Rabbi Pruzansky's Blog

The most charitable way of explaining the election results of 2012 is that Americans voted for the status quo – for the incumbent President and for a divided Congress. They must enjoy gridlock, partisanship, incompetence, economic stagnation and avoidance of responsibility. And fewer people voted. As I write, with almost all the votes counted, President Obama has won fewer votes than John McCain won in 2008, and more than ten million off his own 2008 total. (Note: this was written the day after the election. The final results indicate that Romney exceeded McCain’s total by less than one million votes, while Obama received almost four million votes fewer than he did in 2008 – the first time in history that a president won a second term with fewer votes than he scored in his first victory. RSP)

But as we awake from the nightmare, it is important to eschew the facile explanations for the Romney defeat that will prevail among the chattering classes. Romney did not lose because of the effects of Hurricane Sandy that devastated this area, nor did he lose because he ran a poor campaign, nor did he lose because the Republicans could have chosen better candidates, nor did he lose because Obama benefited from a slight uptick in the economy due to the business cycle.

Romney lost because he didn’t get enough votes to win.

That might seem obvious, but not for the obvious reasons. Romney lost because the conservative virtues – the traditional American virtues – of liberty, hard work, free enterprise, private initiative and aspirations to moral greatness – no longer inspire or animate a majority of the electorate. The notion of the “Reagan Democrat” is one cliché that should be permanently retired.

Ronald Reagan himself could not win an election in today’s America.

The simplest reason why Romney lost was because it is impossible to compete against free stuff. Every businessman knows this; that is why the “loss leader” or the giveaway is such a powerful marketing tool. Obama’s America is one in which free stuff is given away: the adults among the 47,000,000 on food stamps clearly recognized for whom they should vote, and so they did, by the tens of millions; those who – courtesy of Obama – receive two full years of unemployment benefits (which, of course, both disincentivizes looking for work and also motivates people to work off the books while collecting their windfall) surely know for whom to vote; so too those who anticipate “free” health care, who expect the government to pay their mortgages, who look for the government to give them jobs. The lure of free stuff is irresistible.

Imagine two restaurants side by side. One sells its customers fine cuisine at a reasonable price, and the other offers a free buffet, all-you-can-eat as long as supplies last. Few – including me – could resist the attraction of the free food. Now imagine that the second restaurant stays in business because the first restaurant is forced to provide it with the food for the free buffet, and we have the current economy, until, at least, the first restaurant decides to go out of business. (Then, the government takes over the provision of free food to its patrons.)

The defining moment of the whole campaign was the revelation (by the amoral Obama team) of the secretly-recorded video in which Romney acknowledged the difficulty of winning an election in which “47% of the people” start off against him because they pay no taxes and just receive money – “free stuff” – from the government. Almost half of the population has no skin in the game – they don’t care about high taxes, promoting business, or creating jobs, nor do they care that the money for their free stuff is being borrowed from their children and from the Chinese. They just want the free stuff that comes their way at someone else’s expense. In the end, that 47% leaves very little margin for error for any Republican, and does not bode well for the future.

It is impossible to imagine a conservative candidate winning against such overwhelming odds. People do vote their pocketbooks. In essence, the people vote for a Congress who will not raise their taxes, and for a President who will give them free stuff, never mind who has to pay for it.

That suggests the second reason why Romney lost: the inescapable conclusion that, as Winston Churchill stated so tartly, “the best argument against democracy is a five-minute conversation with the average voter.” Voters – a clear majority – are easily swayed by emotion and raw populism. Said another way, too many people vote with their hearts and not their heads. That is why Obama did not have to produce a second term agenda, or even defend his first-term record. He needed only to portray Mitt Romney as a rapacious capitalist who throws elderly women over a cliff, when he is not just snatching away their cancer medication, while starving the poor and cutting taxes for the rich. Obama could get away with saying that “Romney wants the rich to play by a different set of rules” – without ever defining what those different rules were; with saying that the “rich should pay their fair share” – without ever defining what a “fair share” is; with saying that Romney wants the poor, elderly and sick to “fend for themselves” – without even acknowledging that all these government programs are going bankrupt, their current insolvency only papered over by deficit spending. How could Obama get away with such rants to squealing sign-wavers? See Churchill, above.

During his 1956 presidential campaign, a woman called out to Adlai Stevenson: “Senator, you have the vote of every thinking person!” Stevenson called back: “That’s not enough, madam, we need a majority!” Truer words were never spoken.

