Now, being a full grown adult, I haven’t bought a pack of cards in about 25 years. But, that almost changed the other day as my wife and I went down the aisle I didn’t even know existed at our local Wal-Mart… the ultimate kid’s dream, an aisle filled with cards of all shapes, sizes, and type. I stared at the various boxes and thought to myself how much money I had wasted through the years on these simple little pieces of cardboard. Even knowing that, I almost bought a pack of cards. Not baseball cards mind you, but Barack Obama cards. Yes, our new President has his own special edition inauguration card set.

I picked up the pack intent on buying them… not because I’m a fan, more of a joke kind of thing. However, my rationale soon kicked in and I placed the pack back in its box and laughed at myself for even coming so close to spending money on such a trivial item. The package of cards was priced at $1.98 and came with 6 cards and a special sticker. Of course, there is a set to collect and the entire collection consists of 90 cards and 18 stickers. Sounds fabulous for the card buying public doesn’t it?

Looking online, I can find many places selling these small “moments of history.” I am simply amazed by the fact that there are trading cards available of Barack Obama. I know he’s become one of the most widely recognized political figures of all times, but are “baseball” cards really necessary? To me, these cards are nothing more than political propaganda created to spread the ideology of the Liberal Democratic movement. The more these types of things are constantly placed in our daily lives, the more we as a society come to accept it.

Winning the hearts and minds of a society has long been an avenue to win a war. While our country is not exactly at war with each other, we are definitely separated by a clear division between ideologies… Liberal versus Conservative. Over the last generation, both sides have had their chance at power and they’ve each done their best to destroy the “losing” side. However, as all things do, their power ebbs and flows as society eventually becomes disenchanted with the policies of each after tasting them for too long.

Conservatism was in power for quite a long run earlier this decade, but over the last few years, Liberalism has retaken the political landscape. This time, unlike any in the past, they are using their vast coffers of cash in an effort to control the media and publicity for their cause. They are focusing on winning the hearts and minds of everyone who doesn’t investigate and decide on their own what they believe in. The general public is being force-fed the liberal agenda and many of them are willingly falling in line as the promises of government handouts entice their votes.

Obama baseball cards may appear to be innocuous, but political propaganda is never harmless. As Hitler arose to power in pre WWII Germany, political propaganda was utilized to sway the hearts and minds of its citizens so that his political policies would be readily accepted. I’m not saying Obama is the second coming of Hitler by any means, but the tactics he and his party are utilizing are straight out of the textbooks utilized by the tyrants of our past.

While writing this article, I was given the pleasure of watching a commercial for The Tonight Show telling me that our President will be a guest on Thursday night. Maybe it’s me, but I don’t see the point of our sitting President being a guest on a late night talk show. There are more important things to utilize his time for. The only thing this type of appearance can be used for is the furthering of his agenda and giving us more political propaganda. He is always in our face, always in our news, always in our ear… the more he is around us, the more we accept him… at least that’s the hope of his Party and his Liberal friends pushing their agendas. Be aware, don’t succumb to complacency and miss what the true story is… always question authority when power and money are to be gained.

During the Obama campaign to become President, he consistently spoke about how he wanted serious earmark reform and how he was going to limit the total earmark spending to that of 1994 levels. His opponent, John McCain, vowed to cut earmarks off completely. They are frivolous wastes of money. If they cannot pass on their own, they should not be force-fed to the American public through the blatant misuse of political power and agenda pushing. In 1994, about $7.8 billion was spent on earmarks… I guess that promise is out the window.

The $400 billion bill contains nearly 9,000 earmark line items that account for almost $8 billion of American taxpayer funds. These are the line items that have been identified by various groups and are public knowledge. Obama himself has acknowledged the existence of these non-essential additions of expenses… his excuse is that he did not have time to examine and prioritize the current bill. The timing of the bill was of the utmost importance to keep the doors of the government open… Do you care if the government’s doors are open? Aren’t they closed for the majority of the year anyway while the politicians are off vacationing on taxpayer dollars or off throwing parties sponsored by the ultra-rich lobbyist parties?

How did this bill come about? How come the President, who is the figurehead of the Democratic Party, can’t convince his own Party to do away with unworthy earmarks throwing tax dollars away? The Democrats are the ones in power in both the House and Senate… and they have been since 2006. I suppose the Republicans are at fault or the Bush administration had something to do with the Democrats flaunting their newfound power and pushing their precious agenda forward at the expense of an already suffering nation. $8 billion more down the drain… in a time when unemployment is on the rise and the stock market is at 12 year lows.

