The campaigns are well underway now; no one is holding back. The Obama team apparently has come up with the new buzzword. In 2008, of course, it was “Hope and Change.” That obviously won’t work this time around because people would be thinking, “yeah, we do need a change—that might be our only hope.”

So now Democrat legions are to be inspired by the one simple word “Forward,” which is supposed to be a positive message. However, it seems to have gone awry already:

Obama has never broken his bad habit of blaming everything on Bush. Don’t expect that to stop. He’ll have plenty of help, too, from an obliging press corps:

Voters, though, may have a different response when they realize his idea of progress comes at their expense:

Another embarrassing fact that has come to light is that “forward” has historically been a favorite slogan for communist/socialist movements. Did the Obama people know this ahead of time? I find it hard to believe they were unaware of its history. Apparently the association doesn’t bother them all that much. If, though, we see a sharp turn away from the new slogan in the coming days, we will know they have decided it won’t work.

On the Republican side, with the suspension of the Santorum and Gingrich campaigns, Romney is the nominee-in-waiting. While he hasn’t enjoyed the enthusiastic backing of many conservatives, he is the only alternative to another Obama term, so most Republicans have resigned themselves to the inevitable:

The political world is now speculating who will take second place on the ticket. It’s an important decision for Romney, particularly if he wants conservatives to rally to him. Hopefully, more serious thought will go into that choice than was demonstrated four years ago on the Democrat side:

I keep coming back to how the future of the country truly does rest on the outcome this November. This might be the most significant election thus far in my lifetime.

The Obama campaign is rather adept at promoting phony issues. For instance, the laser-like focus on making the super-rich pay more—which would add only $47 billion to the treasury each year while we pile up more than a trillion in increased debt at the same time. Phony.

Then there’s the supposed “War on Women” that Republicans/conservatives are waging. The only complaints conservatives have on that score is having everyone pay for young, unmarried women’s contraceptives and taxpayer support for abortion via Planned Parenthood. Yet somehow that translates into a war on women. No, it’s merely opposition to immorality and murder.

This liberal attack machine went off track last week, thanks to one of Obama’s supporters. Hilary Rosen, who has visited the White House thirty-five times in the three years of this presidency, and who has had personal sessions with Obama on five occasions, declared on CNN that Ann Romney hadn’t worked a day in her life. You see, all she ever has been is a stay-at-home mom, which apparently is a life of leisure when you raise five children, at least through the prism of Leftist ideology. When asked to respond to her statement, the president simply referred to her as some television commentator.

Isn’t it amazing how quickly he can throw people under the bus? Why, he hardly even knows her, right?

Rosen then performed the ritual “apology that isn’t an apology” by being sorry “if” anyone was offended by her remarks. That has become so cliché; it has no meaning whatsoever. All she did was help the Romney campaign:

The episode didn’t advance the Democrats’ strategy:

And it put Obama in a tight spot:

That’s okay. It’s where he deserves to be. I don’t think he and his party really understand what most women seek:

Hopefully, freedom will trump phony appeals to fairness, and productivity will triumph over handouts.

News from Afghanistan and the War on Terror doesn’t look good:

President Obama’s performance hasn’t inspired much confidence either:

And just when we need to be vigilant, here’s his new approach, along with his party in Congress:

Well, you know, they have different priorities:

So now it’s official: the Super Committee wasn’t so super after all. Abject failure. No agreement on how to cut the budget by $1.2 trillion, which wasn’t even really a budget cut, but merely a slowing of the growth of the national debt. Democrats on the committee wanted to use it as a way to increase taxes by $1 trillion; Republicans rightly balked at that. Republicans offered cuts along with the closing of some loopholes to increase revenues; Democrats wouldn’t go along. This was destined to fail from the start.

I don’t want to be too hard on the committee; after all, it’s just a microcosm of the entire Congress.

For some odd reason, though, the public still continues to hold Republicans more responsible for the failure than the Democrats, despite the fact that the Republican-dominated House has passed bills with some teeth, only to see them die in the Democrat-dominated Senate—the same Senate that has refused to pass a budget for nearly one thousand days. This is frustrating. It reveals the lack of economic knowledge among the populace. They don’t like deficits, apparently, but don’t understand how to get rid of them. Taxing the rich more doesn’t even dent the problem. In fact, it only hurts economic growth, which is the only way out of the doldrums.

Leon Panetta, Obama’s own Secretary of Defense, has gone to Congress to bemoan the automatic cuts that are now going into effect. Panetta believes they will seriously harm our nation’s defenses. That’s Obama’s Secretary of Defense talking, not some Republican. Yet Obama will never take responsibility for the damage he has done.

His greatest [?] accomplishment has been to add roughly $5 trillion to the national debt in less than three years. I have to admit no other president has been able to match that feat.

His campaign strategy will be to blame Republicans. We’ll have to see just how gullible the electorate is in November 2012. My fear is that stupidity will reign once again, and we will have to suffer through a second term.

The deadline draws near. The so-called Super Committee is supposed to come up with more than a trillion dollars in savings by Wednesday. I never gave this committee much credence since it’s made up of equal numbers of Democrats and Republicans. Stalemate was inevitable.

Democrats on the committee came up with what they thought were dandy ideas for savings. The only problem? They weren’t real.