Similarly, Obama (or his surrogates) could hint to blacks that a Romney victory would lead them back into chains and proclaim to women that their abortions and birth control would be taken away. He could appeal to Hispanics that Romney would have them all arrested and shipped to Mexico (even if they came from Cuba or Honduras), and unabashedly state that he will not enforce the current immigration laws. He could espouse the furtherance of the incestuous relationship between governments and unions – in which politicians ply the unions with public money, in exchange for which the unions provide the politicians with votes, in exchange for which the politicians provide more money and the unions provide more votes, etc., even though the money is gone. How could he do and say all these things ? See Churchill, above.

One might reasonably object that not every Obama supporter could be unintelligent. But they must then rationally explain how the Obama agenda can be paid for, aside from racking up multi-trillion dollar deficits. “Taxing the rich” does not yield even 10% of what is required and does not solve any discernible problem – so what is the answer, i.e., an intelligent answer?

Obama also knows that the electorate has changed – that whites will soon be a minority in America (they’re already a minority in California) and that the new immigrants to the US are primarily from the Third World and do not share the traditional American values that attracted immigrants in the 19^th and 20^th centuries. It is a different world, and a different America. Obama is part of that different America, knows it, and knows how to tap into it. That is why he won.

Obama also proved again that negative advertising works, invective sells, and harsh personal attacks succeed. That Romney never engaged in such diatribes points to his essential goodness as a person; his “negative ads” were simple facts, never personal abuse – facts about high unemployment, lower take-home pay, a loss of American power and prestige abroad, a lack of leadership, etc. As a politician, though, Romney failed because he did not embrace the devil’s bargain of making unsustainable promises, and by talking as the adult and not the adolescent. Obama has spent the last six years campaigning; even his governance has been focused on payoffs to his favored interest groups. The permanent campaign also won again, to the detriment of American life.

It turned out that it was not possible for Romney and Ryan – people of substance, depth and ideas – to compete with the shallow populism and platitudes of their opponents. Obama mastered the politics of envy – of class warfare – never reaching out to Americans as such but to individual groups, and cobbling together a winning majority from these minority groups. Conservative ideas failed to take root and states that seemed winnable, and amenable to traditional American values, have simply disappeared from the map. If an Obama could not be defeated – with his record and his vision of America, in which free stuff seduces voters – it is hard to envision any change in the future. The road to Hillary Clinton in 2016 and to a European-socialist economy – those very economies that are collapsing today in Europe – is paved.

A second cliché that should be retired is that America is a center-right country. It clearly is not. It is a divided country with peculiar voting patterns, and an appetite for free stuff. Studies will invariably show that Republicans in Congress received more total votes than Democrats in Congress, but that means little. The House of Representatives is not truly representative of the country. That people would vote for a Republican Congressmen or Senator and then Obama for President would tend to reinforce point two above: the empty-headedness of the electorate. Americans revile Congress but love their individual Congressmen. Go figure.

The mass media’s complicity in Obama’s re-election cannot be denied. One example suffices. In 2004, CBS News forged a letter in order to imply that President Bush did not fulfill his Air National Guard service during the Vietnam War, all to impugn Bush and impair his re-election prospects. In 2012, President Obama insisted – famously – during the second debate that he had stated all along that the Arab attack on the US Consulate in Benghazi was “terror” (a lie that Romney fumbled and failed to exploit). Yet, CBS News sat on a tape of an interview with Obama in which Obama specifically avoided and rejected the claim of terrorism – on the day after the attack – clinging to the canard about the video. (This snippet of a “60 Minutes” interview was not revealed  – until two days ago!) In effect, CBS News fabricated evidence in order to harm a Republican president, and suppressed evidence in order to help a Democratic president. Simply shameful, as was the media’s disregard of any scandal or story that could have jeopardized the Obama re-election.

One of the more irritating aspects of this campaign was its limited focus, odd in light of the billions of dollars spent. Only a few states were contested, a strategy that Romney adopted, and that clearly failed. The Democrat begins any race with a substantial advantage. The liberal states – like the bankrupt California and Illinois – and other states with large concentrations of minority voters as well as an extensive welfare apparatus, like New York, New Jersey and others – give any Democratic candidate an almost insurmountable edge in electoral votes. In New Jersey, for example, it literally does not pay for a conservative to vote. It is not worth the fuel expended driving to the polls. As some economists have pointed generally, and it resonates here even more, the odds are greater that a voter will be killed in a traffic accident on his way to the polls than that his vote will make a difference in the election. It is an irrational act. That most states are uncompetitive means that people are not amenable to new ideas, or new thinking, or even having an open mind. If that does not change, and it is hard to see how it can change, then the die is cast. America is not what it was, and will never be again.

