ObamaCare: A Continuing Study on The Art of Political Deception

Back in October of 2013, I wrote an article about detailing how ObamaCare is an excellent study in how politicians manipulate, deceive and mislead the American people. In fact, the conception, passage and fragile survival of ObamaCare is probably the best example of political deception in modern American history. Someday, Obama will be known as the "great manipulator" in the same way that Regan will be remembered as the great communicator.

More details continue to emerge about Obama's campaign of deception in making ObamaCare the law of the land. We continue our study in the art of political deception with a video has been circulating around the Internet of Obama's 2008 Presidential run in which he aired a commercial that attacked John McCain's health care plan. 

The reason why this old 2008 campaign ad has suddenly become relevant today is because of how well Obama deceived the public on his health care plan.  Obama ended up adopting policies that were proposed by Hillary Clinton and John McCain even though he was initially against them during his 2008 campaign: 

And Obama, who has argued against adopting an individual mandate, as proposed by Hillary Clinton, ended up embracing exactly that option—and even accepted a variation of an idea from McCain that he criticizes in this ad.

What part of McCain's 2008 healthcare plan did Obama incorporate into ObamaCare? The high risk pools. The high risk pools was one of the criticisms Obama had against McCain's health care plan that was mentioned in Obama's 2008 campaign ad above. Its funny that every argument Obama had about McCainCare was, in hindsight, criticism of ObamaCare. 

This isn't the first time Obama attacked an idea before adopting it into his own plan. Obama went after Mitt Romney on RomneyCare's individual mandate before he ultimately incorporated Hillary Clinton's 2008 health care plan which included the individual mandate into ObamaCare.  Barack Obama's claims that Mitt Romney's healthcare plan was the basis for ObamaCare is a lie based on his own admission. There are many conservatives (as well as liberals) that argue that Obama got the idea for the individual mandate from Mitt Romney. That claim is not supported by the facts.

The truth is that 99% of ObamaCare is based on Hillary Clinton's health care plan with a few ideas from McCain's 2008 health care plan mixed in.

Obama sold himself to the public as young politician who would never lie his way into office and tell people what they wanted to hear. However, now that we have seen Obama in action as a politician as the President of the United States, he's everything he claimed he wasn't. He's a smooth talking, lying, do-whatever-it-takes-to-win, politician. Obama hasn't transcended politics. He's deep into politics.

The fact that Obama was against certain ideas contained HillaryCare, McCain Care and RomneyCare isn't case of a politician flip flopping. This is a case of outright deception in which he publicly opposed these ideas but secretly supported them. Obama had to scare voters away from supporting Hillary, McCain and Mitt Romney so that he can win the 2008 and 2012 election only later work to convince the American people to accept these proposals as part of ObamaCare that he advocated against as a candidate.

Why Conservatives Cannot Support Rand Paul for 2016

There has been a lot of speculation about the possibility of Rand Paul running for President in 2016. Given that Ron Paul has been working as a junior United States Senator for Kentucky since 2011, he doesn't have a whole lot of experience in politics, especially when it comes to executive experience. America elected Obama twice. Obama who was a junior senator from Illinois with very little experience to be President. Do we really want to have another inexperienced politician to be our President? 

Another reason we conservatives and the Republican Party should not allow Rand Paul to get the GOP nomination in 2016 is because he flop flops on his political orientation. Sometimes he claims he is a conservative, sometime he says he's a libertarian. Libertarianism and Conservatism are not the same political philosophy. Which political philosophy does Rand Paul really believe? I don't know and I suspect most people don't know either. More importantly, do we really want to elect someone who flip flops on his political views and philosophy? Ron Paul wasn't a conservative. Neither is Rand Paul. Neither one of them are really conservatives. They are both conservatives in name only (CINO) and Republicans in name only (RINO).

The most important reason why Republicans and conservatives cannot support Rand Paul it is the same reason why people didn't support his father Rand Paul. Ron Paul has a well documented history of associating with known racists, anti-semites, conspiracy theorists and Neo-Nazis. 