I cannot understand how people can turn a blind eye to what is going on now that the Democratic Party has ultimate control. Obama has turned his back on his campaign promises in an effort to satisfy his true liberal political roots. He is cashing in the American dream to satisfy the debts he owes… the debts he created in becoming President. Oh, you may be one of the naïve people who believe Obama won on his own merits and political rhetoric… hardly. He is a figurehead pushed upon us by a vast legion of liberal elitists. He’s a transparent blowhard politician through and through and they always answer to someone. I’m not a tin foil hat wearer, but where money and power exist, there are people conspiring to gather more of each at all costs.

Obama, our political savior has become nothing more than a rubber stamp for his liberal friends and their policies… well, his policies. At just more than 50 days, Obama’s approval rating has already begun to slip. His own Party is becoming antsy in how he is handling the economic crisis. The $800 billion stimulus bill passed, but not in the manner that made Obama look “Presidential.”

There is nothing that can be done now, Obama will sign his name onto this new bill and we will see another $8 billion burn while many of us continue to lose our jobs, our retirements, and our house that is/was our family’s home. How many politicians do you know who have lost their house… their car… their retirement… anything for that matter? Not one. The Washington political families are safe forever, they have padded their wallets from raping the American citizens for decades… they have only the blackmailing lobbyists to worry about along with their own indecency.

It’s another sad day for the American citizen whether you’re an Obama supporter or not. You are losing your rights, your future, and your Constitution just as I am. If the first 50 days are a representation of what we’ll get for the next 1,400 while Obama is President, there may not be 50 states in our Union. Some states do have sense and we all have a Constitutional right to defend what this country stands for. People forget that states voted to become a part of the Union, the smart ones may remember that we can vote ourselves out of it.

Now, we have passed the initial 50 days of Obama’s term and the DJIA stands at 6,595.16 as we prepare to enter an even more tumultuous economic period. As of right now, the DJIA has had nearly 32% of its value sheared off. Since November, over 2.5 million workers have lost their job… since the beginning of the recession (officially started December 2007) 4.4 million jobs have been lost. It’s fairly obvious that electing our “saving grace” did nothing to cure the confidence in our markets.

These declines have occurred even with Obama pushing massive spending bills through Congress in an effort to stimulate our economy. Bush injected over $750 billion into the economy before he left office along with untold billions of dollars in ancillary stimulus money. Obama has trumped that bill by handing out nearly $800 billion and writing into the federal budget, another $750 billion for 2009. On top of that, Obama has agreed to spend over $400 billion in “health care reform.” Obama’s stimulus plan was pushed upon society as the great job saving machine that would generate 3.5 million jobs… over the next 2 years.

Looking at the analyst’s forecast for the next 2 years, they predict that unemployment will reach 9% this year… it’s at 8.1% as of this article. Next year, they are predicting well over 10% unemployment. These are estimates that were made AFTER Obama’s stimulus plans… wrap your mind around that, or better yet, your wallet… People are unrealistically focused on the unemployment rate when they should be watching the under-employment rate. The under-employment rate takes into account people who have completely given up looking for work and also includes people who are working part time jobs who need full time jobs but cannot find one. This number represents the true state of our job market.

So where does that number stand at today? Try 14.8% on for size. 8.1% unemployment supposedly equals 12.5 million people according to the government stats. 14.8% equals nearly 23 million people either out of work, given up on finding work, or involuntarily working part time jobs. These numbers are based on the idea that 155 million or so Americans work for a living.

Right now, let’s just round off the spending that we know of to $3 trillion. That means that our government has spent almost $20,000 per working American in an effort to stop the bleeding. Have you seen this 20k in your bank account? Have you seen your taxes reduced by 20k this year? Have you seen your house value go up 20k or lose multiple times that in value? Has your stock portfolio increased by 20k or dropped even more? Where is this money going? If the money was going to those who “create” jobs, then why is the economy shedding our jobs at a much faster pace since the money was injected than before?

