Jonah Goldberg nails it for Mitt

[American_Jihad]

Jonah Goldberg nails it for Mitt​

5/31/12 By Thomas Lifson


The Mitt Romney campaign needs to follow the excellent advice of Jonah Goldberg in countering Obama's claim that compared to Bush he has raised spending very little. In The Corner:

Obama wants to cast Romney as a return to Bush. It's nearly the only argument he knows how to make. Romney, in my opinion, should turn the tables on Obama and make Obama defend his continuation of Bush's spending binge (If Romney wanted to be really cruel, he could make the case Obama has continued many of Bush's counter-terror policies as well). Romney has the luxury of being the outsider. He can criticize both parties' records over the last decade.

This is nothing short of brilliant political jujitsu that leaves Obama flat on his back. My, and most others' response was to argue the numbers and assumptions. There is an intellectual case to be made, of course, against the Marketwatch piece that tortured the data. That bizarre claim that Obama is not a big spender was immediately embraced by the president himself. But an intellectual response that requires focus and analytical thinking reaches only a small share of the electorate, while Obama's confident claim reaches nearly everyone now paying attention. Instead of confronting the claim, Zen Master Jonah counsels using the opponent's momentum against him.

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Read more: Blog: Jonah Goldberg nails it for Mitt

 

[RightWingFerret]

so first it was McCain who was a carbon copy of Bush,,,,But Mitt? Mitts a Yankee,,,,,Bush is from the south,,,,when are we ever going to stop hearing about Bush's comparisons to all of Obamas failires? god enough of,,,,,"well bush did the same thing too !!!!"

 

[ladyliberal]

Romney trying to run against Bush is not a brilliant idea. It's an interesting but ineffective idea. While no doubt the National Review regards GWB as a big-spending liberal that image is simply not going to resonate with independents. A hint that even Goldberg does not consider this an effective campaign strategy can be seen when he describes it not as "effective" or "clever" but as "hilarious".

Goldberg is right of course that Romney shouldn't go out of his way to defend Bush in the general election. Of course, since Romney already got through a prolonged Republican primary (where Bush is much more popular than he is with the general electorate) without any candidates seriously praising Bush I suspect this advice will not be regarded as particularly insightful.

 

[Avatar4321]

I see no reason he shouldnt ask Obama why he has magnified Bush's binge spending.

If he goes after both parties and comes out saying reform is going to start with Presidential and Congression pay and cut pay and benefits (I know it's a dream), he could seriously change the tone of this campaign.

 

[Mac1958]

.

It's not like Romney has a bushel full of good options here, so I can see Goldberg's point. Only the most committed Republicans are trying to defend Bush's horrific presidency, but there are also plenty who were pissed off about his spending.

Both candidates running against the same guy. That would be great fun to watch.

.

 

[theDoctorisIn]

Although I (shockly enough) actually agree with Jonah Goldberg's mom here in terms of Obama being a continuation of Bush, I don't think Romney would have an easy time making that perception stick.

 

[whitehall]

Mitt jumped to the attack today when he posed for a photo-op in front of the boarded up Solindra factory to illustrate Obama's crooked payoffs and phony green agenda.

 

[ClosedCaption]

I see no reason he shouldnt ask Obama why he has magnified Bush's binge spending.

If he goes after both parties and comes out saying reform is going to start with Presidential and Congression pay and cut pay and benefits (I know it's a dream), he could seriously change the tone of this campaign.

The term is, he can etch-a-sketch it

 

[Mr. Shaman]

Jonah Goldberg nails it for Mitt

Yeah.....Jonah Goldberg's quite the bad-ass......

"The fact that young people think socialism is better than capitalism. That’s proof of what social scientists call their stupidity and their ignorance. And that’s something that conservatives have to beat out of them. Either literally or figuratively as far as I’m concerned."

Conservatives Should ‘Beat’ Young People​

What would you expect of......​

.....Lucianne's Little-Bitch Spawn?​

 

[clevergirl]

5.3% unemployment and a thriving economy-? Bush had 2 major blunders- Not following through on his push to crack down on the Fed Housing programs and not going after spending cuts to match his tax cuts. By doing this he compromised on spending cuts to pass military spending bills with democrats. He broke from Reagan conservatives over his lack of spending cuts.... still, economically; morally; emotionally speaking- Bush's economic realities surpassed Obama's 10 fold to the positive!

 

[Full-Auto]

5.3% unemployment and a thriving economy-? Bush had 2 major blunders- Not following through on his push to crack down on the Fed Housing programs and not going after spending cuts to match his tax cuts. By doing this he compromised on spending cuts to pass military spending bills with democrats. He broke from Reagan conservatives over his lack of spending cuts.... still, economically; morally; emotionally speaking- Bush's economic realities surpassed Obama's 10 fold to the positive!

