The President has the power to buy voters and everyone knows it

This is an excellent analysis of how much can be wasted over wishful thinking. But it also pretty much spells out the producers v. dependents scenario that most Conservative/Libertarians fear (which I guess slipped through in the article because it was off topic). I’d love to get the writer in a room and ask him some questions about what he thinks this all means.

Romney advisers say it was impossible to compete against Obama’s huge war chest. They also envy his ability to leverage the presidency for his campaign. Young voters were told about new provisions for student loans and Obama’s support for same-sex marriage, an issue that appeals to young voters. Hispanic voters were wooed by the president’s plan to waive the deportation of children of illegal immigrants. One Romney aide also included the much-debated changes to welfare requirements as a policy aimed to win over African-American voters. “It was like they had a calendar,” said one Romney aide. With each month, the Obama administration rolled out a new policy for a different segment of their coalition they hoped to attract.

via Why Romney was surprised to lose: His campaign had the wrong numbers, bad assumptions, and underestimated Barack Obama’s campaign team. – Slate Magazine.

Conservatives have two things (humanly speaking) going for them.

1. Hatred of slavery. Romney didn’t believe in this. He figured if the 47% didn’t pay taxes/or were dependent (which? I was never clear on this). But while more dependency will obviously favor the giver of gifts, it isn’t going to be that great experience for everyone. Some will hate it. If they get the idea that the government has destroyed the economy and is benefiting from that destruction by moving more people into dependency, we have every reason to hope for a backlash.

2. Greece Benefits are only attractive when the government actually gives them to the people who are voting for them. Obama is gambling that he can spend and spend some more and not feel the repercussions while he is still in office. Maybe he will make it and escape offshore after he leaves office. But there is a debt Doomsday about to hit. Republicans have contributed to that horrible situation, but Obama has made their sins look almost insignificant. We need to put out a consistent message so when the Obamalypse hits, everyone knows its name.

One observation: I love the way the story uses the word envy: “They also envy his ability to leverage the presidency.”

“Envy” is a class warfare word. And it is exactly appropriate because this is the only real class warfare. The Dictator, with the Kill List, Indefinite Detention, and Drones and an entire shadow legislature through various departments, is the true parasite on the American economy. The office is a pirate ship and it needs to be cut back down to size. If you want to see a silver lining in the fact that we don’t get to use it in the next four years, I think that is a shiny one. Conservative efforts need to focus on the Congress and the Senate, and make shrinking the Presidency to Constitutional size a real agenda item.