OBAMA AND TERRORISTS ISIS 42,196

OBAMA  AND

THE  TERRORIST  ISIS

*  Special thanks to "Google Images", Wikipedia.com", "Reuters",
"The Washington Post", "USA Today"

http://www.qubewallpaper.in/funny-anti-obama-cartoons-

hd/funny-anti-obama-cartoons-hd-2/

BLOG  POST
by Felicity Blaze Noodleman
Los Angeles, CA
8.29.14

Thanks for returning to the "Noodleman Group" this week!  Our subject for this week’s Blog is truly a dynamic issue and provokes views from everyone In Washington and the Nation at large.  Everyone will have an opinion on this issue and it is sure to be a political football for many years, if not decades to come.  We truly wish we had something else to write about because the troubles in the Middle East are, are childish and immature.  

This is a region of the world steeped in a Stone Age mentality which predates Islam.  The civilized world of today is appalled and looks upon the conditions and behavior of the Islamic Muslim world with disbelief as they continuously laps into their Neanderthal behavior.  In the Twenty-first century world of today this kind of tribal war fare is barbaric no mater what name or cause the participants claim for their actions. From the United Nations to Diplomats the world over, issues in the Middle East and in Iraq have been addressed the with less than moderate success.

This year seems to be more active with violence through out the Middle East than the past past with fighting in Afghanistan, Syria, Israel and Palestine and now back in Iraq again.  We wanted to wait a bit before writing this article to get a better sense of what was happening in this region of the world.  Since President Obama has again resumed bombing in Iraq it seems that the United States may have pulled out to early and left the mission incomplete there.

Depending on how finely you split the hair, US involvement would eventually come to and end. The exit strategy in Iraq was a subject of intense discussion and debate when Barack Obama assumed the Presidency in 2009.  What would the US leave behind in the place of the Saddam Hussein Government and al Qaeda?  Also; would the newly established government in Iraq be strong enough to maintain stability in their country after the war.  President Obama ended US involvement in Iraq and now we are seeing the wisdom of that decision. 


US  INVOLVEMENT  IN  IRAQ

The United States has been involved with Iraq since before the first Military campaign known as "Operation Desert Storm" also called "Desert Shield" in 1990. The United States armed Iraq after the Iranian Islamic Revolution in 1979 during the Carter administration when US leaders feared this revolution could spill over to neighboring Iraq. President Saddam Hussein of Iraq went rouge in 1990 attacking the neighboring nation of Kuwait over oil drilling practices ("slant drilling" into Iraq's oil fields) and oil prices within the United Arab Emirate.  At that time Iraq was the third largest recipient of US assistance.

Desert Storm.  17 January 1991 – 23 February 1991. Coalition victory Air superiority gained in a month Start of the ground offensive.  wikipedia.com

Earlier in 1988, Saddam Hussein attacked the Kurd's in Northern Iraq, considered to be an act of Genocide, with chemical weapons which have been internationally baned by treaty within the United Nations since 1925.  This treaty was signed in Geneva and binds all member Nations from the use of such WMD's. 

President Hussein had been considered an ally of US interests in the region and a stabilizing force to maintain peace in a historically troubled part of the world.  By attacking Kuwait to the south of Iraq and also the Kurd's within Iraq to the north, Hussein himself became the threat to peace and stability in the region.

A short discussion concerning Islamic militant organizations will reveal fundamental similarities to the Iranian Islamic Revolution of Ayatollah Khomeini. Assuming different names for their splinter groups, they are all basically the same and all are operating in different nations throughout the Middle East. At the core of their doctrine is a radical Islamic faith, a hatred for Israel and a hated rid for the United States.  How ever; this kind of war fare has been practiced in the Middle East for thousands of years and has it's roots in the tribal war fare of ancient history.

Clockwise from top: Delta Force of Task Force 20 alongside troops of 3rd Battalion, 327th Infantry Regiment, at Uday Hussein and Qusay Hussein's hideout.; Insurgents in northern Iraq; an Iraqi insurgent firing a MANPADS; the toppling of the Saddam Hussein statue in Firdos Square.  Wikipedia

During the second Iraq War under President G.W. Bush, the United States was committed to removing President Saddam Hussein from power, securing all weapons purchased by Hussein with US aid, to insure there were no production of WMD's (weapons of mass destruction) both chemical and nuclear and the destruction of the terrorist group al Qaeda who were responsible for the 2001 "9/11" attacks in New York City and Washington DC.  Also; the United States was committed to helping Iraq install a new government replacing the Hussein regime.  

The United States was successful in accomplishing these goals however; the support of the newly established Government under interim Prime Minister lyad Allawi would be a long term proposition. To allow Iraqis time to install and maintain an effective government while keeping the nation safe from terrorism would not be an easy task. 

