Listening Tour, It’s Like Voting Present

President Obama speaks at a town hall-style meeting Monday at Lower Hannah's Bend Park in Cannon Falls, Minnesota

Update 8/19/2011: President Obama hits the campaign trail today in his two new multi-million dollar busses we bought him. The White House “explanation” is that they are on official business, not a political campaign.

Curious thing about President Obama’s campaign kick-off. If his first day on the campaign trail isn’t important enough to cover live, it begs the question “why is that? Ordinarily, the President is on every major TV network and most of cable. Could it be because he is not drawing crowds? Maybe it is because visiting states and localities where unemployment is low, and predominately white, would not set well with the  Congressional Black Caucus? Or both.

The big news of Obama’s new re-election campaign that is not being reported is that he is out of ideas. Not only is he out of ideas, but he is not taking any responsibility for the malaise we are seeing today in this, Jimmy Carter’s “second term.” Instead, he is pointing fingers at Republicans, Congress, the tsunami in Japan, and the so-called ‘Arab Spring.’ The latter of which, you may recall, President Obama tried to claim credit for when Egypt overthrew President Mubarak.

Two and a half years into his administration, the “leader” of the free world does not have a plan for economic recovery that works and said that “there are a lot of good ideas out there and we’re going to listen to them” because he wants to “create jobs.” He must think the Cut, Cap, and Balance bill passed by the House was not a good idea.

What a disappointment President Obama must be to the people who believed he could deliver on his community organizer-style campaign rhetoric. He is voting present with each committee he forms. Nothing has changed where Obama is concerned. Well, except for our longest stretch of a stagnate economy, unemployment is up, no net increase in private sector jobs so far. And did you know that youth unemployment in Washington, D.C. is now over 50 percent? That’s up from 25 percent a few years ago. In fact, minority unemployment everywhere is as bad as it has ever been under President Obama. Sure, I’ll vote for more of that! What?