Red meat that both Romney and the base can eat on the way to the crucial selection of who will wield federal executive power 

Would you re-visit a barber, in a town with other barbers available, that you had initially hired for a trim around the edges but who instead shaved your head, merely because your pate was technically “improving” due to ongoing natural growth three weeks later? I didn’t think so, and you know, Rome began “improving” immediately after the last flame turned to embers and Nero fiddled his final chord.

Despite the near flawless application of James Carville’s, It’s-the-economy, stupid-Rule to every presidential election outcome since at least 1976, even many bona fide conservatives in the NY-DC Media are buying into the inevitability of the re-election of an incumbent chief executive who is supposedly “liked” by most Americans and presiding over an acceptably improving economy.

Don’t believe a word of it. They don’t manufacture mirrors that make America’s three-year old haircut look good, much less $4/gallon+ gasoline while at home for a summer stay-cation.

Too many Americans crave a return to the  entrepreneurship they enjoyed for two decades before the 2008 housing bubble-induced collapse, whose silent cell phones still ring louder than misleading U-3 unemployment rates driven downward more my men applying for disability than by private sector hires (if everyone in the “labor force” delayed filing their third application at the nearest Wal-Mart for four consecutive weeks, Barack could boast of a 0% unemployment rate); to be fooled by relative “improvements” unworthy of the description.

Yet, only three days removed from Leap Day and more than eight months before Election Day, George Will thinks Cadillac, contraception and moon colony gaffes will weigh more heavily on the minds of at least 270 electoral collegians worth of voters than thin wallets. Did he miss the seemingly consequential-at-the-time Playboy heart lust, Tuscumbia states rights speech and “I didn’t inhale” gaffes that were outweighed by empty wallet space? How about Rev. Wright, Bill Ayers and bitter clingers?

Admittedly, President Barack Obama has kept his promises to fundamentally change America, bankrupt coal companies and lower the oceans (seriously, the Earth has cooled down since Inauguration Day 2009), but do a majority of Americans really “like” skyrocketing energy prices, Chevy Volts and Michelle’s pre-K school lunch gauntlet? Not likely.

Yes, enough Americans haven’t given up and still adapt to prevailing conditions with what Liberty remains in their hands despite the usurpation of much of our Rule of Law-protected property rights by “the ObamaCare Secretary shall decide” and EPA Rules, so that the economy hasn’t disappeared. But will Americans re-hire a man merely because a scab begins to form on the sore during his periodic retreats to 18 holes? Again, not likely.

Improving? Yes, much like changes in hospital patient evaluations from critical to serious. Moreover, would voters wish to risk a return to three years of debt ceiling-busting and currency-threatening, un-stimulating reforms in exchange for a one year focus on jobs? Did I say not likely? Yes.

But for the sake of argument, let’s say that the wizards of smart are right and that a more realistic goal for the Republican Party would be to “focus” on winning control of the Senate and retaining control of the House, exactly how would that increase the likelihood of making its reduced goals more attainable? Would campaign promises that GOP congressmen would protect voters from an Obama they don’t fear more than a Rick, Mitt or Newt, really be persuasive? In a word, no.

March came in like a lion in years past foretelling the second terms of Carter and Bush41, only to yield to recession-inspired Reagan and Clinton first terms secured in November.

So, what accounts for all the gloom and doom from so many in the conservative chattering class even before March inevitably goes out like a lamb? Is it ignorance or could it be more about the desires of a cautious conservative minority cadre for months of easier camaraderie with their liberal majority panel show comrades?

Its always safer to predict a president’s re-election, all other factors being equal, but what compels so many to predict, despite the risks of self-fulfilling prophecies, if not misplaced pride?

The latter deadly sin, much as America’s economy in three years, hasn’t improved much either, since Eve bit the apple.

Mike DeVine

Atlanta Law & Politics columnist –  Examiner.com

Editor - Hillbilly Politics

Co-Founder and Editor - Political Daily

“One man with courage makes a majority.” – Andrew Jackson

More DeVine Gamecock rooster crowings at Modern Conservative, Unified Patriots,  and Conservative Outlooks. All Charlotte Observer and Atlanta Journal-Constitution op-eds archived at Townhall.com.