John LeBoutillier Gives His Fellow Harvard Alum a Bad Time

Here’s why we like John LeBoutillier: he’s a prepared, informed, and insightful guest. The reason? Absolute and total fear. He knows the I-Man will “always find the weakness” if a guest is ill-equipped.

As such, LeBoutillier, a former Congressman who now writes for Newsmax, told Imus that the House needs 216 votes to pass the health care bill, a number they’re not going to reach anytime soon.

Unlike other bills, the House has no power to change this one and must pass the same version as the Senate. “They will never call a vote unless they have the 216,” LeBoutiller surmised.

If the bill doesn’t pass, he said, “It means that the public thinks the status quo of health care is better than what the changes would be.” One of those changes—fining people who don’t want to buy health care at all—goes entirely against an Obama campaign promise.

Politically, LeBoutillier has never seen a President not only shoot himself in the foot, as Obama has done by insisting on health care reform, but “take a 50-calibur machine gun out and blow both legs off, and blow his party’s legs off.”

Much like some of his predecessors, Obama’s obsession with one single issue could cause implosion, as LeBoutillier sees it. LBJ fixated on Vietnam; Nixon obsessed over what his enemies had on him; Clinton compulsively seduced women; and George W. Bush couldn’t shake the urge to off Saddam Hussein, telling members of Congress to support the war in Iraq because, “He tried to kill my dad!”

“Every one of these Presidents had an obsession that took them down,” LeBoutillier concluded. “Obama is obsessed with health care.”

The country, on the other hand, is obsessed with jobs—with creating them, finding them, holding on to them. Obama ignored what LeBoutiller called “a reminder” of this fact, when Massachusetts sent a Republican to the Senate earlier this year. Despite his book smarts, many are questioning Obama’s common sense, and that of his administration.

“What we don’t know and won’t know for years to come is, are they allowed to walk into the Oval Office and say, ‘Mr. President, we are off track,’” LeBoutillier said, referring to Obama’s top advisors. “And does he listen to that?”

LeBoutillier also faulted Obama’s youth. “I think in your forties, you really haven’t lived much and had a lot of things happen to you,” he said. “Rejection and heartbreak teaches us things as we grow older.”

Whether Obama health care obsession becomes law or not, LeBoutiller predicted a total wipe out for the Democrats come November.

Stay tuned.

—Julie Kanfer

A Look at the 2012 GOP Presidential Race

Because Mitt Romney is on a pre-2012 presidential campaign book tour—and because Sarah Palin is constantly in the news—and because President Barack Obama is in self-destruct mode—let’s take a look far, far ahead at the present state of the 2012 GOP race for president. After all, 2012 is now wide-open:

Romney is a bit hot right now. He is back in the news, on TV and radio shows. He is a good-looking man and with a business background he can speak to the still-deteriorating economic situation all around us. He has learned from some of his mistakes from the 2008 race, too. He now appears more humble.

However, he also has many of the same problems from the past: he is a political chameleon who can change a position at the drop of a hat. He was an enthusiastic booster—and as governor, a signer—of Massachusetts’ own version of ObamaCare. It is now widely unpopular in the Bay State—and one of the reasons Scott Brown won that January 19 special senate election.

Health care premiums have exploded in Massachusetts since that bill was enacted—and may very well be a precursor of what will happen nationally if ObamaCare passes.

Is Romney the Republican ONE or is he, as someone recently put it, an “elegant snake oil salesman”? (See answer below.)

Sarah Palin hit a home run as a stand-up comic on Jay Leno last week. She is just plain good on TV. She is shopping an Alaskan reality show with mega-producer Mark Burnett. She has the Fox News gig and earns huge speaking fees. In sum, she is raking in the big bucks.

If she runs for president in 2012 then she has to stop most of this money-making. Or, another way to read it is that she is making this money—people look at her on TV and pay to hear her speak—precisely because she might run for president. So, if she does not run, does much of this money-making capability dry up? Or is she banking a ton of dough now and will worry about running later?

Either way she is a major player for this pre-primary period. If she says she is not running, then it is a new race altogether. But until then she dominates all the calculations, sucks up the political oxygen and complicates the race—and the fundraising—for all other candidates.

Speaking of other candidates there are the usual names: Huckabee, Pawlenty, Haley Barbour and Mitch Daniels. They all bring something unique to the table. The question is: can any of them “connect” with voters and light a fire?

In late 2007 and early 2008 Huckabee caught fire, passed Romney – who never caught fire at any time in the entire race by the way—but then that fire petered out. No one else caught fire inside the GOP. So McCain won by default. He was a terrible candidate who ran a horrible race.

Today’s fire is not inside the Republican Party. It is inside the Tea Party anti-establishment movement.

This is a movement that sees the establishment of both parties plus Wall Street, Hollywood and the Big Media as corrupt, dirty and rigged. And they are!

This is what the Tea Party Movement is all about.

And the next ONE—the next Reagan—the next Mr. Conservative—has to feel this anger in his bones. No, he can’t come across as an angry person. But he has to feel this anger and this despair and translate it into all his speeches and interviews. Only then will he “connect” and catch fire with this growing band of swing voters who will elect the next president in 2012.