For Jews, mostly assimilated anyway and staunch Democrats, the results demonstrate again that liberalism is their Torah. Almost 70% voted for a president widely perceived by Israelis and most committed Jews as hostile to Israel. They voted to secure Obama’s future at America’s expense and at Israel’s expense – in effect, preferring Obama to Netanyahu by a wide margin. A dangerous time is ahead. Under present circumstances, it is inconceivable that the US will take any aggressive action against Iran and will more likely thwart any Israeli initiative. That Obama’s top aide Valerie Jarrett (i.e., Iranian-born Valerie Jarrett) spent last week in Teheran is not a good sign. The US will preach the importance of negotiations up until the production of the first Iranian nuclear weapon – and then state that the world must learn to live with this new reality. As Obama has committed himself to abolishing America’s nuclear arsenal, it is more likely that that unfortunate circumstance will occur than that he will succeed in obstructing Iran’s plans.

Obama’s victory could weaken Netanyahu’s re-election prospects, because Israelis live with an unreasonable – and somewhat pathetic – fear of American opinion and realize that Obama despises Netanyahu. A Likud defeat – or a diminution of its margin of victory – is more probable now than yesterday. That would not be the worst thing. Netanyahu, in fact, has never distinguished himself by having a strong political or moral backbone, and would be the first to cave to the American pressure to surrender more territory to the enemy and acquiesce to a second (or third, if you count Jordan) Palestinian state. A new US Secretary of State named John Kerry, for example (he of the Jewish father) would not augur well. Netanyahu remains the best of markedly poor alternatives. Thus, the likeliest outcome of the upcoming Israeli elections is a center-left government that will force itself to make more concessions and weaken Israel – an Oslo III.

But this election should be a wake-up call to Jews. There is no permanent empire, nor is there is an enduring haven for Jews anywhere in the exile. The most powerful empires in history all crumbled – from the Greeks and the Romans to the British and the Soviets. None of the collapses were easily foreseen, and yet they were predictable in retrospect.

The American empire began to decline in 2007, and the deterioration has been exacerbated in the last five years. This election only hastens that decline. Society is permeated with sloth, greed, envy and materialistic excess. It has lost its moorings and its moral foundations. The takers outnumber the givers, and that will only increase in years to come. Across the world, America under Bush was feared but not respected. Under Obama, America is neither feared nor respected. Radical Islam has had a banner four years under Obama, and its prospects for future growth look excellent. The “Occupy” riots across this country in the last two years were mere dress rehearsals for what lies ahead – years of unrest sparked by the increasing discontent of the unsuccessful who want to seize the fruits and the bounty of the successful, and do not appreciate the slow pace of redistribution.

Two bright sides: Notwithstanding the election results, I arose this morning, went to shul, davened and learned Torah afterwards. That is our reality, and that trumps all other events. Our relationship with G-d matters more than our relationship with any politician, R or D. And, notwithstanding the problems in Israel, it is time for Jews to go home, to Israel. We have about a decade, perhaps 15 years, to leave with dignity and without stress. Thinking that it will always be because it always was has been a repetitive and deadly Jewish mistake. America was always the land from which “positive” aliya came – Jews leaving on their own, and not fleeing a dire situation. But that can also change. The increased aliya in the last few years is partly attributable to young people fleeing the high cost of Jewish living in America. Those costs will only increase in the coming years. We should draw the appropriate conclusions.

If this election proves one thing, it is that the Old America is gone. And, sad for the world, it is not coming back.

The case for Mitt Romney begins but doesn’t end with the simple declaration that he is not Barack Obama. Obviously, any challenger seeking to oust an incumbent must highlight the deficiencies of that incumbent, i.e., why the president is unfit to continue serving in that position. The incumbent runs on his record; the challenger runs on the insufficiencies of that record is insufficient and how his policies would differ and ameliorate any lingering problems in society. The irony here, of course, is that Obama is running as a challenger would, making little reference to his record and even less to his agenda for a second term, and neither with any specificity. Generalities (“the strongest military ever”), platitudes (“Are you with me?”… “Can’t go back to the policies that got us into this mess in the first place”… “I’ll fight for you,” etc.) and falsehoods (“I immediately labeled the Benghazi attack terrorism”) abound.

We must first look at what Obama has done, then at what Mitt Romney says he will do, and then the governor’s personal qualifications.

