Confirmed: President Obama campaigns on the taxpayers’ dime more than previous presidents

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The White House dismisses the data, but, according to a study by Brendan Doherty, a U.S. naval academy assistant professor and expert on presidential travel, President Barack Obama has visited swing states “on official business” more times in a shorter span than either George W. Bush or Bill Clinton. The Wall Street Journalreports:

Between Jan. 1 and Nov. 17 of his third year in office, Bill Clinton held 40 events over 24 days in the battlegrounds of his time, according to data compiled by Brendan Doherty, a U.S. Naval Academy assistant professor who is widely viewed among political scientists as an expert on presidential travel. Over that same stretch, George W. Bush held 49 events in 34 days, drawing complaints from Democrats.

Mr. Obama has surpassed his predecessors in both categories; as of Nov. 17, he attended 54 events in 11 battleground states over 42 days. “Obama has certainly ramped up the volume,” said Mr. Doherty, author of a forthcoming book called “The Rise of the President’s Permanent Campaign.”

To me, numbers are incontrovertible, but, to an Obama staffer, such figures are easily explained away. In 2008, Obama “expanded the political map dramatically.” That is, he captured states like Virginia that were once considered staunchly Republican, effectively converting them into swing states.

That argument might have some merit — but it doesn’t change the general political tenor of all the administration’s most recent actions, from announcing unilateral actions on the economy (mortgage refinancing! student loan reform! no more swag!) to delaying a final decision on the Keystone Pipeline (although it must be said that delaying a decision was still a decision). It’s not a particularly difficult mental exercise to come up with political motivations for these moves.

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Obama has been killing business in this country at a frightening clip.
Now, even the New York Post is calling him on it!

’Tis the season . . . that President Obama should stay in Washington.

An oblivious Obama is hitting Manhattan tomorrow for three separate fund-raising and glad-handing events — creating a perfect storm for gridlock on what is already one of the busiest traffic days of the year.

The unbelievably ill-timed visit coincides with the lighting of the Rockefeller Center Christmas Tree — a people-packed event as famous for snarling traffic as it is for its display of twinkling lights.

The tree lighting — which begins two hours after Obama lands at Kennedy Airport — will force street closures on Fifth and Sixth avenues between 48th and 52nd streets, as well as shuttered east-west blocks in that zone.

At the height of the yuletide Midtown madness — which draws tens of thousands of tree-gawkers every year — Obama will be zipping around in his motorcade, darting around the area of congestion and closing whole blocks in his path.

To accommodate the presidential motorcade, parts of the FDR Drive are expected to be closed at the height of rush hour.

Expect 34th Street to be shut down in parts to transport the president to that soirée because the Secret Service prefers using wide thoroughfares.

As if the tree lighting and presidential visit aren’t bad enough, Wednesdays are extra busy in Midtown because of Broadway matinees.

Read more: http://www.nypost.com/p/news/local/traffic_bam_alert_KpOWcoXohC1Xyc4J5zzm8I#ixzz1f7xE2eZO

And another thing.
How can Obama campaign on his own constituencies’ dimes?
He is Not Interested in Voters Who Work. He is Targeting Losers Instead.
New York Times by Thomas Edsall: “The Future of the Obama Coalition.”

For decades, Democrats have suffered continuous and increasingly severe losses among white voters. But preparations by Democratic operatives for the 2012 election make it clear for the first time that the party will explicitly abandon the white working class.”

“A top priority of the less affluent wing of today’s left alliance is the strengthening of the safety net, including health care, food stamps, infant nutrition and unemployment compensation. These voters generally take the brunt of recessions and are most in need of government assistance to survive. According to recent data from the Department of Agriculture, 45.8 million people, nearly 15 percent of the population, depend on the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program to meet their needs for food.”

“All pretense of trying to win a majority of the white working class has been effectively jettisoned in favor of cementing a center-left coalition made up, on the one hand, of voters who have gotten ahead on the basis of educational attainment — professors, artists, designers, editors, human resources managers, lawyers, librarians, social workers, teachers and therapists — and a second, substantial constituency of lower-income voters who are disproportionately African-American and Hispanic.”

No one seems to be able to stop the Squanderer-in-Chief, so he may as well gather up the little woman and the kiddies and go on a long extended vacation – say, until next November. If he’s not around we’ll all be better off!