For example, people couldn't get behind Ron Paul because had published newsletters that spewed bigotry, racism, homophobia and antisemitism. Ron Paul initially denied writing those newsletters but later admitted that he did but claimed that he only wrote the non-offensive parts. Do you really believe that? I don't.

Another reason why people couldn't support Ron Paul is due to the famous photos of Ron Paul with Don Black, who is a well known White Supremacist and also posed with Don Black's son, Derek Black. If you don't know who Don Black  is, you should. He's the founder of the white supremacist website stormfront.org. Not surprisingly, Ron Paul also accepted donations from a white supremacist group and refused to return the money. Two well known White Supremacists endorsed and supported Ron Paul in the 2012 election.

It appears that Rand Paul is no different than his father, Rand Paul, when it comes to associating with questionable people who are known to be racists, bigots and ant-Semites. For example, the famous hacker group called “Anonymous” broke into a website run by the white supremacist American Third Position (A3P), and released a document dump consisting of private forum messages, emails, organizational notes, and other personal information which showed that Ron Paul and Rand Paul are intimately connected with the American Third Position Party and Stormfront. Here's a sampling of what this Annonymous found:

Other excerpts show A3P webmaster Jamie Kelso (whose email account
was one hacked by the collective) coordinating meeting between Paul and
other members of A3P such as corporate lawyer and chairman of the
neo-Nazi group Paul. “I’m going to go to the Conservative Political
Action Conference (CPAC) with Bill Johnson,” reads an email to an A3P
member dated January 2011. “Bill and I will be meeting with Ron and Ran Paul.
I have a teleconference call with Bill (and Ron Paul) tonight. Much
more later. Things are starting to happen (thanks to folks like you).”
In another passage, Kelso, a former Scientologist and account owner
of other German Nazi forums, wrote: “I’ll be at CPAC from Feb. 9 to Feb.
12. I’ll send back reports to you from personal meetings with Ron Paul,
newly-elected Senator Rand Paul and many others. It’ll be here on
WhiteNewsNow, a place that is really starting to get interesting because
of the presence of folks like you. Birds of a feather flock together,
and we are really gathering some quality here.”
Read more at http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=cb5_1372379074#gGo5pQjIqIrAwTw8.99

Other excerpts show A3P webmaster Jamie Kelso (whose email account was one hacked by the collective) coordinating meeting between Paul and other members of A3P such as corporate lawyer and chairman of the neo-Nazi group Paul. “I’m going to go to the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) with Bill Johnson,” reads an email to an A3P member dated January 2011. “Bill and I will be meeting with Ron and Ran Paul. I have a teleconference call with Bill (and Ron Paul) tonight. Much more later. Things are starting to happen (thanks to folks like you).”
 

In another passage, Kelso, a former Scientologist and account owner of other German Nazi forums, wrote: “I’ll be at CPAC from Feb. 9 to Feb.12. I’ll send back reports to you from personal meetings with Ron Paul, newly-elected Senator Rand Paul and many others. It’ll be here on WhiteNewsNow, a place that is really starting to get interesting because of the presence of folks like you. Birds of a feather flock together, and we are really gathering some quality here.” (emphasis added by author of this blog)

The Annonymous document dump also revealed that Ron Paul has held meetings with A3P and Nick Griffin, leader of the British National Party — the notorious UK fascist group with neo-Nazi roots:

Griffin from the British National Party was also involved in these meetings. "We'll be meeting up with Nick Griffin on Wednesday night... a few of us," Kelso wrote to a member of AP3. "I let Nick know about the CPAC going on Thurs. and Fri. at the Marriott Hotel north of the White House," he said. "Ron Paul will be there Fri. afternoon. Want to meet up with him?"