President Obama has been a poor steward of the economy. Whatever mess he inherited, he exacerbated, with poor policies that were poorly timed. Economic growth remains anemic and unemployment at record levels, because the President has failed to incentivize growth, has imposed a new health coverage law that caused rampant uncertainty in the business world (and in the general population, as the bill’s real provisions sink in) and has over-regulated the banking industry to the extent that loans are extremely difficult to procure – itself stifling business growth. Prices continue to increase in every sector of the economy, further smothering the middle class. The unprecedented debt – more than one trillion dollars per year in each year of his presidency (that’s >$1,000,000,000,000), an astonishing  number of zeros – bodes ill for the future, especially as he has no willingness to curb his spending appetites. And this from a man who criticized George Bush for running deficits in the four hundred billion dollar range. Simply astonishing.

Obama’s election strategy dovetails nicely with his second term agenda, if that is what it can be called: the fruits of class warfare. His plan boils down to raising taxes on “millionaires and billionaires,” which, in his skewed understanding of both mathematics and economics, means people earning more than $250,000 per year. But that plan even if implemented would only raise – maximum – eighty billion dollars annually, reducing the deficit between 5-8%. It is risible, if it was actually meant seriously and not just as a weapon used by political hacks looking to inflame one segment of society against another. In real terms, there were never that many “millionaires and billionaires” in society four years ago to make a significant impact on either the budget or the deficit, and even that number has declined in the last four years under this president. (Point of information: if “millionaires and billionaires” paid 100% tax rate – all their income was confiscated – the government would still have a half-trillion dollar deficit.)

The incumbent has been successful in isolating different special interest groups and catering to their needs, hoping a coalition of these groups will provide him with enough votes for victory.  Thus, women are supposed to be aroused by the mindless threat of having their contraception eliminated, or by the promise of free birth control for all (paid for by the government or a coerced private sector); Hispanics are courted by the scandalous decision by Obama not to enforce current immigration laws; unionists are kept in the fold by the promises of ever-greater government spending and labor laws that will strangle the private sector. The Jews are seduced by Obama’s running on the Democratic line; most Jews need not think more deeply than that. Blacks do not have to see past his skin color and the phony accent he affects when he addresses their audiences.

And, of course, the astounding number of Americans receiving some form of government assistance presents a ready bloc of voters who don’t want to see their take reduced. This is not referring to Medicare, Social Security or pensions, but to the millions of people who don’t work, don’t pay taxes and/or contribute little to society but their perpetual squawking about  some grievance or another, usually involving the phrases “fair share,” “social justice,” or “income inequality.” Obama has wooed this bloc assiduously by expanding unemployment benefits to years, not months, increasing the number of food stamp recipients by almost 1/3 – to 47 million Americans, and gleefully feeding them vitriolic rhetoric about the unfairness of their lot in life. Simply astonishing.

Among the more outlandish clichés constantly iterated by the president has been his assertion that he “ended the war in Iraq.” Actually, he ended America’s involvement in the war in Iraq, but the war continues. About 100 Iraqis are killed weekly, the US gains in the war – an end to Saddam Hussein, his rule of terror and his WMD program, the creation of a potential US ally in the heart of Arabia and a bulwark against Iran – have been rapidly eroded. Iraq is falling slowly and inexorably under Iran’s hegemony, a result of Obama’s abject failure to secure a Status of Forces Agreement in Iraq that would have left both some American forces and much influence in place. Obama did not pull US troops out of Iraq as much as Iraq threw them out. Within a few years it will be clear that Obama lost the Iraq War, and did not at all end it. Oh, and he killed bin Laden, as if any other president would not have ordered the same, and perhaps sooner. (Neat rhetorical trick by Romney in the last debate, pre-empting Obama’s traditional bin Laden boast and congratulating him on ordering the assault.) Afghanistan will be lost, once the US pulls out on the assigned date. The Taliban must be salivating at the prospects of another Obama term.

Iran proceeds apace in its efforts to produce nuclear weapons. The “toughest sanctions” ever, that Obama now touts but mostly opposed (they were forced on him by Congress), will stop Iran as much as similar sanctions stopped North Korea. The reset buttons have failed to operate; Obama has antagonized allies (Britain, Israel, Poland, the Czech Republic et al) while being rebuffed by those regimes that he assumed would amend their policies because of his charisma and pleasant smile.