Common sense would make you think that the injection of these massive amounts of money should have at least given us a plateau in job losses. I understand that the Democrats in the house say that the current economic hardships are the results of the Bush administration’s legacy. Let’s put some rationale to that ideology. The Democrats were in charge of both the House and Senate and also controlled almost 75% of state governorships since 2006. The recession started in December 2007. The Bush administration’s legacy from 2000-2006 was far from a recession. In those years, the Republican Party controlled the majority of political power seats. Sure, the effects of everything takes time to truly pan out, but the turning point was the date the Democrats took control of our country and their inability to curtail their partisanship and hatred of Bush. They allowed their political feelings affect how they governed our country and now we are all paying the price for their failings.

Where did our Presidential placebo go? The bounce we were so focused upon receiving did not happen. Rather than an uptick in our financial markets, a curtailing of our job losses, and a wealthier nation, we are now at a point where we are just entering the deepest valleys of this recession. I am convinced that we are going to see even worse times as we search for the rock bottom of our economic downturn. Millions more Americans will lose their jobs, billions more American taxpayer dollars will be spent without our agreement, and our stocks will continue to fall while we watch the foreclosure signs weather in our yards and our bank accounts shrink into penny savings. The placebo didn’t work and neither is spending money we don’t have. Placebo… we need the real deal.

My simple idea was to divide the $750 billion up evenly between the 150 million people. Give them the stimulus money since it was tax payer funded and the results would be an effective tax rebate to those who paid in. I only support giving money back to people who legitimately file their taxes year in and year out… if you don’t file, you don’t qualify for federal assistance in my opinion. Anyway, that’s an article for another day…

Dividing $750 billion (10 zeroes) by 150 million (7 zeroes) comes out to a nice round $5000 per HOH. How nice would that be for your family? Well, let’s do this a different way. I just went and checked the government’s census website and in 2007, the labor force itself consisted of 151 million people age 16 and over (my HOH number appears to be fairly overestimated as I assumed). Based on that, I’m going to remove my HOH evaluation and focus upon workers. Now, everyone who works AND files a tax return gets $5,000. For my household that means my family would get $20,000 because both of our sons work and my wife and I both work. We all file and we all pay our taxes.

Sounds great doesn’t it… putting the stimulus money into the hands of individuals who will spend the money at the local restaurant or grocery store or have enough to pay a credit card off or two and be able to buy a new gas saving vehicle for the future. But, that’s not where the money went, it went to wealthy corporations who were allowed to survive rather than face their punishment for taking insane risks with everyone’s money. As we have seen, the initial $750 billion did nothing to quell the recession’s decline. Throwing money at a problem is not the solution.

Now, Obama has just signed into law another $800 billion stimulus package… along with putting an additional $750 billion in the budget for failing banks and other institutions to help end the recession. Throw in a few other hundred billion spent on the side by our government and we are looking at a minimum total of at least $2.5 trillion (that’s 11 zeroes). Keeping with the worker division… that equates to roughly $16,500 per worker in the United States.

Rather than $20,000 for my household, we would be looking at $66,000 hitting our bank accounts. According to the census information, the average household is 2.6 people and the average family is 3.2 people. So, at minimum, you would likely see $33,000 in each working family’s account. Do you think that would spark the economy? I think it would create a raging inferno. The economy would likely begin growing at such a pace that inflation would be a serious issue as a potential side effect (inflation can be dealt with… millions of people without jobs is even worse).

Maybe we can be a little safe here and just split the $2.5 trillion up in half… half to the workers and half to the corporations. Even then, we are looking at $8,300 per worker. My simple point is that these stimulus billed are misnamed. They are not stimulating anything but corporate wealth. Worker wealth has continued to decrease and jobs are still being lost as if they were water pouring through a funnel. Stimulate the local economies where the local business owners are… stimulating the workers by giving them resources to pull our families through this mess. Instead of trickle down stimulus effects, maybe we should focus on trickle up. Who better to stimulate the economy than those who actually put forth the effort to make it work?

Anyway, now that I’m done venting about how my news time is wasted by the incessant coverage of the second coming of MLK or Abraham Lincoln, I’ll get on with my topic… Who is going to pay for the “stimulus” bill and the associated tag along spending programs designated to end our recession? During the end of the Bush term, the first stimulus bill came to pass and we allocated over $700 billion tax payer dollars to solve the financial crisis. There were several other “smaller” bills throughout the last few months that brought the actual number to well over a trillion. Now, we have another $800 billion set to be spent to further solve the crisis. Oh but wait, there’s more. In the current Obama government budget, there’s another $750 billion being set aside for more failing banks and institutions. Add that up… Yes, it does come up to nearly $3 trillion American tax payer dollars.