Today under President Obama, the United Stated is once again needed to destroy a new terrorist group in Iraq known as "ISIS" (Islamic State of Iraq Shaam) who are the same old Islamic extremists and are just as deadly as al Qaeda posing a threat to their region of the world and the United States.  ISIS leaders are loyal to the cause of Osama bin Laden and al Qaeda. We knew and expected this to happen. Removing al Qaeda created a vacuum, unfortunately this vacuum was not filled with peace and prosperity.

This action is a huge departure for President who has long opposed the war in Iraq.  Obama campaigned on this point and wrote an editorial which appeared in the "The New York Times" in 07/14/08 (http://www.nytimes.com/2008/07/14/opinion/14obama.html?_r=0). Although the Iraq war was not officially declared as over until 2011 President Obama announced an end to combat missions in Iraq in 2010.  It would appear that the President has the best course to follow is the goals of the "Bush Doctrine" (for the lack of a better term)

Five years in, Obama and Bush poll numbers nearly identical

(Infograph by Gordon Donovan/Yahoo News)

http://news.yahoo.com/obama-and-bush-poll-numbers-nearly-identical-five-years-into-presidency-214919924.html

Today the terrorist organization ISIS is estimated top be about 4,000 or more strong and exceptionally brutal in their tactics. The best expression for them is "Head Hunters".  Many photographs of their conquests may be found on "Google Images" at: 

https://www.google.com/search?q=I.S.I.S.&espv=2&source=lnms&tbm=isch&sa=X&ei=yAj-U7Vbi-agBP3wgugC&ved=0CAYQ_AUoAQ&biw=1440&bih=799#q=I.S.I.S.+-+Iraq+-+Beheadings&tbm=isch

These photo's are much to gruesome for us to post on this blog and are just unbelievable.


"Reuters"

U.S. Bombs Islamic State After Obama Call To Prevent Iraq 'Genocide'

By Raheem Salman and Isabel Coles

BAGHDAD/ARBIL Iraq Fri Aug 8, 2014 7:08pm EDT

 (Reuters) - U.S. warplanes bombed Islamist fighters marching on Iraq's Kurdish capital on Friday after President Barack Obama said Washington must act to prevent "genocide".

Islamic State fighters, who have beheaded and crucified captives in their drive to eradicate unbelievers, have advanced to within a half hour's drive of Arbil, capital of Iraq's Kurdish region and a hub for U.S. oil companies.

They have also seized control of Iraq's biggest dam, Kurdish authorities confirmed on Friday, which could allow them to flood cities and cut off vital water and electricity supplies.

The Pentagon said two F/A-18 aircraft from an aircraft carrier in the Gulf had dropped laser-guided 500-pound bombs on the fighters' artillery and other airstrikes had targeted motar positions and an Islamic State convoy.

Obama authorised the first U.S. air strikes on Iraq since he pulled all troops out in 2011, arguing action was needed to halt the Islamist advance, protect Americans and safeguard hundreds of thousands of Christians and members of other religious minorities who have fled for their lives.

The United States also dropped relief supplies to members of the ancient Yazidi sect, tens of thousands of whom are massed on a desert mountaintop seeking shelter from fighters who had ordered them to convert or die.

"Earlier this week, one Iraqi in the area cried to the world, 'There is no one coming to help'," said Obama in a late night television address to the nation on Thursday. "Well, today America is coming to help."

"We can act carefully and responsibly to prevent a potential act of genocide," he said. On Friday the White House said the strikes would last as long as the security situation required.

The Islamic State was defiant. A fighter told Reuters by telephone the U.S. air strikes would have "no impact on us".

"The planes attack positions they think are strategic, but this is not how we operate. We are trained for guerrilla street war," he said. "God is with us and our promise is heaven. When we are promised heaven, do you think death will stop us?"

The advance of the Sunni militants, who also control a third of Syria and have fought this past week in Lebanon, has sounded alarm across the Middle East and threatens to unravel Iraq, a country divided between Shi'ites, Sunnis and Kurds.

The U.S. airstrikes prompted renewed calls on jihadi online forums for attacks on the United States and oil interests in the Gulf. "The mujahideen must strive ... to discipline America and its criminal soldiers,” the SITE monitoring service quoted one such message, on the Shumukh al-Islam jihadi forum, as saying.

In Baghdad, where politicians have been paralysed by infighting while the state falls apart, the top Shi'ite cleric all but demanded Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki quit, a bold intervention that could bring the veteran ruler down.

SHELTERING ON MOUNTAIN

Sunni fighters from the Islamic State, an al Qaeda offshoot rejected as too extreme by Osama bin Laden's successors, have swept through northern Iraq since June. Their advance has dramatically accelerated in the past week when they routed Kurdish troops near the Kurdish autonomous region in the north.

Attention has focused on the plight of Yazidis, Christians and other minority groups in northern Iraq, which has been one of the most diverse parts of the Middle East for centuries.