Well said!!

 

[Peach]

so first it was McCain who was a carbon copy of Bush,,,,But Mitt? Mitts a Yankee,,,,,Bush is from the south,,,,when are we ever going to stop hearing about Bush's comparisons to all of Obamas failires? god enough of,,,,,"well bush did the same thing too !!!!"

Bush was born in Mass., went to prep school in the NE before Yale. Summers have always been in Kennebunkport, MAIN. He is a carpetbagger, not from the south.

 

[zeke]

Please use that approach.

Bush started the bailout ball rolling, it was Bush's people that the incoming Pres. Obama had to listen to. I mean they were at the heart of the problem. It was continuation of Bush's decisions that Obama had to follow, according to Paulson and Getiner.

Mittens is surrounding himself with recycled Bushites.

And Mittens is proposing doing the exact same things as Bush, except on steriods.


Yes. Please use this approach. It could be a game changer.

 

[Luissa]

Jonah Goldberg nails it for Mitt​

5/31/12 By Thomas Lifson


The Mitt Romney campaign needs to follow the excellent advice of Jonah Goldberg in countering Obama's claim that compared to Bush he has raised spending very little. In The Corner:

Obama wants to cast Romney as a return to Bush. It's nearly the only argument he knows how to make. Romney, in my opinion, should turn the tables on Obama and make Obama defend his continuation of Bush's spending binge (If Romney wanted to be really cruel, he could make the case Obama has continued many of Bush's counter-terror policies as well). Romney has the luxury of being the outsider. He can criticize both parties' records over the last decade.

This is nothing short of brilliant political jujitsu that leaves Obama flat on his back. My, and most others' response was to argue the numbers and assumptions. There is an intellectual case to be made, of course, against the Marketwatch piece that tortured the data. That bizarre claim that Obama is not a big spender was immediately embraced by the president himself. But an intellectual response that requires focus and analytical thinking reaches only a small share of the electorate, while Obama's confident claim reaches nearly everyone now paying attention. Instead of confronting the claim, Zen Master Jonah counsels using the opponent's momentum against him.

---

Read more: Blog: Jonah Goldberg nails it for Mitt

Spending binge? His spending binge or I should say federal spending growth has be slower or less than Bush 1 and 2, and Reagan first term if you go off of Republican numbers.
Even By Conservative Figures, Obama Is More Frugal Than Bush, Reagan | TPMDC

If you go off other sources it is lower than any President in 60 years.

Before presenting our own calculations, we’ll get some methodological issues out of the way.

Like Nutting, we used historical data from the Office of Management and Budget along with projections from the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office. Projecting outlays into the future involves a degree of uncertainty, but CBO’s most recent projections are considered the most independent and reliable.

Because we’re checking the Facebook post rather than Nutting’s column, we examined the way the post compared the presidents. Since the Facebook post ignores differences between presidents’ first and second terms, which are noted in Nutting’s chart, we’ve combined presidents’ entire tenures into a single time span. And several presidents who served during the past 60 years didn’t have tenures that coincided precisely with fiscal years, due to assassination or resignation. So we’re using the closest fiscal years we can, and we’re skipping President Gerald Ford, whose tenure was too short to adequately measure.

Here are the average spending increases per year in raw dollars (not adjusted for inflation) in descending order by president:

President
Fiscal year baseline
Last fiscal year
Average percentage increase per year
Carter 1977 1981 16.4
Nixon 1969 1975 13.5
Johnson 1964 1969 11.0
George W. Bush 2001 2009 10.2
Reagan 1981 1989 8.6
Kennedy 1961 1964 7.1
George H.W. Bush 1989 1993 5.8
Clinton 1993 2001 4.0
Eisenhower 1953 1961 3.6
Obama 2009 2013 1.4


So, using raw dollars, Obama did oversee the lowest annual increases in spending of any president in 60 years.

Here are the results using inflation-adjusted figures:



President
Fiscal year baseline
Last fiscal year
Average percentage increase per year
Johnson 1964 1969 6.3
George W. Bush 2001 2009 5.9
Kennedy 1961 1964 4.7
Carter 1977 1981 4.2
Nixon 1969 1975 3.0
Reagan 1981 1989 2.7
George H.W. Bush 1989 1993 1.8
Clinton 1993 2001 1.5
Obama 2009 2013 -0.1
Eisenhower 1953 1961 -0.5


So, using inflation-adjusted dollars, Obama had the second-lowest increase -- in fact, he actually presided over a decrease once inflation is taken into account.

Bottom line: The Facebook post’s claim that government spending under Obama is "slower than at any time in nearly 60 years" is very close to accurate.