This is not to mention the emergency funds released by the Federal Reserve and International Monetary Fund to help ease the lending markets in our country and worldwide. Billions here, near trillions there, and yet we are still falling deeper into recession. Last I checked the yearly GDP of the United States stood at nearly $14 trillion for 2007. I would imagine 2008 will be similar if not less given the state of our economy during the second half of last year. In the last 3 or so months, we have mortgaged nearly a quarter of an entire year’s worth of American GDP. It doesn’t sound so bad, but it’s not like we were working on a budget in the first place.

One of the major campaign points during the last election cycle focused on how the Democrats were going to balance the budget and reign in our growing deficit. Yes, even though America created nearly $14 trillion in GDP, we spent more! Now that things are getting even worse, you would think we would tighten the belt across the board… especially at the governmental level. It’s only common sense right? Nope… according to the Obama budget, we will be running a deficit of $1.75 trillion in 2009… and if you’re like me, you know that’s used car salesman speak for over $2 trillion.

Bush never even came close to such numbers, and yet the Democrats are going to shatter the numbers they complained about for 8 years. Oh sure, I’ve heard it all… Obama inherited the problems and now he has to spend the money to bring us out of the terrible economy Bush saddled him with. Last I checked, Bush didn’t force the banks to run their risks to the ceiling and he didn’t force home owners to take loans with no down payment on houses that were priced 3 or 4 times what they could afford. Oh, and don’t forget to throw in that $4 per gallon gasoline we experienced.

So, where exactly does all this money come from? It has to come from somewhere… that somewhere is our pockets. Democrats plan to make the “wealthy” pay the majority of the difference since everyone who makes under $250k are supposedly going to see tax breaks and more federal assistance in the form of health care and other subsidized worker laziness. Do you really think the wealthy individuals are going to simply turn over their bank accounts to pay for all of this? I highly doubt it. In the end, EVERYONE is going to be paying for these horrendous spending decisions. Maybe not on your paycheck under the federal tax line, but you’ll be paying higher state taxes, higher local taxes, and you’ll be paying to support a myriad of programs you have no willingness to do. Your money will be confiscated in many ways, but not by the word tax… yeah right.

Obama runs his mouth like he’s the savior of our world and his photogenic face and vocal skills can actually make you feel like he means what he continually says to you (while reading the teleprompter). But, when the pen hits the paper, his policy support relays a much different reality. Obama speaks the right way, but acts as all hard line Liberal Democrats do. Pelosi and Obama have much in common, but I would guarantee you, even if you’re a hardcore Democrat, you wouldn’t vote for her to be our President… check the voting records, Pelosi and Obama are hand in hand.

In the future, when your check and earning power has decreased because of these insane amounts of money being spent, remember where the initial money went. The initial money did not go to you and I, it went to corporate executives and failing businesses that played the risk game and lost. We will be paying for this, our children will be paying for this, and their grandchildren will be paying… assuming the United States is even a viable country at that point in time.

Even with an overwhelming majority in both the House and Senate, Obama has faced some difficult experiences in his first month when trying to push through his ideology and policy decisions. Yes, the majority of what he wants has come to pass, but not without spending a considerable amount of his theoretical and generally worthless, political capital. There have been disastrous cabinet appointee failures and there have been unfavorable responses to some of his proposed stimulus bill policies among many other minor disturbances.

I distinctly remember the night Obama invoked his awe inspiring acceptance speech on the night of our general election. I also distinctly remember him telling the millions of Americans who did not vote for him how he was going to be their President too. He told us that he was going to walk down the aisle of bi-partisanship. He told us he was going to bring change to Washington. He told us he was going to work for the people to make our nation what it once was. Little more than 30 days into his Presidency, is he keeping his promises he made that night? Is he keeping the promises he made on the campaign trail?

Well, number one, Obama brought no change to Washington as he did nothing more than appoint Washington insiders to every post he has been given a chance to fill. He has mined the standby Democratic powers that be to the fullest. Where is the new blood? Where is the “Yes we can” ideology? Why do we have to sit back and watch the same politicians who have been running our government for generations continue their abuse of power over the American citizen? Why… when the single most important aspect of Obama’s campaign was change?

