If the economy is the issue driving political interest these days, Byron York wonders why the president’s allies and media enablers are focusing their attention elsewhere. York bases his latest Washington Examiner article on that theme.
The fundamental facts of the presidential race at this moment are that unemployment is high, the economy is by far the most important issue to American voters, and President Obama’s handling of economic questions is overwhelmingly unpopular. Republican presidential hopefuls Rick Perry, Mitt Romney, Michele Bachmann and others are hammering the president daily on matters of job creation and economic growth.
Now some of Obama’s activist allies and supporters in the press are engaged in a sharply focused effort to change the subject. Even as economic anxieties continue to rise, some of the nation’s premier political journalists are consumed with the alleged influences of obscure religious philosophers on Republican candidates; on questions of creationism, evolution, and the age of the Earth; and on the fantasy that a Republican president might transform the United States into an Iranian-style theocracy. …
… Put aside whether there is some bias against Christianity in these baseless charges, or whether liberals are proposing the kind of religious test for office that the Founders explicitly rejected. It has often been remarked that, given today’s terrible economy, Barack Obama cannot run in 2012 on the theme of hope, as he did in 2008. With his record, he’ll have to run on fear — that is, on convincing voters that Republicans are just too scary to elect.