If Rand Paul's alleged connections with these racists groups isn't bad enough, there's his former association with Jack Hunter, who was an aide and co-author of Paul's 2011 book The Tea Party Goes to Washington. However, the Washington Free Beacon revealed that Hunter used to be a neo-Confederate shock jock called the Southern Avenger, a columnist who compared Abraham Lincoln to Saddam Hussein, and the former chairman of the Charleston, South Carolina, chapter of the League of the South, a secessionist group. The League of the South has been classified as a hate group by the left leaning Southern Poverty Law Center. Of course, Rand Paul has tried to distance himself from Jack Hunter by parting ways with him. Rand Paul has also distanced himself by stating that Hunter's earlier writings "stupid" and said he was not aware of them when he hired him. (Right....) Despite Rand Paul trying to distance himself from Jack Hunter, both men were spoke at an event that was organized by his father Ron Paul. Not surprising, Hunter was a campaign blogger for Ron Paul's 2012 presidential primary bid.

The Republican party as well as conservatives should steer clear of Ron and Rand Paul. The more people learn about these two men, the more we find them in a tangled alliance with those who promote bigotry, racism, homophobia and antisemitism that has been well documented. These men have a long history of associations, communications and support from the dark side of society. Fortunately, Ron Paul has retired from politics.  But Rand Paul hasn't. 

If Rand Paul were to win the Republican nomination, he would be easily slaughtered by a Democratic candidate. Imagine Rand Paul going up against a seasoned and political candidate like Hillary Clinton. The Republican party would suffer a massive defeat at the local, state and national level. The Republican Party would suffer a PR nightmare for having allowed Rand Paul who has strong connections with bigoted people. 

I know 2016 is a long way off. However, time will fly by and before we know it, 2016 will be here. It is crucial that the Republican party and conservatives prevent Ron Paul from successfully competing in the 2016 election. There are so many reasons why the Republican Party and conservatives cannot support Rand Paul. However, I think the best and strongest reason is the Paul's connections to these people.

Based on Rand Paul's history and associations with his father and their mutual connections to bigoted people, he should not be associated with the Republican party. He should not receive any support from conservatives in 2016 because Rand Paul is not a conservative. He is a libertarian and has said so many times. Rand Paul really should be in the Libertarian party which is where he really belongs. He is not one of us. That's why conservatives should not and cannot support Rand Paul in 2016.

the League of the South is a hate group.

the League of the South is a hate group.Jack Hunter is also connected to Ron Paul since Hunter was a campaign blogger for Ron Paul's 2012 presidential primary bid.

Where Did Obama's "If You Like Your Plan, You Can Keep Your Plan" Promise Come From?

During the 2008 Presidential primaries, Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton were battling each other to become the Democratic candidate for the General election. They clashed with one another on the issue of health care. The only major difference between the two candidate's health care plan was that Hilary Clinton had an individual mandate while Barack Obama's health plan didn't. However, Obama would later include the individual mandate into his health care plan. Once he incorporated the individual mandate, he also incorporated her campaign promise:

Hilliary Clinton told the American people this: 

Obama would go on to repeat Hillary Clinton's promise 36 times:

Obama stole that infamous campaign promise from Hilliary Clinton. 

That 2008 campaign promise that "if you like your plan/doctor/hospital, you can keep it" is a lie. It was a lie told by both candiates. One of those candidates would later become President in 2008. The other candidate is thinking of running in 2016.

UPDATE (4/11/15):  The Wall Street Journal just came across a memo that one of Hillary Clinton's staffers wrote  nearly 20 years ago during the summer of 1994 which reads, “If you like your Blue Cross you can keep your BC.” The next line extends that promise to Aetna, Prudential, and any similar insurer. See the memo below:

Hillary Clinton's 2016 Health Care Problem

There has been a lot of speculation about the possibility of Hillary Clinton running in 2016. The biggest hurdle for Hilliary is her health care plans that she proposed back in 1993 and in 2008.  Why will her old health care plans come back to haunt her in 2016?

 

Obama was inspired by Hillary Clinton's 2008 health care plan that she offered during her bid to become President during that time:

In 2009, President Obama adopted Senator Clinton’s plan almost in its entirety. Obamacare is Hillarycare 2.0. All of the harmful consequences of Obama’s individual mandate — people losing their policies, higher premiums, and increased tax burdens — were the foreseeable consequences of Clinton’s plan. Any criticisms of Obamacare can be aimed equally at Hillary Clinton.

