Obama’s Hopes Dim
From Darrell Delamaide at MarketWatch:
It will be difficult for Obama to criticize the Republican playbook, since he has been reading from the same pages. His only real departure is to have millionaires pay a tax rate a few percentage points higher, and that wouldn‘t fix everything….
His failure to hold financial kingpins accountable for the crisis that spawned the Great Recession was inexcusable…
It didn’t help that his economic team was led by proven failures like his chief economic adviser, Larry Summers, the Clinton administration Treasury secretary who signed off on deregulation, and his Treasury secretary, Timothy Geithner, who as third-place choice to head the New York Federal Reserve failed to see or head off the brewing financial crisis…
By conceding the Republican premise on the deficit — which of course is not about fiscal rectitude but merely the party’s strategy of “starving the beast” of government social spending — Obama undermined his subsequent efforts to drum up support for spending on infrastructure, education, or other investments in the future.
So now it matters less that the Republican candidate is perceived as a phony and relatively weak by many voters. Romney’s flaws, and the possibility that he will make mistakes during the campaign that will weaken his chances, are still Obama’s best hope for squeaking through in November.
So much for the audacity of hope.