"The stakes for Iraq's future can also not be clearer," U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry said on Friday. The Islamic State's "campaign of terror against the innocent, including the Christian minority, and its grotesque targeted acts of violence show all the warning signs of genocide."

The U.S. Defense Department said planes dropped 72 bundles of supplies, including 8,000 ready-to-eat meals and thousands of gallons of drinking water, for threatened civilians near Sinjar, home of the Yazidis, ethnic Kurds who practice an ancient faith related to Zoroastrianism.

The Islamic State considers them to be "devil worshippers". After fighters ordered them to leave, convert or die, most fled their towns and villages to camp out on Sinjar mountain, an arid peak where they believe Noah settled after the biblical flood.

"After we fled to the mountain, I returned one day to recover belongings and I saw the bodies of the elderly disabled men who had been shot dead by the Islamic State. They were too old to flee. I can't forget that scene," said Akram Edo, who escaped to Kurdish-held territory with seven children.

His brother Hameed Edo, still back on the mountain with five children, told Reuters by telephone water was running out and no aid had arrived for the civilians trapped in the wilderness.

Mahma Khalil, a Yazidi lawmaker in Baghdad, said: "We hear through the media there is American help, but there is nothing on the ground.... Please save us! SOS! save us!" he said. "Our people are in the desert. They are exposed to a genocide."

Witnesses said later that Kurdish fighters from Turkey's PKK had helped an unspecified number of people off the mountain. It was not possible to confirm the involvement of the PKK, which would risk dragging Turkey into the conflict.

TRAMPLE OUR DEAD BODIES

In the Kurdish capital, suddenly near the front line for the first time after a decade of war, defiant residents said they were stockpiling weapons and prepared to defend the city.

"People with children took them to their families (outside Arbil), but the men have stayed," said Abu Blind, 44, working at a tea stall in Arbil bazaar. "They will have to trample over our dead bodies to reach Arbil."

The Kurdish region has until now been the only part of Iraq to survive the past decade of civil war without a serious security threat. Its vaunted "peshmerga" fighters - those who confront death - also controlled wide stretches of territory outside the autonomous zone, which served as sanctuary for fleeing Christians and other minorities when Islamic State fighters arrived in the region last month.

But the past week saw the peshmerga crumble in the face of an advance by the fighters, who have heavy weapons they seized from Iraqi army troops that abandoned their posts in June. In addition, the fighters are flush with cash looted from banks.

Christians, many of them already refugees who had sought shelter in peshmerga-controlled areas, were suddenly forced to flee. Tens of thousands of Christians fled on Thursday when the Islamic State overran their hometown, Qaraqosh.

Shamil Abu Madian, a 45-year-old Christian, told Reuters he had first quit the city of Mosul when it fell in June. He initially sheltered in a town protected by the peshmerga, but was forced to flee again in panic in the middle of the night when the Kurdish peshmerga troops suddenly vanished.

"We were not able to take anything with us except some clothes in a nylon bag," he said. "People are living on sidewalks, in public gardens, anywhere."

A United Nations humanitarian spokesman said some 200,000 people fleeing the Islamists' advance had reached the town of Dohuk on the Tigris River in Iraqi Kurdistan and nearby areas of Nineveh province. Tens of thousands had fled further north to the Turkish border, Turkish officials said.

AYATOLLAH CITES "GRAVE MISTAKE"

Maliki, a Shi'ite Islamist accused by foes of fuelling the Sunni revolt by running an authoritarian sectarian state, has refused to step aside to break a stalemate since elections in April, defying pressure from Washington and Tehran.

Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, a reclusive 84-year-old scholar whose word is law for millions of Shi'ites in Iraq and beyond, has repeatedly pushed for politicians to break the deadlock and reunify the country. His weekly sermon on Friday, read out by an aide, was his clearest call for Maliki to go.

Though he did not mention Maliki by name, he said those who cling to posts were making a "grave mistake".

In Arbil, hundreds of foreign oil workers flooded the airport on Friday as oil companies in Iraqi Kurdistan withdrew more staff. Some of the biggest oil operators in the region have lost almost a quarter of their market value this week.

The Islamists' lightning offensive and the threat of U.S. military action sent shares and the dollar tumbling on world financial markets, as investors moved to safe haven assets such as gold and German government bonds.

Obama, who brought U.S. troops home from Iraq to fulfill a campaign pledge, insisted he would not commit ground forces and had no intention of letting the United States "get dragged into fighting another war in Iraq".

Questions were quickly raised in Washington about whether selective U.S. attacks on militant positions and humanitarian air drops would be enough to shift the balance on the battlefield against the Islamist forces.

"I completely support humanitarian aid as well as the use of air power," Republican Senator Lindsey Graham tweeted after Obama's announcement. "However the actions announced tonight will not turn the tide of battle."

