Once again, this campaign summary will be more about Obama than Romney because Romney is still putting his campaign together. There is much to do, and, in spite of the fact that Romney is really not in campaign mode, he has overcome a 7 point deficit in the polls and has pulled even with the Slickmeister. Bad sign for Obama, because this has happened more because of Obama, himself, than any other factor.Here is what Obama did for Romney's campaign, this week:
1. To make things worse for Obama, we have the image of the beginning of his campaign, a "beginning" (after campaigning full time for two years) that put Obama - with great anticipation - before a crowd of supporters at Ohio State University that numbered less than 10,000 , supporters gathered in a school arena that held 35,000 in 2010. If not seen as "devastating," certainly this beginning was most encouraging to Obama's opposition.
2. Week Four saw one of the worst job/economic reports in a year. Not only did the nation lose more jobs than it gained (115,000 gained compared to 160,000 lost), but housing numbers took a serious dump, foreclosures were up, and 550,000 Americans got so discouraged, they simply stopped looking for work in the single month of April. All this news coming on Friday of week four. An absolute disaster for Obama.
3. Every week for the past two months, Obama has committed to a short lived strategy that has failed in the most harmful of ways. This week, he paid the price for taking all the credit for the Osama killing and attempting to turn this event into a campaign issue as he tried to frame Romney as one who would not have had the courage or commonsense to make the same decision. The Leftist media lead by Arianna Huffington, were openly critical of Obama for advancing this strategy. A number of high dollar military leaders voiced their "concern" for turning the success of a 10 year mission into disgusting campaign fodder. And, near the end of the week, members of Navy Seal Team 6 produced a film that will be a powerful statement against the leadership of Obama, in this matter. In short, the strategy blowup in Obama's face.
4. While in nuclear arms talks with Russia this week, during the conference as it was in progress, a Russian general threatened NATO and the United States with a violent "pre-emptive strike" should planned missile defense systems go forward.
5. Here, at Midknight Review, we reminded the readership that Obama was the first president in modern history to deal with terrorists and pay a ransom in exchange for [19] hostages held by an Egyptian Muslim mob for 35 days. Obama quietly paid the ransom for fear of being compared to Jimmy Carter.
6. Parts of Europe (Spain, especially) went gone back into recession, this week. The European Union's financial woes under socialist excesses and union gluttony, threatens the weakening recovery in this country and is more bad news for the Obama re-election effort.
6. The Obama/Marxist media is running a campaign focusing on "8%" unemployment, running headlines that state, "No president has every been re-election with unemployment at 8% or higher." Really? Well, I can tell you that no president has ever been re-elected with 20% unemployment, either. My point? "8%" is not the "magic" number . . . . . . . . . . . 7.2% is. No president since FDR has won re-election with unemployment at or above 7.2%. Understand that Obama is working for a headline, here, but the alternative media is "on top of the lie" and way ahead of the curve.
7. We also learned that Obama is not using the same numbers for unemployment estimates he used in 2009. Using those numbers, his numbers, unemployment is 10.9%, not 8.1%.
8. During week four, it was announced that Obama will hold a conference with 150 Democrat "civilians" to discuss going forward with the campaign. This meeting is scheduled for this coming Monday. I say "civilians" because congressional Democrats, for the most part, will not be a part of this meeting . . . . . . . . . a most unusual circumstance.
9. This week, we learned that Obama held a strategy meeting with 10 of his closest confidants; neither Joe Biden nor Hillary Clinton were invited. Standard fare? Perhaps, but, than again, maybe not.
10. Another Obama era scandal was exposed. the ICE Intel chief plead guilty to the embezzlement of $550,000 dollars. This scandal, revealed in week four, comes on the heals of the Secret Service scandal, the Fisker-Karma scandal, the burgeoning Fast and Furious scandal and news of subpoena's about to be issued, Solyndra and the Administration's refusal to honor requests for document submission to the House, and continuing questions about MF Global and Obama's relationship to that scandal (1.5 billion dollars are simply missing from sequestered customer funds, a felonious circumstance never seen before in presidential politics).
With weeks such as this, one after the other, Romney just might win in November without spending any serious cash at all. Go Obama. Go Obama.