Collegiate Times

Jason Campbell:

The Democratic National Convention has been a fascinating spectacle of political intrigue and civic progression from the infamous platform scandal to its being the most diverse party convention in American history. 

Beyond this, however, the convention illustrates how both Democrats and Republicans view the failures of the president, with Republicans using public deception to make them worse and Democrats relieving the president of responsibility.

The Republican Convention in Tampa last week left the Obama campaign in a state of wonder, as obvious lies and half-truths were poured from the mouths of supposedly rational politicians and into the ears of the American people.  A peculiarly salient example of this is the claim Paul Ryan made during his acceptance speech for the vice presidential nomination when he said Obama was to blame for the United States losing its AAA credit rating.  There is no doubt Obama deserves some blame regarding this embarrassing moment, but recall Standard & Poor’s specifically cited the failure of the American government to cooperate with itself as the cause of its downgrade.  Another example of an obvious falsehood was Mitt Romney’s claim during his acceptance speech that "more Americans wake up in poverty than ever before.’"

Though this statement rhetorically sounds powerful, factually it is devoid of any substance since the population of the United States is currently higher than ever before; the poverty rate is nowhere near a record high.  In fact that poverty rate is 7.3 percent, lower than it was when these statistics were first being measured in 1959. It is however, the highest it has been since 1993. 

I do not want to focus on the lies told by Republicans in Tampa or the defense Obama received in Charlotte by various speakers, but instead want to look at the real failures of this administration.  Toward this end, Republicans generally blame Obama for failing to adequately establish policies that would lead to the swift recovery of the American economy, as well as pushing this nation further toward the repulsive chimera of "socialism." 

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A version of this article appeared in the Sep 7 issue of the Collegiate Times.