(Additional reporting from Isabel Coles in Arbil, Michael Georgy in Baghdad, Michael Shields in Vienna, Bill Trott and Missy Ryan in Washington and Mariam Karouny in Beirut; writing by Peter Graff, editing by Peter Millership and Philippa Fletcher)

"Reuters"

Terrorists found in the Middle East form their organizations in nations which are unable to police their country and may be usually found along the border regions moving back and forth to elude capture,  They find their recruits from all over the Middle East and are Jihadists in Islam. ISIS is now strong and large enough to continue the mission which al Qaeda filled in the past.  If allowed to continue ISIS will become a world wide terror organism and strike targets outside their boarders.

Did President Obama end US involvement in IRAQ to soon? Is the United returning to finish a job which was not completed?  The answer is probably yes to both questions with some reservations. Terrorism is very difficult to combat because they are basically cowards. Terrorists love to strike where no one is looking or expecting them to appear.  They use the element of surprise and then retreat to their hide away.  Terrorists have been around forever and will always have to be dealt with.  The fight is not over and the challenge for the US is to defeat them in a coast effective manner.

Unemployment is high in this region of the world and life continues as it has for thousands of years.  People are deeply devoted to Islam and are at the mercy of Muslim leaders who are filled with rage and power hungry.  If peace and prosperity are to flourish in the Middle East, it is the people themselves who must undergo a intellectual revolution which rejects the dogma of the Jihadists and their ancient tribal doctrines.  This has been Felicity for the "Noodleman Group".

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2014 MIDTERM ELECTIONS 41,552

2014

MIDTERM

ELECTIONS

"Uninformed Voting" by  Tjeerd Royaards 

http://www.toonpool.com/cartoons/Uninformed%20voting_86899

*  Special Thanks to "Google Images", "The New York Times" 

"toonpool.com" and "The Washington Post"

BLOG  POST

by Felicity Blaze Noodleman
Los Angeles, CA
8.22.14

So how are you feeling these days about politics in general and specifically, are you ready for the 2014 midterm elections? Generally the Congressional and State elections are received with less interest than those elections involving big national issues and Presidential contests. Lately we have been feeling like the nation is in a big rut and the air is so stale that it's stifling! In short the nation is seriously ailing and highly anemic compared to past decades.

After almost six years of leadership under President Obama and the Democrats in Congress we are hardly able think of or feel anything.  Compared to the days before Obama in years past it feels like the Country has come to a grinding halt.  We have experienced serious contractions in every part of the nation.  

We have and continue to see inflation take off again since the President called for the $10.10 change in the nations minimum wage.  Low and minimum wage earners are having their raises gobbled up by inflation almost before they have received them.  Also; those who are living on fixed incomes such as the elderly, the unemployed, the handicapped and others are automatically suffering even more because Federal and State Governments are very slow to grant any Cost of Living compensation to those who are no longer able to support themselves. Unbelievable this could be happening here in the United States!  

Most Heavy Industry which supported so many Americans has exited the United States for a large variety of reasons and this has created a what we are beginning to see as a serious gap for Heavy Industry in this nation and we have become a service oriented job produced grinding out low income jobs.  We are borrowing at a frantic pace for; College & Education - Automobiles - Homes - Clothing - Household Furnishings and even lunch covering the expenses with credit of all sorts. How are people to repay these loans with out good paying jobs?  Those kinds of jobs left the country without the creation of any new jobs to replace them.   

In the Twentieth Century this nation led the world in innovation for new technology spawning high paying employment of all sorts for almost everything from automobiles to to computers and software development; and now nothing.  Because of this unprecedented phenomenon are we seeing the beginning of a credit bubble?  What happens when this bubble bursts? This could be even more devastating then the Housing bubble crash of 2008.  In many ways the two issues are closely linked and this problem could be considered as the "other shoe" which may be falling, as the old expression goes. (End Paragraph)

One other area worth mentioning is Iraq.  President Obama has made a complete about face regarding his Middle East policy.  Originally, Mr. Obama pointed to the Bush Administration's War on Terrorism as a big point in his "Change" campaign of 2008.  Well it looks like President Bush and Vice President Cheney were right after all!

These and many other issues are beginning to form and will define these midterm elections not to mention Congressional and State political office races for 2014.  With the campaigning about to begin, we have selected to fine articles for your consideration this week.  One from "The New York Times" and the other from "The Washington Post". The process usually takes place quickly from about September until the voting takes place in early November!

The New York Times

In Midterm Elections, a Miss for Obama Could Be a Hit for Clinton

By JOHN HARWOODAUG. 20, 2014

WASHINGTON — President Obama’s international woes give his former secretary of state good reason to seek political distance. Hillary Rodham Clinton’s recent foreign policy criticisms made that clear.

