Beating Obama will be harder for the GOP than it was to clench a robust majority of House seats and narrow the Democratic Party's Senate majority two years ago. Despite the Republicans' best efforts to paint him as an extreme liberal, Obama has governed as a moderate. He's certainly too moderate for some of his supporters.
He's helped drag us back from the brink of insolvency, save the auto industry, and cut our trade deficit. He's even managed to oversee an increase in our oil production, making us less dependent on foreign sources of energy.
All of this with the Republicans leaving heel marks all the way.
Had the voters kept the Democratic Party in control of Congress in 2010, or had more reasonable Republicans been calling their party's shots, our economic recovery might be several years further along by now.
The Republicans will argue that none of that is true, of course, that the Obama administration has been a failure in every regard. Maybe they can sell that. They've certainly got enough money to give it a try. However, they have no competing narrative that makes sense to anyone but people who are interested in nothing but low taxes for the rich.
There's a saying in politics that you can't beat somebody with nobody. This election will test that premise.
*OtherWords columnist Donald Kaul lives in Ann Arbor, Michigan. otherwords.org
(Note: You can view every article as one long page if you sign up as an Advocate Member, or higher).