In 2008, the linchpin of Senator Clinton’s health care plan program was a mandate that all Americans must buy health insurance. Those who did not would pay a penalty. 

In fact, during a Presidential debate, Obama admitted that almost all of the ideas for his health care plan was cribbed from Hillary Clinton's health care plan: 

At a primary debate, Hillary complained that “Senator Obama has consistently said that I would force people to have health care whether they could afford it or not.”

And Obama countered, “I have consistently said that Senator Clinton’s got a good health care plan. I think I have a good health care plan. I think mine is better. But I have said that 95 percent of our health care plan is similar.”

“The reason she thinks that there are more people covered under her plan than mine is because of a mandate. That is not a mandate for the government to provide coverage to everybody. It is a mandate that every individual purchase health care.”

Now we know that Obama's health care plan was completely ripped from Hillary Clinton's 2008 health care plan since the linchpin of ObamaCare is the individual mandate which he later implemented after becoming President. Thus, Barack Obama's claims that Mitt Romney's healthcare plan was the basis for ObamaCare is a lie based on his own admission. 

Given that Obama's health care plan is really based completely on Hillary's ideas, I now realize that the name for President Obama's health care "ObamaCare" is a misnomer. It really should be called HillBamaCare.

The fact that Obama implemented every aspect of Hillary's 2008 health care plan is a problem. However, the deeper and bigger problem for Mrs. Clinton is that she shares Obama's progressive belief in an growing the size and scope of government in which there is a paternalistic welfare state that offers an array of entitlements to take care of the citizens from cradle to grave. In short, both believe in that the government can solve the needs and problems of its citizens. 

Since Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton are both ardent supporters of a massive welfare state, it is no surprise that they both of them rely on a monstrous maze of government bureaucracy to run their health care plans. It is the central core of making their health plans work.

Back in 1993, this is what the bureaucracy behind HillaryCare would have looked like if it was implemented: 

This is the bureaucracy behind ObamaCare today:

As you can see, the core mechanism for Hillary's 1993 health care plan and ObamaCare rely on a massive bureaucracy to keep it running. If Mrs. Clinton does decide to run in 2016, the devastating blow that the failure of ObamaCare has done to the liberal/progressive promise that our government can competently, honestly and frugally manage our health care may be too big for Hillary to overcome. 

 

If Hillary Clinton runs in 2016, she won't be offering a plan to overhaul ObamaCare but she will be offering tweaks and modifications to HillBamaCare. The problem with that is that any adjustment or improvement she proposes will further increase uncertainty and disruption in the market place. Americans have been nauseous with economic uncertainty ever since Obama's health care plan was passed in 2008 and they're not willing to stomach another four more years of economic disruption caused by further "fixes" to HillBamaCare in 2016. Americans will have had enough in progressive experimentation and tinkering of our health care by then.

Americans will start revolting against ObamaCare in 2014 and the anger may continue well into 2016. Hillary cannot back away from ObamaCare since her 2008 health care plan is too intertwined with ObamaCare. She cannot back away from her progressive beliefs about government having a role in almost every aspect of American's lives including their choices regarding health care. ObamaCare is a colossal failure and any attempt to try to keep it alive or any promise that it will get better will be utterly rejected by the American people.

Both Obama and Hillary have staked their political futures on a progressive reform of America's health care. That's why HillBamaCare will be a huge obstacle for her in 2016.

Ann Romney Leaves The Door Open For Mitt Romney Running For President For A Third Time

Mitt Romney spoke to students at the  University of Utah David Eccles School of Business and stated that he would not be running again in 2016. However, Ann Romney, in speaking at the Republican/MassLive.com conference in Dedham, Massachusetts as part of her book tour for her new cookbook, “The Romney Family Table" had this to say about Mitt Romney running again for President: 

Ann Romney said it would take an “extraordinary experience” before she would consider encouraging her husband, 2012 Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney, in a future run for office.

Though she did not absolutely rule it out, Ann Romney said there would need to be “an absolute collapse of the economy or something dramatic that it would say 'We need you, Mitt, to fix this.'"

"But it would be a very extraordinary thing to bring me back into it," she said.