Domestically, their interests diverge in a different way. A Republican takeover of the Senate this fall would hurt Mr. Obama for the final two years of his presidency, but it might help Mrs. Clinton if she runs to succeed him.

Republican control of both the House and Senate would provide Mrs. Clinton a clearer target to run against in courting voters fatigued by Washington dysfunction. The longer an unpopular president and his more-unpopular partisan adversaries battle to a standstill, the easier to offer herself as a fresh start.

“It would be bad for the country,” said Stanley B. Greenberg, President Bill Clinton’s former pollster, but “total gridlock would allow Hillary to be the change.”

That doesn’t mean that Mrs. Clinton, herself a former Democratic senator, would do a single thing to make that happen. Unlike Mr. Obama, she is in demand to campaign for fellow Democrats this fall. She has strong incentives to help them and win friends among voters, elected officials and donors, just as potential Republican foes do for their party’s candidates.

Yet it offers another illustration of the ways in which the political paths of Mr. Obama and Mrs. Clinton, after their unlikely four-year partnership, can point in different directions.

For all the strengths she would bring to a 2016 race, Mrs. Clinton would face a significant historical obstacle. American voters have demonstrated their reluctance to award the same political party a third consecutive term in the White House.

The combination of fatigue with the incumbent party and rejuvenation by its opposition helped stymie Richard M. Nixon when he sought to succeed Dwight D. Eisenhower in 1960 and Hubert H. Humphrey when he tried to follow Lyndon B. Johnson eight years later. Al Gore lost in 2000 despite President Clinton’s high approval rating and economic record.

In the last 60 years, only George Bush managed to capture a third straight presidential victory for his party. He did it in 1988 — two years after the Democratic opposition had regained unified control of Congress by retaking the Senate in midterm elections.

Congress made trouble for President Ronald Reagan in his last two years by investigating the Iran-contra scandal, overriding his veto of highway legislation and rejecting his Supreme Court nominee Robert H. Bork. In Mr. Bush’s winning campaign, however, he used “liberal Democrats” on Capitol Hill as a foil for his “read my lips, no new taxes” pledge at his nominating convention in New Orleans.

If she were the 2016 Democratic nominee, Mrs. Clinton would have a similar opening to deride Tea Party Republicans in the House even if Democrats keep the Senate this November. But all-Republican control of Congress would magnify it.

In part, of course, that depends on what Republicans do in the next two years. Mr. Obama has been frustrated by his inability, even after a decisive 2012 re-election victory, to “break the fever” of hard-core Republican opposition. With control of both chambers of Congress, Republicans might feel a greater responsibility to join Mr. Obama in governance by striking politically appealing compromises.

“If the direction Republicans define is where the country needs to go, then the initiative is with Republicans,” said David Winston, a Republican strategist for House leaders. “If Republicans just define themselves as being opposed to President Obama, then Republicans hand the initiative to Clinton.”

But evidence from recent years offers little reason to expect that the party will move in a more popular direction. The power of the Republican right has prevented the House, for example, from acting on an immigration overhaul or avoiding a government shutdown despite the express wishes of Speaker John A. Boehner.

Congress as an institution suffers from approval ratings some 30 points lower than Mr. Obama’s. The Republican Party fares worse nationally than Democrats — and has almost continuously since the latter years of President George W. Bush’s administration.

“A Republican Congress will present an inviting contrast and easily understood negative for whoever runs for president as a Democrat,” said Anita Dunn, a former White House communications director for Mr. Obama.

At the same time, she added, “The president will have two more years to get things done and clearly a Democratic Senate would be better for that.” As little as Congress is doing now, losing the Senate beachhead poses numerous dangers to Mr. Obama’s agenda.

Republicans would control which of his appointees receive confirmation votes, and how quickly. They could, as their House counterparts have done, initiate investigations of the administration.

They could make him use his veto pen to fend off legislation impeding his climate-change initiative or repealing parts of the health care law. They could seek smaller compromises on trade, infrastructure or business taxation on terms that force Mr. Obama to choose between alienating his Democratic base or accomplishing nothing further before leaving office.

Mr. Obama might find solace later if troubles in his closing act end up smoothing the path for Mrs. Clinton. He won landmark victories in his first two years with a Democratic Congress on economic stabilization, health care, financial regulation and budget priorities. Through use of executive authority, he now aims to add to them on his own on climate change and immigration.

In the polarized politics of the early 21st century, the surest guarantee that Mr. Obama’s political legacy will endure is easy to see. It is another Democratic presidency.

