Hello guys, this is my first diary at Daily Kos, I've been an avid reader of Daily Kos since 2007. If you guys don't mind, I'll be cross posting my political articles from theamplifyer.com, a youth run online publication that is supported by the Arab American Association of New York. I wish to hear your thoughts about these articles. Well I thought I'd introduce myself, My name is Jefim Naljotov and I have lived in Brooklyn, New York for most of my life, I am 18 years ago and I'm going to be attending Hofstra University this fall. I am diagnosed with duchenne's muscular dystrophy and I use a wheelchair to move around. Luckily my condition has been very stable for the past 5 years, however I do not let this define me, I am very much content with life in general.
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Contrary to common belief, Republican Willard Mitt Romney is not the most electable candidate with the best chance to unseat Democratic President Barack Obama. In reality, he is possibly the weakest candidate and will most likely lose by a significant margin in 2012. Romney will lose mainly because he is a member of the job-destroying one percent, is a flip- flopper and because of the unenthusiastic Republican base. Barring any major political scandals or another Great Depression, chances are very high that Barack Obama will win a second term.
Why Mitt Romney is Unelectable
Contrary to common belief, Republican Willard Mitt Romney is not the most electable candidate with the best chance to unseat Democratic President Barack Obama. In reality, he is possibly the weakest candidate and will most likely lose by a significant margin in 2012. Romney will lose mainly because he is a member of the job-destroying one percent, is a flip- flopper and because of the unenthusiastic Republican base. Barring any major political scandals or another Great Depression, chances are very high that Barack Obama will win a second term.
In the year of populist movements like Occupy Wall Street and the Tea Party, running a candidate of the 1 percent, for the 1 percent and by the 1 percent, is just plain dumb. Mitt Romney’s firm Bain Capital is engaged in the most destructive firm of capitalism. It bought companies, loaded them up with debt and sold them before they went bankrupt from the debt, making billions of dollars while destroying thousands of jobs. According to a Reuters report, Bain Capital put in $8 million to gain majority control of GS Technologies, a Kansas City based steel mill, and then proceeded to load the company up with debt to finance a $26.1 million dividend paid to Bain Capital. In 2001 when GS Technologies declared bankruptcy, 750 jobs were lost and promised employee health care coverage and severance was denied. The federal government was forced to step in and pay a $44 million bailout and still the bailout was insufficient. In response to an attack by Gingrich for “vulture capitalism,” Romney ran a campaign ad in Florida, tauting the success of Bain Capital investing in businesses like Domino’s and Staples. Romney’s campaign thinks that these companies survived and thrived because of Bain Capital but in reality they were just survivors of a hostile corporate takeover by the “vulture capitalism” of Bain Capital; these successes did not occur due to Bain Capital, but rather in spite of Bain Capital.
Barack Obama will likely use this line of attack to portray Romney as a job- destroying 1 percenter who exploited the workers to earn billions and this will resonate with voters because voters in general are distrustful of Wall Street during these times, especially since Romney is a former CEO that has strong ties to Wall Street. This issue will sink him in the general election. Back in 1994 in a hotly contested Senate race against Ted Kennedy, Romney was skewered like a pig when he was attacked for the jobs that Bain Capital had destroyed. Romney’s destructive Bain Capital record turned a very close tossup election into a landslide 58-41 defeat for Mitt Romney, a net swing of 15 percent toward Ted Kennedy from a Boston Globe/WBZ-TV poll done in September 1994 which showed Kennedy and Romney locked in a close 48-46 race. If Mitt Romney will attack Obama on the economy, Obama will just fire back with anti-Bain Capital ads, neutering Mitt Romney’s assertion that he is a member of the “job-creator” class and will bolster the President’s re-election chances. If history is any guide, Mitt Romney’s bane will be Bain Capital; he will be destroyed by the President for his job killing record.
In order to win a national election, you need to keep your party’s base excited enough to turn out in large numbers while attracting Independents and Romney has neither. Rather, he has an unenthusiastic Republican base and has problems connecting with Independents. One reason being that evangelicals are unwilling to support a Mormon candidate, another is that the Tea Party doesn’t believe that Mitt Romney is conservative enough. An unenthusiastic Republican base is very unlikely to knock on doors, donate and participate in a GOTV (get out the vote) operation. To be elected you need the grassroots to come out and support your campaign. The most likely situation would be that Obama’s fundamental GOTV campaign will crush the unenthusiastic GOTV campaign of Romney, leading to more Democrats going to the polls and more Republicans staying at home, padding Obama’s popular vote while lowering Romney’s popular vote.
Another issue that will not help Romney is the Massachusetts health care insurance reform law aka “Romney-care.” Romney-care was the blue print for Obama-care. Both bills mandated that residents buy government approved health care plans and that the government would help those who cannot afford insurance by giving them subsidies. Obama even consulted economist Jon Gruber, who had advised Governor Romney on health care reform. Obama’s liability is the terribly flawed Obama-care program, a deeply unpopular bill that does very little to solve the health care crisis. However, Obama will be immune to any criticism from Romney on health care because both of their plans are essentially the same. The Republicans are giving up a very good line of attack against Barack Obama by nominating Romney. They will not be able to gain anything from this, making their defeat all the likelier.
Romney’s problem is that he is a flip-flopper; he has been on both sides of every issue in politics, abortion, gay marriage, health care, unions, taxes, etc. Voters do not like flip-floppers, they like consistent candidates who actually believe in what they preach, and they label flip- floppers as opportunists who would do or say anything just to be elected. A recent poll done by Public Policy Polling says that 61 percent of registered voters say that Mitt Romney will say anything to get elected and this tells us that voters think that Romney is insincere about his beliefs and they think that he is an opportunist politician. History once again points out that flip- floppers do not get elected: in 2004 John Kerry lost to President W. Bush because the Republicans portrayed John Kerry as a flip-flopper; voters thought that Kerry was just trying to get elected and nothing else.
Romney will be criticized for having offshore banks in Switzerland and in the Cayman Islands. The purpose of offshore banks is to legally tax evade. Americans do not want a candidate that cheats the tax system because it is unfair that rich 1 percenters have enough resources to find tax loopholes in the system to pay a lower tax rate than hard working Americans, who do not have these same resources. Obama can attack Romney for not paying his taxes and people will be less likely to support Romney and more likely to support the President. The offshore bank accounts will just serve to further perpetrate the meme that Mitt Romney is a member of the 1 percent class and doesn’t have any concern for the 99 percent. My prediction is that Obama will win 54- 46 and with at least 300 electoral votes. Americans will not vote for a job killing, tax evading, flip-flopping, 1 percenter in the year of populist anger against Wall Street, all but assuring that Barack Obama will remain our president for another four years.