Thursday, December 22, 2011

How to Lose to Obama

It's easy if you try.
by John Hayward

Some observers think that President Obama’s awful record should make it easy for any of the GOP candidates to beat him. That’s a dangerous delusion. No incumbent should ever be underestimated, especially one the media loves. Also, each of the Republican candidates has proven highly adept at techniques for losing the 2012 election. Here are a few of their favorites.

1. Engaging in academic discussions on the campaign trail: Newt Gingrich and Ron Paul are especially prone to doing this. Phrases like “hypothetically speaking” should be absolutely shunned by a presidential candidate. The voters are not eager to participate in a dorm-room bull session about the theoretical limits of American government, nor do they wish to be used in a laboratory experiment. Likewise, they’ll respect a command of history, but be turned off by long lectures about prior centuries. Dwelling at length upon the past is a good way to seem out of touch.

2. Forgetting about your own platform: The big thing Herman Cain did really well was talking up his own platform (although sometimes he was much better at delivering enthusiasm than details.) He brought everything back to the 999 Plan, and conveyed the sense he passionately believed in it. In fact, he’s still working on promoting it, even after suspending his campaign.

On the other hand, Rick Perry and even idea factory Newt Gingrich often neglect to bring up their own core proposals, some of which are quite dramatic. Both of them favor a flat tax, for example. That’s a huge change to our system. The 999 Plan is essentially a flat tax fused to a consumption tax, and Cain always knew it would rattle a lot of cages. Perry and Gingrich act like their flat tax plans are minor curiosities that can be looked up on their Web sites, should voters feel suitably motivated.

Worse, Perry has actually forgotten about important details of his own plan. Appearing in Iowa with Louisiana governor Bobby Jindal on Tuesday, he forgot that his plan included a standard deduction. Jindal had to remind him about it. Coupled with the infamous moment in which Perry couldn’t remember the third department he wanted to eliminate during a debate, it’s an unsettling tendency.

Treating a major policy change with this kind of neglect turns voters off. It makes them think the candidate hasn’t thought his plan all the way through, isn’t serious about implementing it, or hasn’t considered all of its ramifications. The candidate ends up taking the heat for proposing a bold idea, without reaping any of the rewards.

3. Picking fights with the Republican base. Some pundits wonder why Jon Huntsman has never managed more than an asterisk in the polls. Simple: he launched his campaign by aggressively insulting the conservative base, and declaring himself the moderate alternative to those Tea Party extremists. You only get one chance to make a first impression, and Huntsman’s first impression was awful. His relatively conservative campaign has never been able to overcome this.

In a similar vein, one of the reasons Mitt Romney has such a persistent ceiling on his appeal is that he’s either alienated various elements of the conservative movement in the past, or he’s patronizing them now. Ron Paul’s casual assertions that those who disagree with his foreign policy views are bloodthirsty warmongers alienates both Republican and general election voters. He actually said of Michele Bachmann, on national television, “She hates Muslims. Yeah, she wants to go get ‘em.”

There’s always a tendency for candidates to “tack to the middle” during the general election, at the expense of their base. Hopefully none of the Republican candidates are under any illusions about the willingness of significant portions of their base to endure outright insults and betrayals. No matter how much they want Obama out of office, some of them can be persuaded to stay home on Election Night, arms folded in disgust.

4. Opposing Obama’s policies without understanding why they’re wrong: This is one of Mitt Romney’s big problems, courtesy of RomneyCare. Republican voters have spent years worrying that he would be an unreliable or ineffective opponent of ObamaCare… and in all those years, he still hasn’t found a way to reassure them. This is not merely peevish behavior on their part. They know moderate and independent voters need to hear an argument against ObamaCare that is not just convincing, but devastating. After all, they will be frequently reminded that repealing it will be a huge political and bureaucratic struggle.

Newt Gingrich will also face challenges in this area, because as sharp as he has been in debates, a little bit of his political soul will always be glued to that couch, next to Nancy Pelosi.

5. Getting carried away: Michele Bachmann’s consistent mistake has been going too far with initially valid criticisms, and leaving herself open to chiding that she “doesn’t have her facts straight,” as Newt Gingrich put it during the last Republican debate. Imagine what that will be like when it’s not a grumpy Gingrich, but a school of “fact-checking” media piranha, ready to pounce on her.

A running theme of the Obama 2012 campaign will be that criticism of the President is morally illegitimate – in other words, the Republican candidate hates him because he’s black, or because they’re servants of the Evil Rich, et cetera. Sloppy criticism will play right into that storyline.

6. Losing control of the narrative: The great danger of media bias is not so much outright obfuscation or propaganda, although we’ll probably have some of that, too. The real danger is narrative control. To put it simply, the media decides on a plot line for the election, and it guides their coverage. This plot line will not be friendly to the GOP nominee.