If I had voted for Obama, I would be sitting pretty uncomfortable right now because the man I would have voted for is not the man sitting in the Oval Office at this point in time. Sure, he has another 47 months to change how we perceive him, but hey, there is something to first impressions… I’ve got some numbers from the latest polls that show all is not well with the savior of the free world’s first month.

In only 30 days, Obama’s approval rating has dropped by nearly 10 percentage points. Two out of three Americans currently approve of how Obama is doing. That is still an extremely high number, but a nine percent drop in one month should be extremely worrisome for Obama supporters. Where did the drop come from? There are three segments polled, Democrats, Independents, and Republicans. Of course the Republican vote dropped the most from 50 percent to a drastically reduced 31 percent. Hey, even half of the Republican crowd gave Obama the benefit of the doubt… only to be shown his true colors in less than one month how the liberal Obama would govern our country.

The other two segments dropped as follows: Independents (the ones who actually voted Obama into office) dropped to 61 from 67 percent. Democrats basically held steadfast to their banker, err, I mean President with 92 percent, slightly down from 96 percent. If I were a Democrat, I would be pretty happy with what has transpired during the first month because by selling my vote, I now have more federal money coming my way that I haven’t worked for at the expense of those who do. I’ve also got more tax rebates coming my way that I don’t deserve because I didn’t pay anything in taxes during the year. It’s a great system at this juncture for a Democrat and the Democratic voting bloc.

First month jitters or the real Obama? Which one is it? My vote is that it’s the real Obama. The one with puppet strings tied to massive bank accounts of unknown campaign contributors. He is the one with ultra liberal policies who lied to the American public about his stance regarding bi-partisanship. As my bank account, 401k, home value, and confidence shrinks, there are others in the country receiving the benefits of selling their vote by sharing the shrinking wealth of those who work and earn their living. The first month jitters are costing millions of Americans jobs, money, and their future.

All kinds of arguments are around us regarding what is fair and what isn’t when we talk about taxes. We hear terms such as progressive, regressive, inclusive, exclusive, and even sometimes we hear about a thing called The Fair Tax. Assuming we need to pay for our government to run, we need to pay some form of taxation so that we can have a military to protect our borders. We also need a governing body in place to protect our Constitution and our rights as citizens. The rest of the governing can be done at the state level in my opinion.

I’m not going to talk about that though… Today I ran across a discussion on our local major newspaper’s website involving The Fair Tax… or flat tax or even national sales tax as some people like to call it whether that’s correct or not. I’ve written an article or two about that particular tax plan and I am a strong supporter of it. I’m not going to go into the details of the plan again, but you can read about it online and even read my past articles. What I want to talk about is a particular comment made by someone in the discussion I read today.

Person X states, “The only fair tax is a steeply progressive income tax. It puts the tax burden on those who can afford it.” This of course was in response to someone supporting The Fair Tax, but person X has never read or understands the components of the proposed plan/bill. What is mind numbing to me is the simple statement made above. A “steeply progressive” income tax is absolute communism… purely blatant Marxism to the dotted i and crossed t. As for the “burden” of taxes, who are you to decide? Is your vote worth more than another American citizen? Is your dollar worth more than your neighbor’s?

Sure, wealthy people can theoretically “afford” to pay more taxes, but should they be required to pay for everyone’s way just because they can withstand such a burden? Oh, it’s the greater good argument, I get that. That’s socialism and communism wrapped up in a nice ideology. Let me just say that I work for my wealth and I pay my taxes to support many things I am ardently opposed to. My tax dollars are now supporting abortions thanks to Mr. Savior President Barack Obama. My tax dollars are now supporting more welfare families that have no ambition to work than ever before. My tax dollars support millions of immigrants who have no inclination to become citizens but yet still utilize our healthcare, our police protection, and our public services… all paid for by tax dollars.

In the end, the wealthy and those who can withstand the “burden” of taxes will wise up and stop supporting the leeches of our society… fair for the goose right? Why would I choose to work and break my back to simply carry those “unfortunate” individuals who have less wealth? If you have the ability to work and aren’t disabled, you should be forced to work a 40 hour week just like everyone else BEFORE you receive a penny of taxpayer funded support. Helping the lazy in our society has put us in the position we are in.

