COMMENTARY | According to U.S. News, a poll was taken over the New Year's holiday that asked people what event they feared might happen in the upcoming year of 2012. By far more people at 33 percent feared the re-election of President Barack Obama than any other event.
A close second was that taxes would go up by 31 percent. Sixteen percent feared Iran would get a nuclear weapon. Sixteen percent feared that Obama would lose the election. Four percent feared a war with North Korea.
The results make perfect sense. If the 2008 election was about "hope and change," the 2012 election is about fear and loathing. Indeed the current campaign cries out for a right-wing but besotted version of Hunter Thompson to explain how horrible and funny things are from behind a drug induced fog.
It would have been interesting to see polling numbers on which Republican candidate most people are afraid of. My vote would be Ron Paul, whose foreign policy views are truly frightening, with New Gingrich as a runner-up simply because he is easy to paint as scary.
It will be hard to convince Mitt Romney is frightening. He may be a great many things, but the thought of Romney in the Oval Office does not make one quake. He practically oozes calm, reassurance. This is despite Gingrich's ill-considered attempts to attack him as an evil capitalist, though Gingrich denies he is anti-capitalist.
That likely raised the fear factor of Gingrich among Republicans. Any Republican who can attack another for being a CEO is capable of anything.
That is not to say the Democratic smear machine will not try to paint Romney as a monster. It managed to turn Dick Cheney, a calm, competent man who never raised his voice, into "Darth Cheney." Indeed it was said that Cheney, more than because of his heart condition, declined to run for president because he did not want to have "The Imperial March" from "Star Wars" as his unofficial campaign song.
The campaign therefore cries out for someone-like Reagan-to be sunny, optimistic, and to show that there is a morning in America after the torrents and storms the country is experiencing at present. Alas, there seems to be no one prepared to do that. Instead we have Ron Paul, prophet of doom, as Politico is reporting.
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