Those who can...

Unless you've been living under a rock the last two years, you've no doubt seen the level of political discourse sink deeper and deeper into an abyss of name calling, insults and personal attacks from politicians and pundits alike. It seems there is no one left who can be objective any longer. The right has shown their dissatisfaction with the GOP by creating a movement that seeks to hold it's hierarchy accountable to it's base. The left, driven primarily by the President, has opted for using dark conspiracies about foreign money in American politics as a way to scare it's base into staying engaged throughout the election cycle. Whatever the outcome on November 2nd, it has been a most interesting election cycle.

While some would argue that this election is a referendum of Obama's policies and (lack of) results in rescuing our flailing economy from the precipice it appears to be teetering on, in my own view, it seems the only likely answer. In the run up to the 2008 Presidential election, Obama's message was one of "Hope & Change". It energized his base with dreams of equality and a new direction in American politics. Leaving aside the obvious reality that neither happened quite like it was promised, our upcoming election is absolutely a referendum on Obama and the ruling class on both sides. The anti-incumbent sentiment on the right is as strong as it's ever been and probably more than a little frightening to the upper echelon in charge of it's future.

A large majority of the left feels betrayed by Obama for his apparent lack of being "left wing" enough. The radical left of the Democrat party sees him now as just another politician skilled at being long on promises and woefully short on results. He didn't go far enough to change the way the country is run and for that he will be punished. More than likely this punishment will be evident in relatively low turnout results in November. Just as conservatives did in 2006. Awash in scandal after scandal and both obvious and subtle signs of extreme corruption, conservative voters decided to sit out the election in 2006 as a way to flex what little muscle they had in the electoral process. The message was loud and clear if only briefly. By 2008 the substance of that message had been lost and conservatives were faced with the choice of Obama or McCain. For many conservatives, it was a choice of the lesser of two progressives. Both had visions of spending our way to solvency and government intervention in the private sector as a way to shore up the economy. It can be flatly stated now after months of economic malaise, that neither was right.

There have been whispers in the press of a "new normal" for unemployment hovering around 8%-9%. If one ignores the media's cries of recession under Bush because of a 5.5% unemployment rate, then their idea that a "new normal" is a recovery should have us all singing kum ba ya any day now. The press has also been quite forgiving of late as to Obama's failures both perceived and real. The mantra of, "He's doing the best he can, why do they berate him so?", have been met with a healthy dose of derision. The New York Times should have a pair of pom poms on the front cover for all the cheerleading they do for this administration.

"Gimme an O!"

In a recent impromptu debate on fiscal policy, Obama said despite the recession and the possibility of higher taxes in 2011, the rich would still "buy their big screen TV's" and that the middle and lower classes needed the tax break to go buy their own big screen TV's. What Mr. Obama fails to recognize is that those evil rich people who don't deserve a tax break don't just buy big screen TV's. They own companies that produce parts for said TV's, they own businesses that deliver them, track them and stock their stores with them. If an extreme tax hike does come down the pike, those companies will be less inclined to expand their businesses thereby shrinking the number of big screen TV's available to the rest of us. For his apparent lack of understanding of a free market economy, Mr. Obama was called an "economic illiterate" and a "jackass" by Rush Limbaugh. Harsh words to be sure but these are harsh times. The poverty rate is at an record high, the number of Americans on food stamps is at an all time high. Heated rhetoric or not, Limbaugh's characterization of Obama as an "economic illiterate" is accurate.

There's an old saying that tells us "Those who can, do. Those who can't, teach." It's the simple idea that there are thinkers and doers in our society and it's usually the doers that shape change and ultimately the progress of humankind. Steven Dutch, professor of applied sciences at the University of Wisconsin, Green Bay relates a story that illustrates this point perfectly. He writes,

When NASA convened a commission to analyze the 1986 Challenger disaster, one of the panelists was physicist Richard Feynman, about as "ivory tower" as they come (in terms of his academic degree. In his personal style, Feynman was the antithesis of "ivory tower"). During a discussion of the hypothesis that launching under cold conditions might have caused the seals in the solid fuel booster to become stiff, many of the panelists agreed it might be a good idea, but it would be hard to test. Feynman took a sample of the seal material, dunked it in a glass of ice water, and showed that the seal became stiffer.

This is the root of the problems Mr. Obama is facing. He's a thinker, a theoretician and not well versed in real world solutions. To quote Ray Stanz from the movie Ghostbusters,

"You've never been out of college. I've worked in the private sector. They expect results."

Such is the reality Obama is currently fighting so hard to ignore. He went from college into public service with no real, practical experience with regards to basic economics and business growth.
We expect results Mr. President. Not platitudes or promises. Not bumper stickers or catch phrases. We want results. We demand action that produces those results. I think one of the reasons that Bush has recently pulled dead even with Obama in poll numbers as to who could run the government better is because Bush was perceived as a doer. A man who saw a problem and took the best course of action to solve it. He didn't wring his hands after 9/11. He took action. He didn't convene a commission on debt reduction, he cut taxes. While many of his decisions were extremely unpopular, he was viewed as a man of action.

I think that's what America needs right now more than anything else. A man of action. Not a pointy headed elitist with a penchant for thinking a small problem into a big one.

Bring on November and let's see what the American people really think.