Call me Pollyannaish, but I believe Mitt Romney will defeat Barack Obama in November. Let me give you some of my reasons:
1) Romney's campaign message is essentially positive; Obama's is overwhelmingly negative. People always prefer promises of something better, but Americans are especially hungry now because times are very tough. Romney is offering concrete and realistic plans to help America grow again and create millions of new jobs. Romney's message and agenda appeal to all Americans, not just certain groups, and tell them they are not imprisoned in their current economic "station" as Obama would have them believe. Though Obama's promises of "hope and change" in 2008 were vague, at least he presented them as something positive. Today he tells us we must accept an America in decline both internationally and domestically. He insists that 8 percent unemployment is the new normal and that we must adjust to the malaise because it is going to take a long time to make a dent in it.
2) Obama is appealing to people's baser instincts of envy, greed and fear and has deliberately fanned the flames of racial tension for political gain. This would have been bad enough if he'd not presented himself as a post-partisan, post-racial phenomenon.
3) Obama had the wind at his back in 2008 after happening on to a perfect financial storm he claimed he had nothing to do with creating. Today our financial outlook is actually much worse; we are much closer to a Greek-style collapse, and Obama has done nothing and proposed no ideas to avert it. It strains credulity to think Americans are gullible enough to swallow his shameless scapegoating of Republicans for problems he exacerbated and is unwilling or too incompetent to address.
4) Indeed, Obama's record has been horrendous in every category — economic, debt, national security, military strength, energy dependence, social cohesiveness, religious liberty, race relations, health care and business. America is significantly worse off than it was when Obama took office. It will be extremely difficult for Obama to overcome the reality of his terrible record with his fictional whitewashing of that record.
5) Similarly, it is hard to believe that the liberal media's gross distortion of events will trump the events themselves. For example, Republicans did not have a terrible convention, and Democrats did not have a wonderful one. Republicans presented a positive message; both Paul Ryan's and Romney's messages were strong and inspiring, and Clint Eastwood's speech mostly resonated. Most Democratic speakers were angry and sniping, and Obama's speech was mostly flat, empty and uninspiring. Bill Clinton's wonkish fantasy speech was the best they could do, but Clinton is not the candidate. It's also unlikely the media succeeded in fooling people into believing that Obama's terrible jobs numbers and foreign policy week from hell were positive or that Romney's relatively innocuous 47 percent video and his proper criticism of Obama's Middle East apologies were terrible negatives.
6) The avalanche of negativity spewing from the liberal media can be discouraging to conservatives, but the liberal media have steadily lost clout over the past 20 years, and the alternative conservative media have never been more robust. Not only are the liberal media less powerful but also conservative talk show hosts, bloggers, tweeters, columnists and Fox News react with lightning speed to counter every single lie they promulgate.
7) The polls can be discouraging, too, but we've seen this in previous elections. Some pollsters showing Obama significantly ahead have a dubious history of distortion and have used their polls to manipulate instead of report public opinion. Most polls showing Obama ahead are either oversampling Democrats (using 2008 as a model instead of more recent elections) or understating Romney's lead among independents. The Weekly Standard reports that through 2004, every incumbent whose Gallup approval rating was less than 50 percent at this point — as is Obama's — lost. In Ohio, thousands more Republicans have ordered absentee ballots than Democrats. Also, I'm skeptical that all poll respondents are being completely candid in their positive responses about Obama for fear of being accused of racism or of being out of step with the manufactured media narrative that Obama is a likable person.
8) Obama is having some difficulty with his base, which is why his campaign is increasingly desperate and shrill. Some blacks are so angry over his liberal social views they may stay home. Some Jews are awakening to Obama's mistreatment of Israel. If Obama were so confident, he wouldn't be so flagrantly neglecting his official duties to feverishly campaign.
9) Conservatives have never been more motivated. Americans reject Obama's radical liberalism. Scott Brown won Ted Kennedy's Senate seat; Democrats took a "shellacking" in the 2010 congressional races; Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker won; a strong majority of Americans still hate Obama's proudest achievement, Obamacare; the tea party is more energized than ever; and grass-roots Americans voted with their bellies for Chick-fil-A.
10) Americans haven't given up on America yet. They recoil at Obama's socialist rantings, redistributionism, class warfare, race baiting, apologies for America, attacks on business and domestic energy producers, and bizarre and offensive statements that "the private sector is fine" and that the death of our ambassador was "a bump in the road."
David Limbaugh is a writer, author and attorney. His latest book, "The Great Destroyer," reached No. 2 on the New York Times best-seller list. Follow him on Twitter @davidlimbaugh and his website at www.davidlimbaugh.com. To read features by other Creators Syndicate writers and cartoonists, visit the Creators Syndicate Web page at www.creators.com.