If I am required to help more and more people and policies that I do not support, guess what, I’m going to stop working. I’m going to stop supporting the dregs of our society. Eventually, more and more people will do the same. The wealthy and even middle class will leave the country… maybe not physically, but their money will. Jobs will leave the country because taxes will be too high within our borders. Nobody will work because the entire system is built upon reverse incentives. Work hard, pay for more lazy people to stay home. Great, that’s fair…

The tax system is nothing more than a vote buyoff program. The so-called needy, poor, or non-wealthy are nothing more than pawns in the games of those in power. This group of society gladly trades their rights for dollars in their pocket. Promise me a check and you can have my right and my vote. Thank you Mr. Obama… where’s my food stamps and tax rebate check?

If you have read more than a paragraph of any of my nearly 200 articles to this date, you know full well that Obama is not my favorite politician (He ranks in the same category as Nancy Pelosi, Ted Kennedy, and let’s throw someone of the same character in here, the ever brilliant political mind, Lindsay Lohan.) So if Obama is not my political savior and governmental messiah, why am I so excited about the day he takes the oath of office?

Number one, I will NEVER have to hear another report by the so-called respectable news outlets about what dress Michelle Obama is going to wear to the inauguration. My ears have nearly bled from such innate conversation about nothing. As these reports wore on, I felt as if I were the one sitting in Guantanamo Bay being subjected to water boarding. Seriously, do we care? Is her dress going to hire two million people and replace the nearly 10 trillion dollars the stock market lost last year? Get over it, it’s just a dress.

Number two, I will NEVER have to hear another report about how there has never been a black President in our country (although Obama is only half black…). I could care less about the color of this man’s skin. Racism is alive and well in this country and for those who think this is the nail in racism’s coffin, continue living in your dream world and send me a check on behalf of your consummate stupidity. We all would like racism to be a dead and gone civil issue, but we must face the fact that it still exists. Sweeping an issue under the rug does not mean it’s cured.

Number three, Obama will now be given the chance to put his so-called money where his mouth is. I can run my mouth as well as Obama can, but he has now been given the position to where he can either come through on his promises or fail like all the other politicians. Yes, all the previous politicians have failed to achieve their campaign promises simply because they cannot change everything in such a short time. There is too much money and too much power on both sides of the aisle to allow the sweeping governmental change that Obama has promised.

There are many other issues that I am sick of hearing about and I’m sure will still garner air time over the next few months and even years, but the time has come for Obama to show what he is made of. Is he a paper politician led by the vast wallets that helped get him elected? Is he deserving of the accolades he has received and the comparisons to MLK, JFK, and even Abraham Lincoln? Will his first term be his last? How will Obama deal with the enemies of our country abroad? Does he have what it truly takes to defend our Constitution or will he shred it like his policies and voting record portends?

Our mainstream media will be riding the coattails of Obama for quite a while so we won’t get a true feel for his administration for quite some time. But, I figure about two years into his Presidency, our nation will know whether we elected a true leader or just another Jimmy Carter. While I don’t agree with Obama’s policies, I do hope that he and his administration achieve what is best for our country. Policy and politics aside, I’m an American citizen and we need good to come of this. I can only hope that America is a stronger nation because of the next four years and not a weaker one. So, let’s get on with this show.

In the past, candidates utilized gimmicks to get their name out amongst the masses, but as times change and new information avenues open up, new ways to spend money appears. No longer are large campaign signs featuring the latest memorable slogan or supporters walking around with t-shirts and signs stamped with their candidate’s name enough. No longer are stump speeches enough to get the policy stances out. No longer are debates the focus of differentiating the candidates running for President. No longer are we in a world where the focus of the campaign is on the actual policy stances and historical voting records of our candidates.

We have entered an age where the campaign for President has become a popularity contest. Never in my life had I ever witnessed a campaign for the most powerful office in the world run more like a high school prom king contest. The news media, television and print, spent more time bickering over such inane topics such as lipstick, hairdos, age, dresses, and just general non-essential subjects than ever before. Sure, some of the information is pertinent to the situation because we all want to “get to know” the candidate, but when there is an economic meltdown occurring while we are engaged in two foreign wars, I think there were better ways to spend our time.

Reports about how much Sarah Palin’s wardrobe cost came out before the election. Obama’s campaign flunkies continually focused upon the wardrobe of John McCain’s wife (which was mostly irrelevant considering her family fortune). Of course before Election Day, all we heard about the Obama campaign was how diverse his fund raising ability was and how much money he collected… over $600 million in his run for President.

