Obama Campaigns for Third Term

President Obama on Wednesday returned to the site of his first official stop as president, Elkhart, Indiana, where he blamed the floundering economy of the past seven years on his predecessor George W. Bush — but said that despite the dismal state of America today, everyone should vote Democrat in November.

As if he had not been president for seven years, Obama blamed trends “that started long before I was elected.”

“This was the first city I visited as president. I had been in office just three weeks when I came here. We were just a few months into what turned out to be the worst economic crisis of our lifetimes. Our businesses were losing 800,000 jobs a month. Our auto industry was about to go under. Our families were losing their savings,” Obama said.

But he segued quickly. “By almost every economic measure, America is better off than when I came here at the beginning of my presidency. That’s the truth. That’s true,” he said to applause. “It’s true.” More applause.

Well, it’s not. Real median income has fallen from about $54,000 when he took office in 2009 to less than $51,000 today. The number of Americans in the labor force has plunged to a 30-year low, while those on food stamps have jumped from 25 million to 45 million. It’s no wonder Donald Trump has come along and swept the GOP primaries by declaring that he will “Make America Great Again.”

Yet Obama, who apparently is going to take an active — and vicious — role in the 2016 election, said that Trump is exactly the wrong way to go for America at this point. “Here’s my main point, the primary story that Republicans have been telling about the economy is not supported by the facts. It’s just not,” Obama said. “They repeat it a lot, but it’s not supported by the facts.” (See above facts.)

“If what you really care about in this election is your pocketbook; if what you’re concerned about is who will look out for the interests of working people and grow the middle class, then the debate isn’t even close,” Obama said.

The president, who has spent his seven years in office dividing Americans based on color and class, bashed Republicans for doing as he does (not as he says). “The one thing I can promise you is that if we turn against each other based on divisions of race or religion, if we fall for a bunch of ‘okie dokie’ just because it sounds funny or the tweets are provocative, then we aren’t going build upon the progress we’ve started,” Obama said. “If we get cynical and just vote our fears, or don’t vote at all, we won’t build on the progress we’ve started.” Or not started. But that’s splitting hairs.

Obama then blamed Congress — oh, and his failure to lead — for the sorry state of the economy, admitting that he hasn’t been very successful. “Now, look, I’m the first to admit my presidency hasn’t fixed everything. We’ve had setbacks. We’ve had false starts. We’ve, frankly, been stuck with a Congress recently that’s opposed pretty much everything that we’ve tried to do.”

[lz_third_party includes=”https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O4u8t6DVkyI”]

And as if he had not been president for seven years, he blamed trends “that started long before I was elected.” He spent much of the speech in a defensive diatribe against critics who have griped about government handouts and the skyrocketing federal debt (which was $10.9 trillion when he took office but will top $20 trillion on his departure eight months from now).

For Obama, he sees Republicans supporting Trump as drug addicts and alcoholics. “When I hear working families thinking about voting for those plans, then I want to have an intervention,” he said to laughter and applause.

“So that’s the choice you face, Elkhart,” he said. Funny, Elkhart didn’t vote for Obama in 2012, a fact the president made light of. But perhaps he shouldn’t have: Elkhart went for Mitt Romney, 62 percent to 36 percent. And they weren’t all that happy when he proclaimed that “Elkhart would not have come this far if we hadn’t made a series of smart decisions, my administration, a cooperative Congress — decisions we made together early on in my administration.”

“President Obama has visited Indiana a few times, but this doesn’t mean he can claim the achievements made by Hoosiers,” said Indiana Republican Party Chairman Jeff Cardwell. “He’s made our comeback from the recession more difficult by raising the costs of family health care and saddling local job creators with crushing regulations.”

But Obama thinks he made it all better in Elkhart. Who knows what he claim credit for next.