Yeah, no real way to get that shoehorned into the “Lions and Tigers and Bears, Oh My!” tune.  But I did my best.

Let me just get this out in the open right now.  I voted for Barak Obama in 2008.  Even looking back and knowing what I know, I still would have voted for him in 08.  Had McCain picked Romney to be his running mate instead of dead-from-the-neck-up Sarah Palin, I may have gone differently.  But of course we all know what happened.  Now regardless of what you think of the man or his policies, President Obama brings the smarts and we here at Frank’s place dig the smarts.  He is still the smartest dude running for President, but some things have transpired that have caused me to look elsewhere for a President.

One of the biggest issues for me is the constant reminder of the economy he inherited.  In 2009 I can accept the constant reminder of what President Bush left behind.  And make no mistake, the bail-outs, the tarp, the mounting deficit, these things were either done or set in motion long before President Obama was sworn in.  But after 2009, the constant harping about inheriting the worst economy since the great depression became unseemly, then it became un-leaderly(?)  At some point the President would have done well to adopt a buck stops here attitude.

Of course conservatives, republicans, and tea-partiers, (by the way those are 3 distinct groups wether you want to believe it or not),  have been rightly calling out and/or bashing the President for this constant blaming of President Bush for our current problems.  Tracy, my wife, has had to listen to me howl at the TV whenever the President speaks because he invariably will evoke some form of, “you know we inherited the worst…”, yeah, yeah we get Blamey McBlamerton.  Enough already Mr. President.  I just can’t believe he still tees up this softball for the opposition to hit out of the park, as they absolutely should.

But for as much as the opposition rightly hits the President for always blaming others for our country’s issues, they must think it’s a winning strategery (thanks P. Bush 43) because they have taken up the charge at a full gallop.  In the past 4 months since Romney was clearly going to win the nomination, conservatives, republicans, and tea-partiers have been blaming everything under the sun for why the Governor lost the election. Spoiler alert – election is not till 6 November.  In other words Romney hasn’t lost yet, but his base, the fringe, and the media outlets that support him have already started his obituary.  In this obituary they list clearly the three causes of the Governors death:

1. Left wing media bias – hard to argue, but I will take a 37.4 deg angle

2. Voter fraud – you’ll run out and buy lottery tickets when I’m done with this one

3. Election polls – you know those annoying polls that take a small sample of voters and project who’s winning or losing, you may have even been called and participated in one

Politically this may be a winning strategy, and I don’t think it is, it’s just as cowardly as the President blaming President Bush 43.  So let me take a shot at helping my conservative brethren understand why blaming these 3 entities just doesn’t hold up.

1. Left wing media bias – Ok, my good friend Tony has convinced me that this exists to a greater extent that I had originally believed.  As it turns out left wing media bias has been around for a long time.  I would argue cable news outlets and social media has amplified and sharpened the bias, but it still existed on the big three networks long before MSNBC came along.  Be that as it may, blaming them for a candidates failure makes you look weak. If this bias has existed for so long why isn’t your candidate prepared for it?  How can something you’ve known about for decades take you down?  If you can’t plan for and defeat or work around something you’ve known about forever, how can your guy, as President, deal with things he won’t know about until after they happen?

See where I’m going there.  Blaming the media makes you look weak; not just because blaming anything but yourself makes you look weak, but because blaming something that has always existed makes you look weak and incompetent, and not smart and unable to adapt.  You know, presidentialy type things.

2.  Voter Fraud – Hard to know where to start with this.  Why?  Because it almost never happens.  You have a better chance of being struck by lighting WHILE purchasing the winning power-ball ticket than you do of witnessing voter fraud, being in the polling place when voter fraud happens, or even voting in a state where voter fraud has occurred. Here’s a few links in case you want to read actual stats.

http://www.truthaboutfraud.org/

http://richardcharnin.com/

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/04/12/washington/12fraud.html?pagewanted=print&_r=0

Now equally mythical is the “fact” that requiring people to have photo ID at the polling place will disenfranchise voters, specifically the urban poor and minorities, two groups who tend to vote democrat.  Pennsylvania just lost its case in the state supreme court to require photo ID of anyone wanting to vote.  PA made it free of charge, set up convenient places to get one, and in some cases would even come to the home of those unable to get out.  How those people would then vote is beyond me, but the state accommodated and somehow lost.  Here in TN we must show photo ID to vote and I’ve not heard of anyone being disenfranchised. In fact my mother-in-law just moved here and when she got her TN drivers license they registered her to vote.  That’s how easy the states make it to obtain an ID and register to vote.

Disenfranchisement due to photo ID is almost as rare as voter fraud.  But at the end of the day voter fraud is the dodo bird of election cycles.  Everyone’s heard of one but no one has ever seen one.

Don’t look now…

However if you prefer the myth of voter fraud I would refer you to Hannity of Fox, check you local cable provider, and The Drudge Report on the internets.

Seriously, if you hear of voter fraud in your district and your next stop is not the local Piggly Wiggly to buy a power-ball ticket, you’re an idiot.

3. That brings us to the third cause of Romney’s crushing defeat that hasn’t happened yet: election polls.  There were election polls being taken long before we really knew who the republican candidate would be. Once Romney emerged as the clear front runner the polls went into high gear.  And it was all a big waste of time.  The polls in early January are worthless.  Guess what, the polls in late October are worthless too.  The only poll that counts is the one you stand in on November 6th.

Having said that it is interesting to see how the media has handled the current polling results.  I’ll just cut to the chase, Fox News hates them and regards them all as flawed and the rest of the media thinks they are grand and believe Obama will win in a landslide. But the left wing of the media reacted as they normally do, so no surprise there.

It’s Fox’s reaction that is puzzling.  Again this is the network that has taken Obama to task for always blaming everything/everyone but himself.  I guess imitation is the sincerest form of flattery because the gang at Fox have been merciless in their attack on poll results.  They have gone so far as to claim it’s the poll results that are making things worse for Romney.  Obviously the polls show him behind by a few points nationally and by wide margins in several key battleground states, or states considered necessary to win to win the election.

They got so paranoid about the poll attack on Romney, some news shows on Fox criticized poll results done by a few other Fox News Shows.  That’s right.  The network that claims to be fair and balanced actually may have pulled it off.  Unknowingly of course.  There is no way O’Reilly and Hannity knew the particular poll they were slamming, showing Romney down by 10 points or more, was actually a poll done by Fox News and used by Special Report with Bret Baier.

It gets better, or worse.  Minutes after bringing on Dick Morris, Bernie Goldberg and even retired/fired NY City Detective Bo Ditle (WTF), to say polls are so unreliable and cannot be trusted, Hannity then shows poll results that have Romney in the lead and wants us to believe they are accurate and trustworthy after spending 15 minutes telling us how notoriously slanted and biased poll results are.  It’s like the gang that couldn’t shoot straight decided to form a circular firing squad.  Lets hope their aim improves.

So to wrap up, it’s the Media, Voters, & Polls that caused the Romney defeat.

I wonder if all the analysts and pundits have mentioned to Governor Romney that they know the outcome of the election next month and the cause of his demise.