Obama is Campaigning Instead of Governing

President Obama does not like governing. He has little experience with it; he is not good at it; and it deflates his ego. He does, however, love campaigning because it consists of rhetoric with little substance or accountability.

Much of what Obama has been doing is rooted in the campaign tactic of demonizing opponents. He created class warfare to turn people against the wealthy who are severe critics of his policies. Throughout his first term, he continued campaigning by demonizing Bush, blaming him for everything. His second term finds him using fear to help make Republicans the fall guys.

With most of the mainstream media in his pocket, Obama has made several attempts to demonize Fox News for refusing to blindly back his administration. Badmouthing Fox News from the White House is unseemly, petty, and highly unprofessional, but it is standard practice on the campaign trail and Obama has not left that trail.

Passage of the health care bill was treated like an election by Obama with promises and feel-good rhetoric substituting for facts in his many campaign-like speeches. His only goal was to win and winning simply meant passage of the bill by any means. Details as well as consequences of the bill were absent in those speeches. It was just another campaign for Obama filled with hollow promises.

Obama had no interest in cutting a deal in lieu of the automatic budget cuts (sequester). His dabble in governing on the issue consisted of short photo ops with GOP lawmakers that produced nothing. His disinterest in getting a federal budget passed in Congress (required yearly by law and accomplished only once in his administration) has been an obvious failure to govern.

With no re-election campaigning needed, Obama should be governing full time but it is not evident that he knows how to do that. He seems to be stuck in campaign mode while the country is in dire need of governance and leadership. We may have to wait until 2016 to see a “change”.

David J. Hentosh

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Tags: 2016 Presidential election, barack obama, campaigning, Democrats, election campaigning, FOX News, governance and leadership, health care bill, health care reform, Media Bias, ObamaCare, photo ops, political correctness, politics, Progressivism