The candidate should not underestimate his or her power to change the narrative. In 2008, John McCain was particularly horrible at this. He couldn’t put together a winning storyline of “How President McCain Won the White House.” He couldn’t even cobble together a good reason for voters to vote against his opponent, apparently terrified that strong criticism of Obama would blow up in his face.

Excessive timidity against Obama will result in a loss of narrative control, as media-influenced moderate voters begin wondering why the mousy GOP candidate wasted everyone’s time and money with an election. At some point, criticism of policy inevitably becomes "personal" criticism of the incumbent - who must, by definition, have been either malicious or foolish to insist on such disastrous policy for years.

A big part of narrative control is understanding how to engage the media, draw them along a desired path, and give them something positive they can’t help talking about. Rick Santorum and Jon Huntsman seem to have a lot of trouble grabbing the spotlight and doing this. It’s hard to suddenly become exciting.

7. Freezing up: By this I don’t just mean brain freezes on the debate stage, although those are plenty bad enough. Unexpected events will occur during the campaign. Some of these candidates have long histories, elements of which will be popping up at carefully timed moments. The campaigns must be ready to adapt. Herman Cain’s campaign gave us a couple of sharp lessons in how not to do it. Confusion and disarray among campaign operatives can be disastrous. Responses must be swift and coordinated.

As for the debate stage itself, there’s no doubt that mumbling and verbal lockups are bad news. Obama is a fairly smooth speaker, particularly in formal settings. He can say some remarkably weird things, but the way he says them conveys poise. He’s good at deploying stock phrases like “As I have always said” and “Let me be clear” when he needs to buy a little time. Both style and substance will be part of this campaign, and the Republican’s style will inevitably be judged more harshly.

President Obama is very beatable, but losing is easy too. Far too many post-mortems for failed campaigns begin with the observation that the candidate never really understood the forces aligned against him. The result of the 2012 campaign needs to be something better than a best-selling 2013 book by a defeated candidate, reviewing all the ways he or she was treated unfairly. Write that book in your heads right now, GOP contenders… and then run a campaign that tears it to shreds.

John Hayward is a staff writer for HUMAN EVENTS, and author of the recently published Doctor Zero: Year One. Follow him on Twitter: Doc_0. Contact him by email at jhayward@eaglepub.com.

Old Testament prophecy fulfilled before our eyes?

Americans scrambling to Bible to see previously untold parallels with today


By Joe Kovacs

© 2011 WND


What do sycamore and cedar trees have to do with biblical prophecy, the tragic events of 9/11 and the imminent future of the United States?


The roots of a sycamore tree at Ground Zero felled on Sept. 11, 2001, have been preserved as a memorial to the event in New York City. A local messianic rabbi believes it's a visible fulfillment of an Old Testament prophecy about God's current judgment on America.

Everything, according to a new book which says an obscure text from the Old Testament prophet Isaiah is an urgent wake-up call for all Americans in light of what happened on that fateful day in 2001.

"The Harbinger" by Jonathan Cahn, a messianic rabbi from the Jerusalem Center-Beth Israel Congregation in Wayne, N.J., deciphers stunning connections between what some may think is a cryptic biblical prophecy to the news events happening right now, in our current time.

Read "The Harbinger: The Ancient Mystery That Holds the Secret of America's Future" for yourself!

The key verse in question is Isaiah 9:10, which states: "The bricks are fallen down, but we will build with hewn stones: the sycomores are cut down, but we will change them into cedars." (King James Version)

These words were first uttered by leaders in ancient Israel and in response to a limited strike by Assyria on the lands of Zebulun and Naphtali – an attack the prophet makes clear is actually part of a limited judgment by God against apostasy. It wasn't meant to destroy the nation, but to awaken it, according to most commentaries.

Historically speaking, the northern kingdom of Israel did not repent of its rebellion against God's commandments, and were eventually conquered and deported from their property by the ancient Assyrians. Eventually, the southern kingdom of Judah was also overcome by the Babylonians after the Jews refused to repent as well.

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But in "The Harbinger," Cahn shows uncanny similarities between what's stated in Isaiah 9:10 to the 21st century events of 9/11 and the years afterward, suggesting America is currently under a time of focused judgment by Almighty God.


Cahn claims the part of the prophecy noting "The bricks are fallen down" refers directly to the crumbling of the World Trade Center in New York City, with the verse connoting on an attitude of defiance, a desire to rebuild with stronger materials instead of acknowledging the hand of God and moving toward national repentance.

The verse mentions sycamore and cedar trees, and it's here that things start to get eerie with the terrorist attack involving planes that smashed into the Twin Towers, leading to their eventual crumbling.

"After the cloud of dust began to clear, police officers, rescue workers and onlookers gazed at the little plot of land at the edge of Ground Zero," Cahn writes in "The Harbinger."

