by Victor Davis Hanson<\/p>\n
National Review Online<\/em><\/p>\n As the election year heats up, we seem not to have noticed the surreal nature of the campaign. One would expect Barack Obama to run on his record from 2009 to 2012, and especially during 2009\u201310, when he had a solidly Democratic Congress and passed his signature Obamacare. But he is not. Instead, we are hearing only that the probable opposition nominee, Mitt Romney, will be embarrassed by the similarities between Obamacare and his own Romneycare in Massachusetts. Examine that logic: Supposedly landmark legislation is now defended not on its own merits or popularity, but by a sort of \u201cHe did it too\u201d?<\/p>\n During the 2004 campaign, the Kerry camp derided 5.5 percent unemployment as proof of a \u201cjobless recovery.\u201d Today 8.3 percent is deemed a sign of a real rebound. In 2008, when George W. Bush had borrowed $4 trillion over eight years, the deficits were termed by candidate Obama as \u201cunpatriotic\u201d; trumping that total in just four years is now called much-needed \u201cstimulus.\u201d<\/p>\n The price of gasoline has more than doubled since January 2009, and the rise is not over yet. This summer might still see the price triple in less than four years. In the old days of Economics 101, supply and demand had, by general consensus, some effect on price. I think the president believes that still, since he is pondering another release from the strategic petroleum reserve. Why, then, is he asking us to believe that putting off limits vast areas of known oil and gas reserves in Alaska, offshore, in the West, and in the Gulf of Mexico will not have much effect on gasoline prices? Vast new production of natural gas on private lands has helped radically lower natural-gas prices. But drilling for new oil is again caricatured as it was in 2008 (when candidate Obama advised us instead to inflate our tires and tune up our cars; this time he is touting algae), as if newly pumped oil from a freshly discovered field were not as efficacious as previously pumped oil from a reserve. In an age when unemployment is high, the budget deficit obscene, and our trade deficit at near-record levels, more US-produced oil \u2014 aside from lowering gasoline prices \u2014 would create jobs, enrich the Treasury, and curtail what we must borrow abroad.<\/p>\n I have no idea what \u201ccivility\u201d is supposed to mean today. The more the president references the need for softer tones, the more we hear of things like \u201cpunish our enemies.\u201d If a president is to take time out from a bad economy and a soon-to-be-nuclear Iran to offer commentary on a radio-show host\u2019s use of a slur against a female student, how can his campaign affiliates take a million dollars from a humorless comedian who so trumps Rush Limbaugh that his style of misogynist attack requires asterisks even to be quoted? During the 2008 campaign the candidate who was called a healer boasted of bringing a gun to a knife fight, advised \u201cgetting in their faces,\u201d deprecated working-class voters as clingers, had a crowd cheering with a middle-finger rub on his face when mentioning Hillary Clinton, suggested his grandmother was a \u201ctypical white person,\u201d and asserted that he could not disown the racist Rev. Jeremiah Wright, and so it makes sense that Obama is now praised even as he polarizes.<\/p>\n How can an energy czar \u2014 as the head of a cabinet-level department that was initially birthed to lower gas prices \u2014 advocate lower gas prices and economy hybrid cars when he had previously called for gas prices to match European levels and confesses that he neither owns nor drives a car, although his wife has a BMW? Or how can a Treasury secretary advocate higher taxes on the upper income brackets as a necessary premium for being blessed as an American, when he earlier had acted as if compliance with the IRS (which he was soon to oversee) were optional rather than mandatory? And how can the top law-enforcement officer in the country allege racism when questioned by Congress, while he refers to African-Americans as \u201cmy people\u201d and alleges that Americans are collective \u201ccowards\u201d for not welcoming a conversation on race on his terms?<\/p>\n In response to all those questions, we are seeing a campaign apparently framed on four general themes: an omnipotent, omnipresent George W. Bush in insidious fashion still hampers the Obama administration; a Republican House (why it is now Republican is never quite explained) for 15 months has stopped all the good things that Obama and a Democratic House would have done; opponents have not appreciated the president\u2019s unique postracial symbolism and are often quite racist; and anything Obama did was better than not doing it, and his not doing other things was better than what he might have done.<\/p>\n Could not Obama instead galvanize Democrats by running proudly on his record? For example:<\/p>\n An 8 percent\u2013plus unemployment rate is the new normal, and thus not really so bad, given that nearly 50 million are helped by food stamps, and unemployment insurance under Obama is generously allotted for two years. Gas prices of $4 and more a gallon serve our nation\u2019s goal of curbing demand, decreasing the carbon footprint, and making viable heavily subsidized green energy. Much-needed wind and solar industries require massive subsidies, while the occasional, or even frequent, bankruptcy of these new companies is the price to be paid for investing in a green future.