OPINION:
Hardly anyone — not President Obama, his campaign surrogates nor even the sympathetic media — can offer a substantive reason why Mr. Obama deserves re-election. Everything — the economy, the national debt, the unemployment rate and our relationship with key allies — is worse now than it was when he assumed office.
No president has failed so miserably since Jimmy Carter, yet the polls show a close race between Mr. Obama and Mitt Romney, and analysts expect an Obama victory. How is this possible? Because in this election the health and welfare of America is a secondary issue for a large segment of the population. The issue of paramount importance for many is the concern that the first minority president will forever be regarded as a failure.
Not only Republicans have suffered the consequences of Mr. Obama’s failed policies. Nearly all Americans are worse off now than they were four years ago. Poverty in America is at a record level, unemployment is highest among minorities, and seniors have seen their life savings eroded.
If Democrats put America first, a candidate would have emerged to challenge Mr. Obama for the party nomination, but this would have called too much attention to the failures of the past four years. The media are the worst culprits of this willful blindness. Where the president is involved, they investigate nothing, challenge nothing and offer only praise. Even worse, critics of the president are almost automatically labeled racists as a matter of course.
The choice this November is either to elect Mitt Romney and see whether his policy changes restore America or re-elect Mr. Obama and delay the recognition for four more years that he has been a total failure.
MIKE FERREER
Ponte Vedra Beach, Fla.
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