Democrats Run on Phantom Issues
National Democrats have a November election to worry about — careers, majorities and legacies to save.
Their strategy is designed to further divide and distract Americans while making inconvenient facts disappear.
Real median household income is lower than in 2007; a smaller percentage of working age Americans are employed than at the former 1978 low; President Barack Obama’s economy is recovering at the slowest pace following any downturn since WWII; America’s debt is approaching $18 trillion, a nearly 80 percent increase in under six years; government profligacy proceeds apace; food and fuel prices are soaring; although major provisions were modified by illegal delays and cancellations, Obamacare remains unpopular; Obama’s scandals are proliferating; his foreign policy is in shambles; America’s status in the world is declining; and the Russians are reviving the Cold War.
Despite – or because of – all those serious practical and political problems, remedies for which never appear in campaign materials, Democrats are approaching the midterm elections using deceitful "wedge" issues.
At an April fundraiser, Obama said, "We have this congenital disease, which is in midterm elections we don’t vote at the same rates."
"We" includes minorities, young Americans, single women and college-educated cultural liberals who made up significant portions of the voting coalition which elected him.
Those are also among the groups most likely to be disappointed by Obama’s personal and policy flaws and failures, so the president and Democrats are trying to frighten them to the polls with phony controversies.
Having run for office as a unifier, Obama has instead indulged special-interest groups and promoted divisiveness, resentment and fear, using executive orders as political weapons.
Lost jobs and underemployment are real outcomes having consequences for individuals, families, communities, housing, schools and state and local tax receipts. The House has sent dozens to the Democrat-controlled Senate, but jobs programs don’t appear in Democrats’ November playbook.
Instead, voter "suppression," equal pay for women, immigration and race, among other cynical distractions, are features of Democratic campaigns.
Democrats ignore that personal identification is needed to fly, buy cigarettes or alcohol, receive Social Security – even to hear Obama speak.
When the left accuses Republicans of attempting to deny the civil rights of black Americans through the sensible requirement that every voter produce identification at the polls, they’re only fraudulently stirring up pre-election racial discord while, by insinuating that blacks are uniquely incapable of acquiring IDs, racially insulting black Americans.
The Equal Pay Act of 1963 already bans unequal pay for workers with similar jobs and qualifications, including women, so Democrats aren’t promoting equal pay. They’re inciting women for electoral advantage — on a doubly-fraudulent premise:
Women do not make seventy-seven cents for every dollar earned by men having the same job. The 77 percent statistic is based on the average compensation of all women in all jobs compared to the average compensation of all men in all jobs.
The fact that women are paid differently than men who work in different jobs isn’t "unfair."
When Democrats accuse Republicans of racial motives for failing to pass "comprehensive immigration reform," they are really soliciting "fear" votes from Latinos by obscuring the facts that the immigrants in question are here illegally, that Congress has a constitutional duty to secure America’s borders, that the president has a responsibility to faithfully execute the law, including immigration laws – and that Obama has not done so.
A Senate majority is at stake – that, and final confirmation of Obama’s lame duck status. Republicans must flip only six Senate seats to take the majority.
A mid-May Politico poll shows that, because of Obama’s poor job approval and the seats contested this year, decisive Senate races will be held in states more problematic for Democrats than the nation as a whole.
In states where the Senate majority will be decided, Obama’s job approval is low, about 40 percent; half favor repeal of Obamacare; sixty percent say the Obamacare debate remains unsettled — only 39 percent disagree; and none of the Democrats’ "wedge" distractions comes close to health care as a major voter concern.
In those states, likely voters said they would vote for a Republican over a Democrat by seven percentage points.
Yogi Berra did say, "It ain’t over till it’s over," but, anticipating the failure of their transparent, cynical appeals to fears and resentments, a Democrat-controlled Senate appears to be nearly over.
http://www.pennlive.com/opinion/2014/06/without_real_issues_or_a_recor.html#incart_river