<\/p>\n Illegal entry into the United States is now an infraction, not a crime, and the felony-free alien should remain largely exempt from compliance with the law. The United States was never really a melting pot, so emphasizing separateness in the realm of social justice is natural; unity is found by bringing together pragmatic coalitions of different ethnicities, not by trying to ignore or deny their innate differences.<\/p>\n Obamacare\u2019s universal coverage is worth the individual mandate, higher taxes, and government intrusion into private medical treatment. Americans will like federalized health care the more they see it gradually put into practice.<\/p>\n GM is a success story, and the subsidized Volt emblemizes the sort of smart car that private-public partnerships can produce. The public may prefer the more profitable GM SUVs, but these were the sorts of cars that guzzled too much gas and produced too much carbon, and therefore their disappearance is better for all of us.<\/p>\n Serial $1 trillion\u2013plus deficits and $5 trillion in aggregate new debt were necessary stimulants and can in time be paid back with higher taxes, which are de facto fairer than, and thus far preferable to, spending cuts. An annual income of $200,000 was previously underappreciated as a necessary criterion for separating those Americans who have not paid their fair share from those who always have. Wise government tax policy can compensate for the unfairness of the market that arbitrarily and inordinately rewards the few at the expense of the many.<\/p>\n American foreign policy is finally embedded within a multilateral framework and subject to the approval of a generally sober and judicious international community \u2014 especially the UN \u2014 rather than mere authorization from the US Congress. Continual pressure on Israel, in both its domestic and foreign policies, is necessary in attempting to achieve peace in the Middle East, given the longstanding willingness of Israel\u2019s rivals to negotiate their differences.<\/p>\n All that is the Obama record. So why not run on it? Who knows, these days he might thereby win?<\/p>\n \u00a92012 Victor Davis Hanson<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" by Victor Davis Hanson National Review Online As the election year heats up, we seem not to have noticed the surreal nature of the campaign.<\/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":[362],"tags":[12,77,1055,1053,268,324,32,40,213,418,1052,67],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p466Sb-ew","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":467,"url":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/obama-the-hare-romney-the-tortoise\/","url_meta":{"origin":900,"position":0},"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":769,"url":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/the-obama-romney-doggy-wars\/","url_meta":{"origin":900,"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":712,"url":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/from-hope-and-change-to-fear-ad-smear\/","url_meta":{"origin":900,"position":2},"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":358,"url":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/groundhog-day-in-america\/","url_meta":{"origin":900,"position":3},"title":"Groundhog Day in America","author":"victorhanson","date":"November 14, 2012","format":false,"excerpt":"by Victor Davis Hanson Tribune Media Services Barack Obama won a moderately close victory over Mitt Romney on Tuesday. But oddly, nothing much has changed. The country is still split nearly 50\/50. There is still a Democratic president, and an almost identically Democratic Senate at war with an identically Republican\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":5966,"url":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/the-president-won-sort-of\/","url_meta":{"origin":900,"position":4},"title":"The President Won–Sort Of","author":"victorhanson","date":"May 21, 2013","format":false,"excerpt":"The administration spent the last six months of the campaign in cover-up mode. by Victor Davis Hanson National Review Online On September 11, 2012, Barack Obama was 1 point ahead of Mitt Romney in the ABC and\u00a0Washington Post\u00a0polls. He was scheduled to meet Romney in three weeks for the first\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":687,"url":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/obamas-they-did-it-campaign\/","url_meta":{"origin":900,"position":5},"title":"Obama’s ‘They’-Did-It Campaign","author":"victorhanson","date":"June 24, 2012","format":false,"excerpt":"by Victor Davis Hanson National Review Online The next five months should be interesting \u2014 given that Barack Obama is now experiencing something entirely unique in his heretofore stellar career: widespread criticism of his performance and increasing weariness with his boilerplate and his teleprompted eloquence. 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