Ann Romney spoke to The Republican/MassLive.com at a hotel in Dedham on Thursday, during a book tour for her new cookbook, “The Romney Family Table.”

After Mitt Romney, the former Massachusetts governor, ran for president in 2008 and lost in the Republican primary, Ann Romney told him she would never participate in another presidential campaign. She changed her mind, she often said on the 2012 campaign trail, because she felt the country at that time needed someone with her husband’s experience as its leader.

Asked what she told her husband after he lost the 2012 race, Ann Romney said, “Never, ever again, and I mean it this time.”

As I understand it, Ann Romney told her husband after losing the 2012 election that she was adamant that Mitt Romney not run again but now she seems to be open to the idea of running again but only on the condition that America is facing major catastrophic economic or national emergency. Many Romney fans are excited by Ann Romney's statement since the possibility of Mitt Romney running again isn't completely shut. 

Personally, I don't think Mitt Romney will run again. I just can't see him doing it.  If he decides to run in 2016, then I will support him. But if Mitt does decide to run, I think Ann's feelings on the matter will be the deal breaker. If she doesn't want to run, then I don't think he will do it. But if Ann is up for a third attempt, then Mitt might actually go ahead and give it a try again. But for now, it appears Mitt Romney is dead set against running again. But at least Ann leaves the door open for another opportunity for her husband to try to run again.  

By the way, in case you missed it, Mitt and Ann Romney were recently on Rachel Ray's television show and it looked like they had a lot of fun. Watch below: 

ObamaCare: A Study on The Art of Political Deception

This week, we learned, via a fantastic article over at Politico that  a few weeks before he decided to run for President in 2008, Barack Obama didn't have a formal plan on Health Care. It was an idea that was hastily concieved to make him appear that he was more competent as a candidate than he really was:

The most important red line of Barack Obama’s presidency was scrawled hastily in January 2007, a few weeks before he even announced he was running for president.

Soon-to-be-candidate Obama, then an Illinois senator, was thinking about turning down an invitation to speak at a big health care conference sponsored by the progressive group Families USA, when two aides, Robert Gibbs and Jon Favreau, hit on an idea that would make him appear more prepared and committed than he actually was at the moment.

Why not just announce his intention to pass universal health care by the end of his first term?

Thus was born Obamacare, a check-the-box, news-cycle expedient that would ultimately define a president.

“We needed something to say,” recalled one of the advisers involved in the discussion. “I can’t tell you how little thought was given to that thought other than it sounded good. So they just kind of hatched it on their own. It just happened. It wasn’t like a deep strategic conversation.”

This is not surprising given Obama's own admission that he wasn't ready to run for President. Remember this interview from CNN? 

 

It is mindboggling to me that we have a man who openly admits that he was not experienced enough to become President and yet he later decides to run for President despite that statement and we find out that Obama wanted people to believe that he had a formal plan on Health Care when he really didn't have one. 

Moreover, we also learn that not only was Obama dishonest about claiming he had a ambitious health care plan, but that his dishonesty was the result of desperation to do anything to win in 2008. (Doesn't that sound familiar for 2012?) Additionally, the inexperienced Obama knew he was out of his league on the issue of health care and that he wasn't even enthusiastic about his own hastily hatched plan:

Obama’s legacy on health care began with the pressure to say something, anything, at the progressive health conference a year before the first presidential primary votes were cast. He needed to keep up with Clinton, his party’s front-runner, and Edwards, who was trying to carve out space to Clinton’s left as the party’s liberal standard-bearer.

Favreau, who would go on to become the chief White House speechwriter, said Obama wanted “to say something bold and ambitious about health care.”

“He had previously talked about how every year and every election we keep talking about health care and nothing ever happens,” Favreau said. “So we came up with that promise, really one of the first.”

The candidate jumped at it. He probably wasn’t going to get elected anyway, the team concluded. Why not go big?

“In the 2008 campaign, affordable, universal health care for every single American must not be a question of whether, it must be a question of how,” Obama said at the Families USA conference. “We have the ideas, we have the resources, and we must find the will to pass a plan by the end of the next president’s first term.”