On Israel matters, Rav Eliezer Melamed wrote this week that Obama has been America’s most hostile president to Israel, ever. It is difficult to argue with that characterization. Acolytes will point to the unprecedented military cooperation between the two countries (arguable, but in any event, Israel and the Palestinian Authority are presently engaged in unprecedented military cooperation as well, but one would hardly construe their relationship as allies or friends). It is hard to forget Obama’s insistence that Israel agree to withdraw to the 1967 borders as a precondition to negotiations  – a demand that even the PA had not made – as well as his shabby treatment of Israel’s prime minister on several occasions – rudeness that he would never display to Chavez, Putin and other despots. Jews who will vote for the Democrat no matter what, and are merely looking to assuage their consciences, should bear in mind that there is a limit to how anti-Israel any American president can be. There is a bond between Israelis and Americans that results from shared values and, most recently, shared suffering at the hands of Arab terrorists, and Israel is enormously popular in the United States. No matter – Obama could wear a kaffiyeh and Jews would rationalize it by saying that he funded “Iron Dome.” (Actually, he tried to cut funding for Iron Dome each year – Congress increased the funding.) Obama entered office telling Jews that there needs to be “some daylight” between the United States and Israel; actually, there needs to be some daylight between Jews – and Obama and the Democrat Party.

Mitt Romney has led a stellar, decent life – a pastor in his church – and continues to impress with his civility and graciousness. Remarkably, he is scandal free, despite the Obamanation’s desperate search for something, anything, on him. (Apparently, their crack operatives discovered that Romney once beat up a kid in high school.) Almost as importantly, he has been successful in everything he has attempted in life (except one lost Senate race). His business acumen will immediately raise the level of discourse in Washington, and his expertise is in the very area in which the country is now suffering: a lack of economic growth. Say what you will, but that is his field. Obama seems surprised that some companies fail, or that bankruptcy is sometimes an essential component to a company’s recovery, or that businesses respond to incentives, or look to maximize their profits, or that the private economy is driven by people who invest their hard-earned money, and in exchange for the risk, want to see a return that justifies that risk. Not every investment will work – and Romney is the one who can transform the economy into what it once was.

Romney will also return the United States to its traditional moorings. Obama can’t live down his past, which includes a legacy of grievances against the US. Romney revels in America, its history, its accomplishments, its glories and its extraordinary contributions to nations across the globe. Romney loves America unequivocally; Obama – one can’t say he doesn’t love America but rather that he has unresolved issues with America that spill over into his policies and rhetoric. Obama is the president of special interest groups – Romney appeals to all, or at least to those Americans who still value liberty, free enterprise, thrift, the American dream, and for the world, the American promise. Yes, Romney believes in American exceptionalism, while Obama derides that concept.

It would be good to have again a president who is proud of America, and not only because it elected him president.

Businessmen rarely run for president (Wendell Wilkie was the last, and that didn’t turn out well) but Romney’s service as governor uniquely qualifies him as a person who took his business skills and translated them into public policy. Obama has thrived in – and aggravated – the tense atmosphere in DC, the gridlock that has rendered government inoperable. That contentiousness will only worsen if Obama is re-elected. He came in with an attitude – telling Eric Cantor in the very first meeting with Republicans in 2009 that Obama had no interest in negotiating (“Elections have consequences. I won. You lost”). That divisive haughtiness will cease; Romney is a different personality, and experienced in dealing successfully with an opposition party. That was a similar strength of Ronald Reagan.

Mitt Romney will resume America’s role as the world’s moral influence, as defender and advocate of freedom. Like in the Reagan years, people will again be proud of America’s role in the world rather than embarrassed by it. No more “leading from behind,” a euphemism that allows Obama to claim credit for good results and distance himself from bad results. No more attempted escapes from personal responsibility for anything, a state of affairs that has defined the Obama administration from its inception. The personal warmth between Romney and PM Netanyahu, going back to when they were co-workers at Boston Consulting Group in the 1970s, bodes well for Israel. (I would be more worried about Netanyahu than about Romney.)

The US needs to reform its tax code (certainly, to simplify it, and to lower tax rates). It needs to treat its citizens fairly, and not distinguish based on race, religion, or ethnic origin. It needs to reform its health care system that will soon find millions of people without coverage, as businesses flee from providing such to their employees, and to reform it so that competition brings down prices and that “mandates” are phased out. Let people shop for the coverage that they want and need. The US needs a president that knows how to stimulate business instead of suffocating it; that will produce jobs, new revenue, and greater happiness as people earn their own keep and are not maintained by others, and that will relieve the tax burden that we all feel (at least those among us who pay taxes). America needs to unleash its private sector to become energy independent – and it is more doable today that at any time in the past, with the new resources and the new technology available.

On domestic issues, in foreign policy, in personality and temperament, Mitt Romney is the obvious choice for President. Barack Obama is a failed president; there could be many others who would be better and that alone suffices to vote against him. But this election is not a choice about “the lesser of two evils,” nor are they “all the same.” Mitt Romney is the right man at the right time with the right set of skills. The choice is ours, and it is a fateful one.