBy Jim Guy \u2013 The Fresno Bee
\nThursday, Jul. 12, 2012 | 07:35 AM<\/p>\n
\n[2] corporate jet owners:\u00a0http:\/\/cnsnews.com\/news\/article\/obama-corporate-jet-tax-break-he-was-against-it<\/a>
\n[3] felony:\u00a0http:\/\/www.nationalreview.com\/media-blog\/309354\/fact-check-romney-felon-no-hes-not-greg-pollowitz<\/a>
\n[4] a serial outsourcer:\u00a0http:\/\/www.volokh.com\/2012\/07\/13\/over-30-of-president-obamas-2009-2011-gross-income-came-from-foreign-sources\/<\/a>
\n[5] the space agency:\u00a0http:\/\/www.nationalreview.com\/campaign-spot\/307368\/our-offshoring-president<\/a>
\n[6] \u201cour souls are broken\u201d:\u00a0http:\/\/pjmedia.com\/eddriscoll\/2008\/02\/16\/we-have-to-fix-our-souls\/<\/a>
\n[7] she roared:\u00a0Speech Here<\/a>
\n[8] when she snapped:\u00a0http:\/\/www.independent.co.uk\/news\/world\/americas\/im-not-some-kind-of-angry-black-woman-says-michelle-obama-6288338.html<\/a>
\n[9] white DNA:\u00a0http:\/\/www.theblaze.com\/stories\/jeremiah-wright-americas-elite-colleges-infect-black-peoples-brains-with-white-racist-dna\/<\/a>
\n[10] without pandering:\u00a0http:\/\/pjmedia.com\/eddriscoll\/2012\/07\/13\/the-soft-bigotry-of-low-expectations\/<\/a>
\n[11] proof of racism:\u00a0http:\/\/www.weeklystandard.com\/articles\/paradise-lost_511744.html<\/a>
\n[12] proof of sobriety and open-mindedness:http:\/\/pjmedia.com\/eddriscoll\/2012\/07\/13\/the-obama-effect-close-encounters-of-the-agitprop-kind\/<\/a>
\n[13] tipped his hand on Russia:\u00a0http:\/\/cnsnews.com\/news\/article\/obama-caught-telling-russian-president-after-my-election-i-have-more-flexibility-0<\/a>
\n[14] Construction worker killed in Highway 99 hit-and-run; driver arrested on DUI charges:\u00a0http:\/\/www.fresnobee.com\/2012\/07\/11\/2905471\/construction-worker-killed-in.html<\/a>
\n[15] Cutler man charged after fatal collision with man in wheelchair:http:\/\/www.fresnobee.com\/2012\/07\/12\/2906756\/cutler-man-charged-after-fatal.html<\/a>
\n[16] requiescant in pace:\u00a0http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Rest_in_peace<\/a>
\n[17] a new uncertain age:\u00a0http:\/\/www.city-journal.org\/2010\/20_3_american-liberalism.html<\/a><\/p>\n