Even after his pledge, though, it took months for Obama to buy in.

In March 2007, he found himself on the same stage with a highly confident Clinton at another health care forum, this one sponsored by the Service Employees International Union in Las Vegas.

Obama staggered through a discussion that left policy wonks convinced that he was out of his league, particularly when compared to Clinton, arguably the nation’s premier expert on health care after her unsuccessful attempt to enact reform in the 1990s.

While she dominated, he was confronted by an audience member who asked why he didn’t have a health care plan yet. He responded that his campaign was only eight weeks old and promised to come up with one soon. At one point, in response to a question about health care disparities among minorities, Obama talked about lead poisoning as Clinton aides giggled.

Obama knew before he walked off the stage that he had screwed up.

Obama had successfully deceived the Democratic party in to believing that he was more competent than Hillary Clinton on the issue of health care by attacking her for supporting the individual mandate even though he secretly was telling other people that he did support the individual mandate and that it would most likely be a part of his plan. Here's Politico describing how Obama was lying to Democratic voters: 

At the advice of his political advisers, Obama sought to undercut Clinton by accusing her of pushing for an individual mandate — an idea borrowed from Republicans that polled poorly with independents and conservative Democrats in critical battlegrounds like Pennsylvania and Ohio.

Aides say Obama was simply looking for any way to differentiate himself from an opponent whose basic policy positions were indistinguishable from his own. After Clinton dropped out in June 2008, Obama was privately telling his staff that any health care reform he proposed would most likely include a mandate.

Watch this clip below of Obama attacking Hillary Clinton on the idea of the individual mandate: 

While Obama was out lying to Democratic voters and later to the American people, it took months for Obama to buy into his own deceptive campaign promise. And when Obama was able to push ObamaCare through Congress through a procedural loophole despite massive public opposition the Affordable Care Act, the central idea of his plan was the individual mandate. Thus, not only did Obama lie to the American people, but he flipped flopped on the issue of he individual mandate. 

Four years later in the 2012 Presidential election, Obama would use ObamaCare as both a sword and a shield against Republican challenger Mitt Romney by falsely claiming that he used RomneyCare as a template for his healthcare plan since Romney's health care plan contained the individual mandate despite the fact that Obama was lying and flip flopping on that idea back in 2008. Once Obama was reelected in 2012, he would go on to use to U.S. government attorneys defend the individual mandate that he criticized and lied about when he was a candidate in 2008.

But back to the Politico's central theme that ObamaCare was born in attempt to make Senator Obama look more competent than he really was.  Supporters of ObamaCare claim that it was a well thought out plan. Now we know that it wasn't. Nancy Pelosi was  being truthful when she said that we had to pass ObamaCare in order to find out what was in it. What do we find out? We find out that  that a bunch of inexperienced twenty something year old Congressional interns wrote it which contained the individual mandate that Obama flipped flopped on. I don't think the Democratic Congress and their interns who wrote the bill even studied RomenyCare closely at all. We also learn that it contained a tax even though Obama would flip flop on that saying there was a tax and there wasn't a tax.

In other words, the legislation didn't come from the White House but Congress. Essentially, Obama let Congress create, draft and pass the bill. All he had to do was sign it. I don't think ObamaCare was really Obama's idea. He was never really enthusiastic about a healthcare plan and it took months for him to buy into the lie he sold to the American people. As you may or may not remember, it was Obama and the Democratic party who wanted a single payer health care program prior to the passage of ObamaCare. But in the end, and if you read the entire Politico article, you'll find that he just wanted his aides and advisors to be able to sell whatever plan someone came up with to the American people.