Mitt Romney does not connect. Nor does he really feel that anger. He may yet win—by default; he may stand out in a desultory field the way McCain did in 2008. But he will never really lead this country. You know why not? Because he doesn’t really believe in anything. He looks good but stands for nothing. And this will be his undoing.

The One we are all waiting for—the next real leader of this nation—has not yet appeared on the national stage.

Let us hope he does by 2012.

John LeBoutillier will on “Imus in the Morning” Thursday morning, March 11th, at 6:30 AM Eastern on ABC Radio and FOX Business News.

www.imus.com

John LeBoutillier will be on The Happy Hour on the Fox Business Channel on Monday, March 8th at 5pm.

(To all my loyal readers who have been emailing me to ask if I am still writing columns, I apologize for not writing a column for the past two weeks. I was finishing a new book. More on that in the weeks to come. But I am back writing my regular column and I look forward to hearing from all of you!)

Today’s announcement from President Obama that he is making the final push for his signature health care bill has enormous political, economic and medical ramifications:

1) It means that Obama will indeed use the Nuclear Option—a Senate Rules change that will be seen by the American people as “changing the rules in the middle of the game.” (Predicted here on November 11, 2009)

2) This will drive down Obama’s poll ratings because he will be seen as even more manipulative and shifty than the politicians he ran against in 2008. Change? Yeah, the change is that Obama is actually even a dirtier dealer than Bush, Cheney and Karl Rove were perceived to be.

3) November 2010 will now become a blood bath for the Democrats. Contrary to an earlier prediction here on January 1, 2010, the GOP will now likely win back control of the House. The Senate is less likely, but not impossible. Indeed, the Democrats have committed political suicide throughout this health care process. Have you ever seen a President and Congressional leadership push a bill that the majority of Americans oppose? And the more they push, the more the American people oppose the bill! Yet they keep on pushing! Crazy…crazy…crazy…

4) Obama is now on track to become one of the most unpopular presidents—ever.

5) Medically, if this bill passes—and it might—it will throw the entire medical/insurance world into chaos. All our premiums will go up—contrary to what Obama promises. American-trained doctors will flee the system. In sum, it will be a total disaster.

6) The same for 17% of our national economy: if this bill passes, the markets will hate it. And then the more that is learned about it the more it will hurt any chance of an economic recovery.

7) Obama seems to already have forgotten the lesson he was supposed to have learned from Scott Brown’s Massachusetts upset on January 19th. Jobs and economic recovery are the top priority of a majority of people. He said he “got” that message. But within two weeks he was back on his health care obsession. And it is an obsession.

8) LBJ was obsessed with “pinning the coonskin on the wall” in Vietnam. It sunk him. Richard Nixon was obsessed with secrecy and finding out his opponents’ secrets. That obsession sunk him. Bill Clinton was obsessed with seducing women. That ruined him. George W. Bush was obsessed with avenging Saddam Hussein’s attempted assassination of his father. That obsession will forever taint the Bushes.

9) Now we have a clear obsession of Barack Obama. And it will ruin his political career.

Arlene Bynon and John LeBoutillier discussed the Tiger Woods press conference and the passing of former Secretary of State Alexander Haig, Sunday on AM640Toronto. Listen below:


Arlene Bynon 02 21 10 by bootsblasts

Sarah Palin is enormously popular.

And she is also enormously unpopular—even among many on the Right.

Sarah Palin is a good watch on TV.

She is also erratic. And slightly hyper. And full of contradictions.

Sarah Palin is good-looking to many men.

And she is “a bit loopey” to many other men—and women, too.

Sarah Palin is a leader of many conservatives. But to other conservatives, she ruined herself with her sudden—and inexplicable—resignation last summer. Many wonder, “if we invest our hopes in her, will she just up and quit one day when the going gets tough?”

She is glib.

But to others she speaks only in generalities and does not seem to really know anything.

Some see her as a breath of fresh air.

Others see her as George W. Bush in a skirt.

All of the above is part of the fascination with Sarah Palin. And the conundrum for the Republican Party.

If she decides to run for the GOP nomination in 2012 it will rip the Republican Party—and the conservative movement—apart. Perhaps forever.

All at a time when we must defeat Obama. The country cannot take a second Obama term; we are barely going to survive his first term.

But there are many who worry that Palin on the GOP ticket will send independent voters—who have as of now totally abandoned Obama—scurrying reluctantly back to him.

And many others just do not think she is up to the job of being President of the United States.

The 2012 GOP presidential race will revolve around her. And her alone.

If she runs, no other candidate will get any “oxygen”—and the fundraising will be skewed in her favor, too. All the attention will be on her—and on no one else.

She has 25% of the hard right who adore her. But that is all she has. That bloc might win some caucuses and primaries for her. And it will skew the remaining votes and divide them up among other GOP candidates.

In sum, she is an unexploded IED thrown into the 2012 race. The collateral damage is impossible to calculate.

If she does not run, then the race is wide open. And, as of now, we do not have a great candidate on the scene. But there is still time for one to appear.

If she does run, the Republican Party will be ripped apart over her candidacy. And the eventual winner—if it is someone other than her—will have a wrecked party and a discredited, divided conservative movement behind him.