Finally, we have some publicly available reports about how Obama’s campaign spent their money over the last few weeks of the campaign. It turns out that Obama spent over $147 million in the final weeks and the purchases would surprise some of you. According to the New York Daily News, Obama spent $4 million on Google advertising and an additional $9.4 million on online advertising, $4.4 million on print ads, and $62 million on television advertising. Also amongst the campaign purchases were 400,000 temporary Obama tattoos and payments to people like Jimmy Buffett and the remaining Grateful Dead band members for appearances and concerts.

In an historical first, Barack Obama even purchased a 30 minute television commercial which delayed the start of a World Series game. Obama even bought advertising in video games which will be seen forever. Barack Obama embraced the popularity contest and utilized his enormous campaign financing edge to win the office of President. McCain followed through on his promise to accept public financing which limits the total amount of money available for campaign spending but Obama reneged on his promise and chose private financing. His choice allowed him to generate over $600 million in contributions while McCain was limited to maybe 20% of that for his general election campaign.

As we have seen, Obama dominated the airwaves and advertising avenues by well over a three to one margin and his publicity stunts were effective in maintaining his lead throughout the election process. Turning our election process into a popularity contest is a major disservice to the American citizen. We should not be treated to a “purchased” politician running our country. We should be treated to a man who would run our country for free, and a campaign which focuses on the policies and direction of our country. I think the campaign for President should be 100% volunteer work and if elected, every cabinet official and advisor should work free from taxpayer provided money and assistance.

If that were the case, I would think we would have a much different political landscape because people would run for office that were true patriots and not power and money vultures. Work FOR the people who voted you in and NOT for those who financed your purchased seat in office.

Citation: http://www.nydailynews.com/

While I was always highly skeptical of Obama and his Liberal Agenda, I thought maybe, just maybe, he would be true to his word and bring new life and new blood to our government. I have never agreed with any portion of his Liberal Agenda, but I do subscribe to the necessary changes required in our governmental process. Even though his policies are against my beliefs, I thought maybe by bringing in some “change,” we would all benefit from it because the tried and true partisan politics we have experienced for generations would have to evolve and deal with the new regime for at least the next four years.

Skepticism is usually based upon seeds of truth and my skeptical nature was confirmed not long after the final vote was cast in the election. Obama has begun the monumental task of putting together his cabinet while also “trying” to satisfy his campaign promises. As it turns out, campaign promises made by Obama are just as easy to break as any other politician seeking office. Did any of us truly think anything different? Sure, we were all overwhelmed by the momentous victory Obama achieved and all of the important social ramifications it presented, but we, people who voted for him and against, were told he would bring about “Change we can believe in.”

Where has this “change” gone? What change are we seeing when every single name he has considered and chosen been a political insider from previous regimes? What kind of change can we believe in when they are all politically tied to certain policies and agendas? What kind of change can we achieve if the new ideas are the same ideas we’ve had for decades? Change implies new people, new policy, new agendas, and new direction. Change simply cannot be a regurgitation of the same old people, policy, agenda, and direction. Obama ran his campaign on change and the only thing he has changed is his postal mailing address come inauguration day… oh, and a new family puppy.

I am severely disappointed in the backbone of our President Elect for not living up to his simple promise of change. He has chosen to disregard his entire campaign’s platform because in reality, he NEVER was going to bring about change. A man in his position makes promises to voter groups and people of great power. In exchange for their support, he must provide something in return. His only form of repayment is to acquiesce to their demands if he wants his political career to continue. President Elect or not, he still must serve those who brought him into power… which isn’t necessarily the voters.

We all like to believe that our President is a man, or woman, who can be the flash point, the catalyst, the true direction maker of our country. But we know that’s not the truth in our heart of hearts. Our President is nothing more than a puppet, a face, a figurehead. The true power resides in the Congress and thus, in the voter’s hands. The President does have executive power, but true lawmaking ability and direction decisions are made by hundreds of other citizen elected officials sitting in the seats of the House of Representatives and Senate.

Obama promised change, but has done nothing but do more of the same. The change we can believe in requires our votes to oust the partisan political members in the Congress and start anew. Start with people who truly care about our country and most importantly, our Constitution. We focus too much on a single person when in fact he can do very little with his single voice, his single vote, or his single request.