Ultimately, the biggest deception is that ObamaCare is a designed to pave the way for the eventual implementation of a single payer health care plan. Obama may not have initially had any health care plan when he made that decision to run in 2008. However, Obama has always wanted a bigger and more intrusive government. The intent of ObamaCare was to grow the size of the goverment. Listen to Obama's intent behind his health care plan in his interview with John Stewart on the Daily Show.  If you don't want to watch the entire thing, go to approximately the 8 minute mark and listen. Watch the video below:

As the President stated himself in the John Stewart interview, the "change" in the nation's health care program was to simply make it a framework that will allow for future growth of the federal government. His example of Social Security is used to drive this point home. Social Security was initially sold as support for widows and orphanages but later the "structure" of this program blossomed into a massive entitlement program. He points out that the same is true for every progressive piece of legislation, which includes ObamaCare, in which it started out small but it was never intended to be small. It was designed to allow them to make further "progress" which is another way of saying expanding the government. The implication that Obama is making is that ObamaCare will eventually grow into a single payer program over time.

The birth, passage and fragile survival of ObamaCare is an excellent study in art of political deception. Politicians lie all the time. They make promises to the American people they don't intend to keep. Obama is no exception. The media portrayed Obama as an outsider who was different and above politics. The truth is, he wasn't and he still isn't. 

Its not just ObamaCare that was a lie that was masterfully sold to the American people, it was his campaign. Even more fundamentally, Obama sold himself as a lie to the American people.

It is said that the the greatest lie the Devil told was to convince the world that he didn't exist. It may be that the greatest lie a politician can tell is to convince the people that he's more competent than he claims to be. Obama campaigned on a lie that he was ready to be president even when he fully admitted that he wasn't. 

Now, Americans have endured almost eight years of an amateur president who has clearly shown himself to be incompetent on foreign affairs and domestic affairs. If Obama is competent at anything, he's a master at manipulating and deceiving the public into making him President and allowing him to pass a health care plan that was initially conceived as a campaign tactic to make him look more competent than he actually was.  

Mitt Romney Is Not Running In 2016

Mitt Romney appeared at the University of Utah today to meet with students at the University of Utah David Eccles School of Business and stated that he would not be running again in 2016.

Romney also made it clear to the overflow crowd of students, faculty and business leaders gathered to hear his 45-minute speech that he was done running for the White House after two unsuccessful tries.

"I've had two bites at the apple. Three strikes and you're out," he said.
Romney, who received hearty applause after a questioner thanked him for his 2008 and 2012 presidential races, jokingly suggested his wife, Ann, or son Josh — who lives in Utah — would be better candidates next time around.

Before the speech, Romney said he was "feeling bad I'm not in the White House," calling it a "great thrill to run for president" and an honor to have had the support of Utahns.

"The country faces real challenges, which unfortunately are not being addressed in the way I'd hope they'd be. A lot of people are hurting. A lot of people across the country can't find work," he said, including new college graduates.

I knew that Mitt Romney would not be running again in 2016. Its not that I had any inside information but I knew that he just wasn't going to run. I don't think he wants to become like Ralph Nader or Ron Paul who have ran for President in multiple presidential elections. I also think he wants to move on and do other things whether it be in business or politics. 

There are many people (I am not one of them) who want Mitt Romney to run in 2016. There's even a Facebook group called Mitt Romney for President 2016 that has already been set up to promote that idea. Even though I am deeply saddened that Mitt Romney lost and I believe he would have made a great president, he made the right choice not to run again. 

As far as 2016 goes, I would like to see the following people throw their hats into the ring for that Presidential election: Chris Christie, Bobby Jindal, John Kasich, Robert McDonnell, Scott Walker, Nikki Haley, Susana Martinez, Jan Brewer, Senator Jeff Sessions, Senator Jeff Flake, Senator Kelly Ayotte, former Oklahoma representative J.C. Watts, Former Secretary of State Dr. Condoleezza Rice, Dr. Benjamin Carson, Former U.S. Representative Artur Davis, Former Ohio Secretary of State Ken Blackwell, and Former U.S. Representative Allen West and former Mitt Romney running mate Paul Ryan. 

I also don't want the following people to run in 2016: Senator Rand Paul, Marco Rubio, Ted Cruz, Ron Paul, Herman Cain, Rick Perry, Newt Gingrich, Alan Keyes, John Huntsman Jr., and Rick Santorum, Sarah Palin, Mitch Daniels, and Mike Huckabee.
 

Do you think it was right for Mitt Romney to decide not to run in 2016? Who do you think should run in 2016?