Explaining the results

So why the disconnect between Obama’s image as a big spender and the reality of how much federal spending has actually grown?

PolitiFact | Viral Facebook post says Barack Obama has lowest spending record of any recent president

he critics note that counting the TARP expenses as Bush’s artificially raises the baseline level of spending Obama inherited, thereby making Obama’s subsequent spending increases seem unrealistically small.

We think reasonable people can disagree on which president should be responsible for TARP spending, but to give the critics their say, we’ll include it in our alternative calculation. So, combining the fiscal 2009 costs for programs that are either clearly or arguably Obama’s -- the stimulus, the CHIP expansion, the incremental increase in appropriations over Bush’s level and TARP -- produces a shift from Bush to Obama of between $307 billion and $456 billion, based on the most reasonable estimates we’ve seen critics offer.

That’s quite a bit larger than Nutting’s $140 billion, but by our calculations, it would only raise Obama’s average annual spending increase from 1.4 percent to somewhere between 3.4 percent and 4.9 percent. That would place Obama either second from the bottom or third from the bottom out of the 10 presidents we rated, rather than last.

Of course the debt has increased because the economy sucks, but Obama is doing better than three Republican Presidents on increasing spending. Look how Reagan increased spending his first term due to a bad economy.

 

[Joe Steel]

The Mitt Romney campaign needs to follow the excellent advice of Jonah Goldberg in countering Obama's claim that compared to Bush he has raised spending very little. In The Corner:

Obama wants to cast Romney as a return to Bush. It's nearly the only argument he knows how to make. Romney, in my opinion, should turn the tables on Obama and make Obama defend his continuation of Bush's spending binge (If Romney wanted to be really cruel, he could make the case Obama has continued many of Bush's counter-terror policies as well). Romney has the luxury of being the outsider. He can criticize both parties' records over the last decade.

This is nothing short of brilliant political jujitsu that leaves Obama flat on his back.

It's nothing short of one the dumbest things Goldberg, a remarkably talentless boob, has ever made.

Clearly, clearly, Bush's spending has done no good. If it had, we wouldn't be in the midst of historic economic devastation. Bush's failures aren't surprising. Most of it was overseas or on the very rich where did little good for everyday Americans.

 

[California Girl]

Romney trying to run against Bush is not a brilliant idea. It's an interesting but ineffective idea. While no doubt the National Review regards GWB as a big-spending liberal that image is simply not going to resonate with independents. A hint that even Goldberg does not consider this an effective campaign strategy can be seen when he describes it not as "effective" or "clever" but as "hilarious".

Goldberg is right of course that Romney shouldn't go out of his way to defend Bush in the general election. Of course, since Romney already got through a prolonged Republican primary (where Bush is much more popular than he is with the general electorate) without any candidates seriously praising Bush I suspect this advice will not be regarded as particularly insightful.

It's really quite funny that you - as a self proclaimed liberal - can know what will or will not resonate with independents.

 

[Luissa]

Romney trying to run against Bush is not a brilliant idea. It's an interesting but ineffective idea. While no doubt the National Review regards GWB as a big-spending liberal that image is simply not going to resonate with independents. A hint that even Goldberg does not consider this an effective campaign strategy can be seen when he describes it not as "effective" or "clever" but as "hilarious".

Goldberg is right of course that Romney shouldn't go out of his way to defend Bush in the general election. Of course, since Romney already got through a prolonged Republican primary (where Bush is much more popular than he is with the general electorate) without any candidates seriously praising Bush I suspect this advice will not be regarded as particularly insightful.

It's really quite funny that you - as a self proclaimed liberal - can know what will or will not resonate with independents.

And you would?
So because she is a self proclaimed liberal she can't see something that is obvious?

 

[Mr. Shaman]

5.3% unemployment and a thriving economy-?

No doubt.....​

December 21, 2011

Bush Economy Makeover


"Obama inherited an unemployment rate of 7.8 percent."​

 

[Lakhota]

Jonah Goldberg: National Review Writer: Conservatives Should 'Beat' Young People Who 'Think Socialism Is Better Than Capitalism' | ThinkProgress

 

[Peach]

Please use that approach.

Bush started the bailout ball rolling, it was Bush's people that the incoming Pres. Obama had to listen to. I mean they were at the heart of the problem. It was continuation of Bush's decisions that Obama had to follow, according to Paulson and Getiner.

Mittens is surrounding himself with recycled Bushites.

And Mittens is proposing doing the exact same things as Bush, except on steriods.


Yes. Please use this approach. It could be a game changer.

Bush = BAILOUTS, and Mitt blaming HIS company's failure on Obama is not going to work with rational voters.