Selling a story voters won’t buy

(U-T San Diego) Barack Obama will be, as this editorial board predicted a month ago, a one-term president. And, we repeat, in the end it will not even be close.

Why?

Because Obama and the Democrats, who open their national convention in Charlotte, N.C., on Tuesday, thereby launching the final stretch of the 2012 campaign, will be trying to sell a fanciful story of the Obama record that American voters will not buy.

It’s the economy, stupid.

That rallying cry, first given voice by campaign manager James Carville to campaign workers for Democrat Bill Clinton in 1992 to keep them focused in the race against incumbent President George H.W. Bush, is today the rightful rallying cry for Republican nominee Mitt Romney against Obama.

To be sure, Obama inherited a horrible economic mess in January 2009. The housing market had collapsed. Major financial institutions were failing, not to mention the auto industry. Unemployment and underemployment had skyrocketed. Consumer confidence had plummeted. The United States was in the most severe recession since the 1930s, with more than a few experts fearing further collapse into full-blown depression.

So what did the new president do? He let congressional Democrats write a pork-laden $800 billion economic stimulus plan that did a lot to stimulate Big Government across the land but did almost nothing to stimulate the private sector where jobs and economic growth are created. And he focused his own attention on pushing through a massive overhaul of the health care system, signed into law in March 2010, that will not improve the delivery of health care for sick people, and will still not make health insurance accessible to all who need it, but will make the national health care system even costlier than it is today. And the federal budget deficit, already at record levels when Obama took office, is now projected to double and triple into a financial black hole as far as the eye can see.

It was the economy, stupid. And Obama blew it.

The Democrats in Charlotte this week will introduce fresh faces, most notably San Antonio Mayor Julian Castro as the convention keynoter on Tuesday night, California Attorney General Kamala Harris and actress Eva Longoria (Will she try to outdo Clint?), to tell the Obama story as best they can. More familiar Democrats of old will also pitch in, including former President Jimmy Carter (via video), Caroline Kennedy, Massachusetts Sen. John Kerry, a bunch of Democratic governors and mayors, first lady Michelle Obama and Clinton, who will formally place Obama’s name in nomination.

Do not envy them their task. They will try to make something out of very little on the Obama record, but mostly they will attempt to portray the Republican ticket of Romney and Paul Ryan as extremists whose policies will protect the wealthy at the expense of the poor, the middle class and the elderly and who will wage war against women and the environment.

But that will not hold water with anybody who watched any part of last week’s Republican convention.

Americans want to be inspired to vote for a candidate for president, not frightened into voting against a candidate.

In 2012, the inspiration for hope and change does not come from Barack Obama.