2700 Hundred Reasons I Will Not Vote for Barack Obama

The most controversial article I ever wrote–one that prompted a spate of negative responses from all over the world–was one of my first Revive America blogs in October, 2008.

It was called “One Hundred Reasons Why I Will Not Vote for Barack Obama.” I had just returned from a trip to Asia where, over the course of a long flight, I jotted down one hundred policy stances that I felt disqualified Barack Obama from being a successful US president. They encompassed economic, social, and foreign policy positions then held by the Democratic candidate.

But don’t worry if you’re staring at the title above. Even though the most critical election of our lifetime is just four weeks away, I will not make you sift through 2700 bullet points this time around.

I can bring it down to one.

First, a little backdrop.

I wrote my first book in 1976 about that year’s presidential election–originally a three-way race between Gerald Ford, the Nixon-appointed incumbent, Ronald Reagan the conservative challenger, and Jimmy Carter the liberal Georgian peanut farmer.

Before the age of the Internet and computers, I sent snail mail to all the campaign headquarters requesting the three candidates’ positions on thirty areas of public policy. I wanted to know what they would do to improve the economy, where they stood on social and moral issues, and what type of foreign policy they would conduct.

Once I received their position papers, I condensed the data, and with the help of Intercessors for America, produced the first presidential “Voter Guide” that was distributed across the country.

I collected so much material that summer that I decided to turn it into a book. The publisher eventually determined that it would be most helpful as an expose on James Earl Carter because he was the least known of the candidates running–and professed to be a born-again Christian.

So What About Jimmy Carter? rolled off the Third Century Publishers press one month before the November election. Ronald Reagan had just lost out at the Republican Convention (Shirley and I cried that night) and the battle was set between Gerald Ford and Jimmy Carter.

But my expose of Carter was too little, too late. He won in a close election.

What followed was a government that moved rapidly in a secular direction, brought gas shortages, American hostages in Iran, and produced a numbing “malaise” that zapped the American nation of its vim and vigor.

Fortunately, the ’80 Reagan Revolution brought “Morning in America ” four years later by turning the nation back to its Judeo-Christian roots, free enterprise principles, and “peace through strength.”

In Jonah Goldberg’s most recent bestseller The Tyranny of Cliches: How Liberals Cheat in the War of Ideas, Mr. Goldberg, who calls himself “a fairly secular Jew,” says that elections are like “circuit-breakers” that stop the flow of ideas in one direction and help them flow another way.

The “circuit breaker” of the 1980 election did that very thing. It also produced, according to famed economist Arthur Laffer, “the greatest time of prosperity and peace-time economic expansion in the history of the world.”

But that was thirty years ago.

Now back to Barack Obama and the 2012 election.

When I first heard Mr. Obama speak at the 2004 Democratic Convention, I was very impressed (just like everybody else). He was a great speaker, charismatic, a family man, talked about bringing the “blue states and red states together,” and professed to be a follower of Christ.

However, by the time he ran for president in 2008, much of the truth about his worldview and positions had become known–if you knew where to look for them. So I wrote down my one hundred reasons why I couldn’t vote for him. It had nothing to do with race. That year, I would have gladly voted for Thomas Sowell, Clarence Thomas, Walter Williams, or J.C. Watts for president.

Color doesn’t matter. When it comes to presidential politics, it’s the worldview, stupid.

I couldn’t vote for Barack Obama in 2008. I feared that his tenure would be a major “circuit-breaker” in American societal direction. In fact, he announced it that way. He’d come to the presidency to “fundamentally transform the American nation.”

So what are the 2700 reasons not to vote for him? Well, it’s his signature bill that actually encompasses 2700 pages.

Obamacare–whose proper name is “The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act.”

It tells you all you need to know about why you shouldn’t vote for Barack Obama:

1. It is a huge government power grab of nearly one-sixth of the American economy. By making Obamacare his number one priority of the first two years, President Obama told us exactly who he is–a Big Government liberal-progressive who wants the State to control every aspect of our lives. His motives may be good–to provide healthcare to all Americans–but the means is ugly. Governments are lousy providers because they lack competition and use force to achieve their ends. Obamacare is the biggest tyranny ever hoisted on the American people.

2. When the nation desperately needed a political cocktail of lower spending, tax cuts and tax reform, fighting for the entrepreneur, and unleashing the power of innovation and opportunity, President Obama allowed Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid to throw together a nearly three thousand page job-crushing monstrosity that froze money in the banks, caused businesses large and small to curtail hiring, and created paralyzing fear for the future. That’s why we’ve had 8% unemployment for four years now with trillions of corporate dollars sitting on the sidelines. The wealth-creators of America are distrustful of the new taxes, increased regulations, and the 200,000 new IRS agents that will police the system and destroy the America way of life.

3. Ms. Pelosi famously told us during the process of ramming the bill through Congress that “we need to pass the bill to find our what is in it.” All that we learned from that statement is that there’s isn’t much in Ms. Pelosi’s brain except a hunger for tyranny. How dumb does she think we are? Paste together a wish-list of government bureaucracies and declare with a straight face that this is good for America and will lower the cost of healthcare? Well, now that we’ve found time to examine the bill over the past four years, we know that it raided 716 billion dollars from Medicare– jeopardizing its future–has upped health care costs every year, and according to the Congressional Budget Office, will cost at least three times what we were told. And that in an era of 16 trillion dollar budget deficits.

4. The way Obamacare was passed was instructive of Barack Obama’s leadership style–Chicago-style slash and burn. Instead of doing what Mitt Romney had done on a state level–bringing Democrats and Republicans together in a bi-partisan way on a health care bill that was supported overwhelmingly in the Massachusetts legislature with only two votes against it and support by nearly every special interest group in the state–President Obama used bribes and kickbacks to foist his vision on America with not one Republican vote and against the will of the American people. Massachusetts healthcare law is still supported by at least 67% of the electorate. Obamacare has never crossed the 50% barrier.

5. What we also learned from Obamacare was the aggressive secularism of the Obama administration in clamping down on Christian morality and religious liberties in America. Obamacare is loaded with secular mandates that put a dagger into two hundred years of religious freedom including forcing faith-based institutions to violate their conscience on contraception and abortion–to name a few. This is a dagger aimed at religious liberty, morality, and traditional family life. It has motivated Bishop E.W. Jackson to encourage African-Americans to abandon the Democratic Party.  He says, “Clearly, the Democratic Party is the anti-Christian Party in this nation. They reject the Bible, what Bible-believing Christians embrace and they encourage the growth of what we can a ‘non-traditional’ family. That is morally wrong and a disgrace to our nation and our Lord.”

It was very interesting that in the first presidential debate between Mitt Romney and President Obama, when Governor Romney referred to “Obamacare” the first time, and apologized for using its colloquial name, Barack Obama said he actually “liked it”–and smiled.

He likes the 2700 pound gorilla.

He doesn’t seem to understand that his signature issue tells us all we need to know about where he wants to take America if he gets another four years:  toward a secular, socialist nanny state where faith is no longer free

I don’t know what your reasons are, but I’m not voting for Barack Obama.

2700 pages of Obamacare say it all.

It must be repealed by a new president, House, and Senate that we the people elect on November 6.