Republican efforts have been rejected, even though they contained the closing of tax loopholes to increase revenue. There doesn’t seem to be much hope for resolution. Those who are supposed to be wielding the axe do so in vain. If the Super Committee were a Pilgrim and the national debt were a turkey, there would be no Thanksgiving.

So what’s the solution?

Yeah, that should work. It’s the Washington way.

Earlier this month, I spoke at the Winter Haven, Florida, 9-12 Project. Last night I was closer to home at the Lakeland 9-12 Project meeting. As with the Winter Haven group, these are sincere citizens who want to see substantive change, as opposed to a vague, dreamy “hope-and-change” mantra without meaning. They are committed to restoring the original intent of the Constitution and in helping educate the public on basic principles.

My topic was the effect of third parties on elections. Here are a few of my prime examples.

In 1844, the Liberty Party entered the presidential election as an alternative to the Democrats and Whigs. This party had one issue only—the abolition of slavery. James G. Birney, a man of principle and courage was its presidential candidate. He had put his life on the line many times for his beliefs. I admire him. But since this was a one-issue party, defeat was inevitable; you have to develop a broad agenda and distinct philosophy of government to attract more people to your side. However, this small party probably turned the election in a direction it wouldn’t have gone otherwise. The Democrats were the pro-slavery party, while the Whigs, though divided on the issue, at least had some reformers who wanted to take steps to eliminate slavery. If any progress were to be made for abolition of slavery, it would have been far better had the Whigs won. However, the Liberty Party, although it took only 2% of the popular vote, drained enough support from the Whigs that the Democrats carried New York, the state with the largest number of electoral votes. If the Whigs had won that state, their candidate, Henry Clay, would have been president. Instead, we got James Polk, who supported the slave system.

Then, in 1912, Theodore Roosevelt challenged sitting president William Howard Taft for the Republican nomination. Roosevelt was denied the nomination, and was so angered by it that he started his own third party known as the Progressives [with a nickname of Bull Moose]. Roosevelt effectively split the Republican vote in that election, putting Democrat Woodrow Wilson in the White House. Wilson, who was even more progressive than Roosevelt, championed the idea that the Constitution was a “living document,” and that original intent should be shelved. If Taft hadn’t been opposed by Roosevelt, he probably would have won reelection and Wilson never would have become president—he garnered only 42% of the popular vote.

Finally, in 1992, the entrance of Ross Perot into the race took away 19% of the vote that traditionally would have gone to the Republicans. The result? The presidency of Bill Clinton.

More often than not, third parties allow someone to win who normally wouldn’t. And the one who wins quite often is worse than the one from whom votes were drained. In an attempt to achieve the perfect, third parties usually end up providing us with a raw deal. As the cliché goes, the perfect can be the enemy of the good.

If I have one electoral fear right now, it’s that someone, whether it be Donald Trump or Ron Paul, will decide to run as a third-party candidate in 2012, thereby ensuring an Obama reelection. I hope history can come along and be a guide—don’t destroy our best chance of reversing what has occurred on Obama’s watch. Don’t allow disunity to give this man a second term. I’m not sure the country can survive another four years.

The budget/debt ceiling bill passed the House last night, and the Senate is slated to vote on it today. Half of the Democrats opposed it; sixty-six Republicans also said no to it. The Democrats’ objections were that there were no tax increases, there were spending cuts, and it called for the Congress to send a balanced budget amendment to the states for ratification. Republicans’ objections were that most of the spending cuts were too far down the road, there is the possibility for tax increases in the future if a special commission deems them necessary [although they would still have to pass both houses to take effect], and the debt ceiling was raised in the process.

I don’t have any sympathy with the Democrat objections, but I understand why some Republicans couldn’t bring themselves to support the measure. This is not a bill that makes a fundamental change. At the same time, I understand why the majority of Republicans went along with it: when you control only one part of the Congress and there is a president who will veto anything stronger, you go for the best deal you can get, and it does change the debate at least. No longer will Congress be pushing new spending programs; the discussion will now center on how to make effective cuts in spending. In other words, I see the strengths of both Republican positions.

What we have here is not a basic philosophical difference among most Republicans, but merely a tactical one. Is this not supportable because it doesn’t do enough, or is it instead the first step along an arduous policy road on the way to the ultimate goal?

I know some people’s passions are running high on this issue, and there are those calling for new leadership in the Republican party. Yet from other accounts I have read, even many of the Republicans who rejected this bill had words of praise for Speaker Boehner and his leadership team. They recognize he did his best, and they appreciate his efforts in a tough political climate. Although they may have voted against this specific piece of legislation, they are hopeful that it really can be a first step after all. They certainly need to pull together now if anything more significant is to be achieved. Initial reports indicate they can go forward unified in what they seek to accomplish overall.

It’s always nice to see harmony. Then, of course, there is the opposite of that. Yesterday, Vice President Biden met with disgruntled House Democrats to explain why he and the president support the bill. By all accounts, it was a heated meeting, and in the midst of that heat, a few verbal shots were fired. Apparently, the VP and/or other members of the Democrat caucus called members of the Tea Party “terrorists.”

Once again the Party of Civility leads the way into a new and brighter future where mutual respect forms the cornerstone of our political system.