Left and Right: President Obama Stop Slamming The Rich

This campaign is starting to get ugly. Sadly enough it really hasn’t begun yet. The one thing I would urge President Obama to do is to stop slamming the rich. I intend to explain but first a little background.

This week the Senate will debate and vote on the “Buffett Rule”. Named after the billionaire investor who pays less of a percentage of his income than his secretary urged the government to make taxes more fair. The “Buffett Rule” will charge an effective tax rate of 30% on all income a person makes over a million dollars.

The “Buffettt Rule” has absolutely no chance of becoming law. The Republican Congress will not even vote on it. It is dead in the water. So why harp on it? Because Obama needs an enemy to run against in November. 2008 was simple, he was running against the legacy of one of America’s least popular president’s in a recession brought on by that President’s policies.

This time Obama has to run on his own record, which hasn’t been so overwhelmingly popular. So this time he is using a strategy of subliminal messaging. It is fairly obvious that Mitt Romney is going to be the nominee. Obama is now attacking the rich in hopes he will make America hate the rich, so when they meet old Mitt, they will connect him with their hatred of the rich.

This strategy is beneath Obama for a very simple reason. They already don’t like Romney. The more America gets to know him the less they like him. Romney does a fantastic job of making himself look like heartless rich snob. Obama has the ability to win this election cleanly and have a real shot at winning a mandate to govern. The Bill Clinton strategy. Stop focusing on your opponent, focus on the issues that Americans care about.

President Obama has been a little too embarrassed to take a stand on anything. He is happy to pander to different electoral groups by making vague promises to address their huge issues come November 7th. Unfortunately that isn’t making people like him more.

President Obama has become so afraid of people calling him a communist, socialist, racist and any other ist out there that he is unwilling to stand for much. He needs to come out swinging. If he highlights Romney’s record and Romney’s ideas for the country he has a winning strategy because those ideas are not what America is looking for.

SO Mr. President please stop beating up on the rich, after all you are worth about 20 million yourself.

Left and Right is a three times weekly column by Inquistr writer H. Scott English examining the hottest political issues of the day, the candidates running for public office and the 2012 elections.