Is it 1992 all over again?

There are a great deal of similarities between this election and the Clinton election in 1992. For those of you who remember in 1992 we had a fresh face or Washington outsider running against the old guard or establishment. People were ready for a change! What is remarkable to me is how similar the situation is between Clinton vs. Bush and Obama vs. McCain.

Of course McCain is part of the old guard Washington establishment and like Bush Sr. never really completely comfortable with the Conservatives in Congress. Both are war hero's with incredible resume's. Neither are great on the stump or in a formal speech but both have an incredible understanding of the world and how it really works.

The real focus is the remarkable similarities between Clinton and Obama in a number of areas:

ASSOCIATIONS:

Bill Clinton had his financial improprieties in the Whitewater land deal with Jim McDougal and that later had many indictments and almost lead to Clinton's own downfall. Barack Obama has his connections with Tony Rezko who is waiting sentencing right now for some illegal activities due to real estate. Most of Clinton's other improper relationships were sexual in nature but Obama's appear to be ideological. First we have the Rev. Wright who ran a very radical church that had associations with left wing groups and Louis Farrakhan. Why a Christian church would have anything to do with the Muslim Farrakhan is unusual to say the least. Then you have Obama's relationship to former Weatherman Underground head William Ayers who bombed the Pentagon and NY city Police Headquarters. These are unusual characters for a political up and comer to hang around with. At least Bill Clinton stopped hanging around with radicals after his College days.

TAX POLICY:

Bill Clinton and Barack Obama ran for President on a promise of cutting taxes for the so called middle class. Please recall that after a very short time in the White House Bill Clinton said "I have never worked so hard in my life" and no middle class tax cut was delivered. Of course that happened a few years later but there was a different political dynamic then. I suspect since Obama is telling us that he will cut taxes for 95% of us and yet only approximately 60% of us even pay federal taxes this will not come to pass. Not to be pessimistic but when the guy is running on raising the payroll tax that funds Social Security and Medicare that means a tax increase, sorry middle class.

WIVES:

This is a most interesting comparison. What is it about these Democrats and the women they choose to marry. Hillary Rodham seems like the "Goldwater Girl" she describes herself as in comparison to Michelle Obama. Though before Mrs. Clinton decided to become Senator Clinton or President Clinton #2 she had some radical and self promoting problems herself. There have been numerous books on Mrs. Clinton and her radical notions and to call her a marxist would not be flamboyant. Her years at Wellsley are littered with leftist connections and unlike her husband she did not seem to outgrow them until well into his second term. This was most likely due to the trouncing he took in the 1994 elections which was mainly her fault. Mrs. Obama's leftist leaning appears to come from the black pride movement. For example, her comment to a crowd during the primaries when she said "this is the first time in my adult life I am proud to be an American". This would have to mean she was not proud when we won the Cold War and freed millions of Eastern Europeons from tyranny. This would mean she was not proud of when black and white members of the military freed a tiny country called Kuwait from an unprovoked attack by Iraq. This would mean she was not proud when the 1980 American Hockey team beat the Soviets. This would mean she was not proud of the Firefighters and Police of New York ran into a building that was about to come down to save any person they could. Not unlike Mrs. Clinton post 1994 Mrs Obama is no where to be found these days.

EXPERIENCE:

Although Bill Clinton came into office with much more experience and a better understanding of Washington than Barack Obama the lack of understanding how the world works is what is most concerning. You get the impression we were loved in the world when we had Bill Clinton as President. That is mostly true in the capitals of Europe but were we respected and the answer would be a resounding NO. The answer to that is simple. We had embassies and battle ships bombed by Al Queda. Saddam Hussein frequently fired at our plains flying in his portion of the world which was against the law as imposed by the United Nations. The Chinese certainly did not respect us or our wishes for freedom and democracy. What will Barack Obama do? We truly do not know the answer and it does not appear he knows the answer either as he had not given any clear direction during his campaign of the last 17 months.

Typically you will get out of a President what we see during a campaign. George H.W. Bush and John McCain clearly think of the big picture of world affairs. Bill Clinton and Barack Obama will put forth an image of "he cares about me" but what voters really need to think about is where is he going to take America. If Bill Clinton really cared about us in 1998 he would have resigned and quite frankly Al Gore would have won the election in 2000. Clinton and Obama are patriots but to think they really care about the common citizen is off base. They should care about all citizens instead of focusing on one class or another. John McCain, agree with him or not, has a sense of what America is supposed to stand for and look like internally and externally and that is what we need during for the road ahead.