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/08/21/us/politics/in-midterm-elections-a-miss-for-obama-could-be-a-hit-for-clinton.html?_r=0

The Washington Post

Unlike Previous Midterm Election Years, No Dominant Theme Has Emerged For 2014

Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.), second from left, watches as Iowa Gov. Terry Branstad cheers on a candidate at the Republican Party headquarters in Urbandale, Iowa, on Wednesday. Paul has traveled 800 miles around the state to support Republican candidates. (Nikki Kahn/The Washington Post)

By Philip Rucker, Robert Costa and Matea Gold August 9  

Ask voters in North Carolina’s Research Triangle what November’s midterm elections are about and one will tell you drones. A second will say closing the prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. Yet another, the middle-class squeeze.

At a Sunday school classroom in Ypsilanti, Mich., voters are concerned about deteriorating roads, teen sex parties, truancy in schools and violent crime. Six hundred miles west at a Republican campaign office in Urbandale, Iowa, people fear that America is on an irreversible decline — like Germany after World War I, as one man predicted.

Across Colorado, voters are thinking about a whole other set of concerns — veterans’ care, driver’s licenses for undocumented immigrants, the soaring cost of housing, the erosion of Christian conservative values, Russia’s rise, and fracking.

This is an election about nothing — and everything. Unlike in previous midterm election years, no dominant national theme has emerged for the 2014 campaign, according to public opinion surveys as well as interviews last week with scores of voters in five key states and with dozens of politicians and party strategists.

Even without a single salient issue, a heavy cloud of economic anxiety and general unease is hanging over the fiercely partisan debate. Listening to voters, you hear a downbeat tone to everything political — the nation’s economy, infrastructure and schools; the crises flaring around the world; the evolving culture wars at home; immigration laws; President Obama and other elected leaders in Washington.

VIEW GRAPHIC 

No dominant issue leading into midterm elections

“I probably feel the way everyone else feels,” said Lindsay Perry, a 32-year-old Democrat, as she tried to keep her 9-month-old son from tipping over her salad last week at a Durham, N.C., bakery. “Clearly, it’s really dysfunctional and it’s essentially driven by monied interests at this point. It’s really just discouraging. It just seems clear the people’s interests aren’t being represented.”

Over the past 20 years, every midterm election has had a driving theme. In 1994, Newt Gingrich led Republicans to power in a backlash against President Clinton’s domestic agenda. In 1998, it was a rebuke to Republicans for their drive to impeach Clinton. Terrorism motivated voters in 2002, while anger over the Iraq war propelled Democratic gains in 2006. And 2010 turned into an indictment of Obama’s economic stewardship and, for many, his health-care plan.

As long as it has been polling, Gallup has asked voters to state their “most important problem.” For the first midterm cycle since 1998, no single issue registers with more than 20 percent of voters. Immigration was the top concern for 17 percent of those Gallup surveyed in July, while 16 percent said government dissatisfaction and 15 percent the economy.

The result could be an especially unpredictable final 12 weeks of the campaign. With voter turnout expected to be low and several big races virtually tied, campaigns everywhere are searching for pressure points — by taking advantage of news events or colorful and, at times, highly parochial issues — to motivate their base voters to go to the polls.

In Iowa, a neighborhood dispute over chickens wandering into the yard of Rep. Bruce Braley, a Democratic Senate candidate, has become a flap much discussed by Republicans. Democrats in Colorado have zeroed in on Senate candidate and GOP Rep. Cory Gardner’s past support for the personhood movement, which gives fertilized eggs individual rights. Rep. Tom Cotton (R-Ark.), an Iraq veteran locked in a tight race with Sen. Mark Pryor (D-Ark.), has used the recent airstrikes in Iraq as an opportunity to criticize Obama’s “lack of overall Middle East strategy.”

Democrats, who are eager to drive African Americans to the polls, have been sounding the alarm over threats to impeach Obama, even though Republican House leaders insist that is not a real possibility.

“The African American turnout in 2014 will have to be at the level of a presidential year turnout for us to do well,” said Rep. James E. Clyburn (S.C.), the assistant House Democratic leader. “We’ve got to carry a strong message and organize, not agonize, and be ready to take advantage of any opportunities Republicans give us.”

VIEW GRAPHIC 

Election Lab: See our current forecast for every congressional race in 2014

In talks with voters, there was some evidence that the impeachment issue was resonating with African Americans, though it barely registered more broadly.

The lack of a dominant issue also means that campaigns could be more susceptible than in other years to events this fall. Republicans believe, for instance, that if Obama signs an executive order granting legal status to millions of undocumented immigrants, as White House officials have indicated he might, it will create a huge backlash against Democrats.

And after a summer dominated by problems around the globe — a downed plane in Ukraine, war in the Middle East and the return of U.S. bombs in Iraq — continued trouble abroad could further dampen support for the president and his party.

There is hope in the uncertainty for both parties. Democrats believe they have an opening to use wedge issues, such as same-sex marriage, access to birth control and abortion, to rally opposition against Republicans. Republicans, meanwhile, see the potential to expand their opportunities and turn what they expect to be a good year into a great one.

