It worked in 2008. Will it work in 2012? (unemployed, Obama, companies)

[JimMe]

Obama won the election in 2008 on an empty slogan: Hope and Change. He aims to win re-election on another empty slogan: "Fairness". If the Republican candidate can't find an answer to it he will lose.

In his SOTU address Obama contrasted an economy where a few do extremely well and the remainder are struggling with an "economy where everyone gets a fair shot, everyone does their (sic) fair share, and everyone plays by the same rules." Sounds good, even compelling, as a slogan should. But it is empty rhetoric. The real unfairness is an economy that has left millions unemployed or under employed. And that is the economy over which Obama has presided going on four years now.

Obama seeks to deflect attention from the failure of his policy and shift the blame to some nebulous "other" for creating and manipulating a rigged economic system that favors a few over the many. In fact there has been rigging of the marketplace for a long time--a lot of it perpetrated by Democrats, but Republicans are not innocent, either. But Obama has made the picking of winners and losers an art form. It's difficult for everyone to play by the same rules when the rules he has put in place favor those politically connected to him. I'm sure many companies would love to be in GE's position and Jeffrey Immelt's position and not have to pay corporate income taxes. Maybe they, too, could be wined and dined by Obama and put on his jobs council. Or get free money from the taxpayers like Solyndra and other "green" companies have.

The bottom line is that Obama's "fairness" mantra is empty sloganeering without substance. And the Republican candidate had better have an answer for it. Because slogans work.