"There in the middle of the ash and debris that covered the ground was a fallen tree. It would soon become a symbol of 9/11 and of Ground Zero. And it was a symbol ... but one much more ancient than anyone there could have realized, and one carrying a message no one could have fathomed."

"The tree at Ground Zero that was struck down on September 11 was a sycamore tree."

Cahn notes that in Old Testament times, the Assyrians who attacked the ancient Israelites intended to cut down the sycamore trees belonging to God's people. But the intention was not present with the hijackers of 2001.

"The terrorists had no idea of Isaiah 9:10, no idea of the Harbingers, no idea of the sycamore tree growing at the corner of Ground Zero, and no idea that their attack would cause it to fall or that its fall was connected to an ancient prophecy. They had no idea ... but it still happened."

Not only was a sycamore tree struck on 9/11, but it was replaced in the exact same location by another tree of the type mentioned in the original Hebrew, an "erez" tree, which is the same genus as the cedar.


The uprooted sycamore tree from Ground Zero was replaced by the "Tree of Hope," a conifer tree which Rabbi Jonathan Cahn says fulfills the prophecy of Isaiah 9:10.

"The most natural thing to have done would have been to replace one sycamore with another," Cahn writes. "But the prophecy required that the fallen sycamore be replaced with a tree of an entirely different nature. So the tree that replaced the sycamore of Ground Zero was likewise not a sycamore. According to the prophecy, the sycamore must be replaced by the biblical erez. So it must be replaced by a conifer tree."

And that's what took place in 2003, as a conifer tree, the "Tree of Hope" as it was called, was planted in the spot where the sycamore was slammed on 9/11.

"Think about it," says Cahn. "Who could have put it all together? The tower fell because of the terrorists. It happened to fall exactly as it did in order to strike down that one particular tree. The tree just happened to be a sycamore, which just happened to be growing at the corner of Ground Zero.

"The tree that would replace it just happened to be given as a gift from outsiders who had nothing to do with anything else, but who just happened to feel led to give it. Their gift just happened to be the fulfillment of the biblical Erez Tree, which just happened to be the same tree spoken of in the ancient vow – the tree that must replace the Sycamore.

"They just happened to lower it into the same soil in that the fallen Sycamore had once stood – exactly as in the Hebrew of the ancient vow. And the man who led the ceremony around the tree just happened to bring it all together without knowing that he was bringing anything together. No one knew what they were doing. It wasn't a matter of intent. It was a manifestation of the Harbingers."

"The parallels are truly stunning," says Joseph Farah, founder of WND, who is producing a video documentary about Cahn's findings. "They are too numerous and too powerful to relate in news story form. In fact, they are overwhelming in their number and their exactitude. I am persuaded God is trying to tell America something and Rabbi Cahn has found the key to unlocking the message."

As WND previously reported, two major American political figures actually voiced the Isaiah 9:10 prophecy in public in the immediate wake of the 9/11 onslaught.

"In the aftermath of the attack, the nation was stunned," said Cahn, "Everyone was trying to make sense of what had happened – this unprecedented attack on America. The very next day, September 12, then Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle presented America's response to the world. And what did he say?"

Daschle said: "America will emerge from this tragedy as we have emerged from all adversity – united and strong. Nothing … nothing can replace the losses of those who have suffered. I know there is only the smallest measure of inspiration that can be taken from this devastation. But there is a passage in the Bible from Isaiah that speaks to all of us at times like this."

He then went on to read Isaiah 9:10:

"Daschle has no idea what he is doing here," explains Cahn. "He thinks he's offering comforting words to a grief-stricken people, but he is actually embracing the spiritually defiant and arrogant words of the children of Israel, proclaiming the ancient and ominous vow of the leaders of that nation. He doesn't realize it, but he is actually inviting more judgment on the nation."

It might be of some significance that Daschle, one of the most powerful men in the nation when he spoke those words, later fell into disgrace – to the point where he couldn't even serve in Barack Obama's Cabinet.

That might have been the end of the story – if no other top leader in the nation uttered those strange and obscure words after 9/11. But that's not the case.

On the third anniversary of the attack, Sept. 11, 2004, another powerful U.S. senator running for vice president that year and who would famously run for the presidency four years later, gave a speech to the Congressional Black Caucus.

This time, John Edwards' entire speech was built on a foundation of Isaiah 9:10: "Today, on this day of remembrance and mourning, we have the Lord's Word to get us through," he said. He then read Isaiah 9:10. He went on to talk about how America was doing just that – rebuilding with hewn stone and planting cedars:

"Like Daschle, Edwards thinks he's invoking inspirational and comforting words from the Bible, but he's actually inviting judgment on America," says Cahn. "He's repeating the vow that provoked God to bring calamity on ancient Israel."

Get Rabbi Jonathan Cahn's "The Harbinger: The Ancient Mystery That Holds the Secret of America's Future."

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