“It’s like a close basketball game and then something happens, there is a breakaway, and it goes from a three- to four-point game to a 10-point win,” Republican strategist Ed Rollins said.

Senate battle is fierce

The hardest-fought battleground this year is for control of the U.S. Senate. Republicans need to pick up six seats to win back the majority for the first time in eight years.

Republicans are heavily favored to win three elections — in Montana, South Dakota and West Virginia — while another dozen or so races are in play, many in states where Obama is unpopular. Democrats believe they have a shot to pick up seats in Georgia and Kentucky, but red-state victories will be difficult in a year that generally favors Republicans.

Republicans are expected to hold their majority in the House, while a number of incumbent GOP governors are facing stiff challenges from Democrats.

All year, Republicans have tried to make the midterm elections a referendum on Obama’s presidency — specifically, his signature health-care law. In Senate battlegrounds from New Hampshire to Alaska, television ads on Obamacare have been pounding viewers. And some Republican leaders are confidently predicting a wave.

“This is the year,” Iowa Gov. Terry Branstad (R) said. “It’s a midterm election for an unpopular president in his second term. History says that goes against his party. . . . I was on the ballot in 2010, which was a good year for Republicans, and 1994, which was a great year. I think this could be comparable to ’94. I think it’ll be better than 2010.”

But Democrats believe the question that drove voters in 2012 will do so again this fall: Which party is on your side? Democratic candidates are using a more populist pitch than in previous years, touting such proposals as increasing the federal minimum wage to $10.10 an hour and pay equity for women.

“It’s about the fight for working-class and middle-class people contrasted with a fight by Republicans for those at the top,” said Joel Benenson, who served as Obama’s campaign pollster.

The party’s rhetoric about the growing divide between the rich and the poor has become more strident. Even in Republican-leaning states, Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.), a liberal who talks tough about Wall Street, has emerged as a popular surrogate this summer.

“There is a lot of angst about whether this country is continuing to provide an opportunity to live the American dream,” former Ohio governor Ted Strickland (D) said. “The overarching concern is an economy that is not providing an opportunity for working people.”

Candidates are grappling with voters’ deeply rooted disgust with politicians and apathy toward affairs in Washington. Republicans are banking on voters placing blame squarely on Obama.

“Look at where the president is at in the polling, look at the history of it, and you can see the malaise,” House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) said. “It’s like when Jimmy Carter told us to put a sweater on and turn the heater down. The president is asking Americans to accept mediocrity.”

But voters don’t see it so clearly. A Washington Post-ABC News poll last week found that 51 percent of all Americans disapprove of the job that their own member of Congress is doing — a record high in a quarter century of Post-ABC polling on this question.

Neil Newhouse, Mitt Romney’s pollster during the 2012 campaign, warned that Republicans should not see the president’s sagging summer poll numbers as evidence of sure disaster for Democrats.

“Republicans made this mistake two years ago when Democrats managed to get voters to the [polls] who were not enthusiastic and lukewarm toward the president,” he said. “Republicans are reading the tea leaves a little too early.”

Gingrich, the former House speaker, said, “I don’t think anybody should underestimate the anger and disillusionment of the American people and how dangerous the environment is.” But, he added, “It’s also not just about Obama. It’s much deeper and bigger than that.”

Consider the television ads two-term Rep. Dan Benishek (R-Mich.) is running in his rural Upper Peninsula district. Benishek, a surgeon, does not state his party affiliation or even mention the fact that he’s a congressman. In his ads, he’s simply “Dr. Dan.”

Nationally, the political conversation on television — fueled by tens of millions of dollars in outside spending by super PACs — has deteriorated with an onslaught of ads.

Democrats in states with rocky political terrain are not only highlighting their independence from Obama, but also focusing on local issues that might help them establish unique brands.

In Louisiana and Alaska, embattled Democratic Sens. Mary Landrieu and Mark Begich are talking about what they have delivered for their poor, rural and — in the case of Alaska — remote states. And in West Virginia, Democratic Senate nominee Natalie Tennant is talking a lot about drug addiction, even holding events devoted entirely to what she calls “our state’s drug crisis.”

“How do you localize it?” Tennant said. “You see so many people have been touched by this, and we need to focus on finding a solution. It’s not a catchy little thing that you hope pulls people out to vote. It’s a situation with real people and real consequences.”

Many issues are in play

The fluid campaign was on display last week as Colorado Gov. John Hickenlooper (D) visited the Aurora Seniors Center, where many voters described themselves as independents and said they are undecided about backing him for reelection. Fittingly, Elvis Presley’s “Suspicious Minds” blasted through a loudspeaker as Hickenlooper worked the room, sounding out the seniors on what bothers them most.

“Russia is coming back,” Lois Doone, 69, said — just like “the old days.”

