To the Republican voter entering this election season, the choices are less than exciting. If you’ve turned on the television recently, you’d think that the Republican Party is geared up and ready for the election season, but after weeks of conversations with conservatives from around the city, it has become clear that there is a shear lack of excitement for this slate of candidates.
Fox News would have you believe differently though. In hopes up drumming up support for their weak candidates, they are instead helping the Democratic Party to rally behind their President. Democrats are afraid for November. Their fear is that a Herman Cain or a Newt Gingrich could be the nominee and ride into office on the waves of an unpredictable economy. This fear has led to the record high Democratic Party fundraising numbers, which has outweighed the entire Republican field combined in all fundraising quarters thus far.
In hopes of beating the President in November, the Republican establishment is trying to paint their candidates’ radical points of view as the winning policies to beat the President. But this pandering is destructive to their chances of winning. The Republican voters I know are smarter than that, and they do not stand behind the tea-party’s dogma that has bolstered the rise of Newt Gingrich this week, and Herman Cain last.
Similarly, it is tough for even Mitt Romney to show any enthusiasm toward his candidacy, let alone anyone else. But the rhetoric he has invoked lately has led even the most moderate of independent voters to wonder if they could really pull the lever for him over President Obama. This lack of enthusiasm for either candidate has led to a GOP that is out of energy, money, and time.
Meanwhile, the President has begun shifting toward the center in the public’s eye. Just last week he overruled an FDA decision to make the “Plan-B” contraceptive pill over-the-counter. This decision went largely unnoticed by the liberal base, but was played up by moderate voters. These types of decisions reveal the President as the only adult in the room when it comes to the November elections.
As the GOP candidates continue to pander to the right, and their pundits continue to compare these radicalized candidates to the President, you will see the Presidents approval ratings increase through election day. We are already beginning to see his approval rating tick back above 45%.
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