Bill Reddick, an 84-year-old retired pilot, was focused closer to home. He was upset at Hickenlooper over the lack of political consensus at the state capitol — never mind that the governor said that 424 of his 428 measures and each of his four annual budgets have passed with bipartisan support.

Jerry Barton, an 83-year-old Korean War veteran, fumed about problems at the Veterans Administration. He told Hickenlooper about recently arriving at a VA hospital for an appointment and being told it had been canceled and to return in three months.

Hickenlooper, meanwhile, had an entirely different take on the election. He said the driving issues are housing — costs are “going up like a rocket” — traffic, neighborhood safety and the cost of living.

A world away from suburban Denver, Sen. Mark R. Warner (D) gathered employees of an oil company in rural Southside Virginia for a town hall meeting last week. Warner paced a wood-paneled room fielding questions on immigration, the Export-Import Bank, transportation costs and offshore drilling. A former civil service worker even asked why the government had changed her pension.

And Brian Atwood, 44, a father of two, raised his hand to ask about Vladi­mir Putin.

“A couple years ago in a presidential debate, Governor [Mitt] Romney said Russia was our biggest threat coming up in the future and the president kind of laughed it off and the media kind of laughed it off,” Atwood said.

“I’m on the Intelligence Committee, so I can’t tell you everything,” a smiling Warner replied, winning laughs from the crowd. “Obama isn’t the first president hoodwinked by Putin,” Warner added, offering an impersonation of former President George W. Bush’s comment about looking into Putin’s eyes to get “a sense of his soul.”

Much of the campaign has played out on the airwaves, fueled by nearly $155 million spent by super PACs and other outside groups on TV ads and other campaign expenditures so far this year, according to data compiled by the Center for Responsive Politics, a nonpartisan research group.

A large share of those spots have been focused on the Affordable Care Act. In the first four months of the year, 35 percent of broadcast and national cable TV ads in Senate races took aim at the health-care overhaul, according to data analyzed by the Wesleyan Media Project.

Yet polls suggest relatively few voters have cited their opposition to the law as their animating issue.

“It’s really remarkable that six months ago, it was all about Obamacare,” said William J. Bennett, a former Reagan administration official who hosts a talk show on conservative radio. “Nine out of 10 calls we’d get, if we asked people about their biggest problem, it was Obamacare. Now we can go a week without talking about it on the program.”

In interviews across North Carolina, voters frequently praised the Affordable Care Act. Anna McAllister, a Republican-leaning independent, said the new law has made her reconsider her view of Obama.

McAllister, 20, did not support Obama when she voted for the first time in 2012, but she recently learned that she is able to stay on her parents’ insurance under the law, which came as a big relief as her family already is paying a slew of medical bills for her father, Barry.

“I still don’t think he’s my favorite,” McAllister said of the president, “but it’s helped.”

Nevertheless, discontent with the president suffused nearly every conversation with dozens of voters in North Carolina, which Obama won in 2008 and lost in 2012.

Carmen Cervantes, who immigrated to the United States from Mexico 18 years ago, was initially thrilled when Obama began talking about overhauling the country’s immigration system. Now she’s dismayed by a lack of progress, and she puts most of the blame on the president.

“I voted twice for Obama,” said Cervantes, a 44-year-old nursing assistant from Fuquay-Varina, N.C. “I had a lot of faith in him . . . but it hasn’t happened.”

Immigration status has forced her family to be split apart. She said one of her husband’s brothers was recently deported while his application for residency was pending. “Now the children are growing up here without their father,” she said, speaking in Spanish.

“Immigration is something I think he needs to focus on,” Cervantes added. “I don’t think the president has done anything. I’m not asking him to give amnesty for everyone. But it’s a societal issue and he needs to take action.”

Cervantes, a registered independent, said she is not sure yet how she’ll vote in November.

-In Democratic-leaning Ypsilanti, a few dozen people gathered for gospel choir practice at Brown Chapel AME Church voiced disillusionment with Washington. Both parties, they said, have failed to be productive.

“If the people really had their way,” Rev. Jerry Hatter said, “they would vote new people in from top to bottom.”

Rucker reported from Iowa, Costa from Washington and Gold from North Carolina. Wesley Lowery in Michigan, Sebastian Payne in Colorado, Jenna Portnoy in Virginia, and Peyton Craighill and Scott Clement in Washington contributed to this report.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/unlike-previous-midterm-election-years-no-dominant-theme-has-emerged-for-2014/2014/08/09/8775aca6-1f0a-11e4-ae54-0cfe1f974f8a_story.html

The midterm elections usually draw fewer voters and interest for many but are always an indicator of the Nations mood on so many issues.  We hope this weeks Blog will help you get into Politics for the Fall season of 2014.  This has been Felicity Blaze Noodleman writing for the "Noodleman Group". Good night Mr. and Mrs. America! 

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