President Barack Obama might be willing to sacrifice a second term in the White House if it meant he could force more of his liberal agenda on the country, conservative commentator Monica Crowley tells Newsmax.TV.
Crowley warned that a second Obama term would be “scarier than the first term, because he would have the worry of re-election hanging over his head. He could really go to town.”
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“He would love a second term to inflict more damage on the country,” Crowley said during the exclusive interview. But “his main priority is not necessarily him. It’s, in his own words, to fundamentally transform America.”
Although the Democrats could lose more seats in the House and Senate in the 2012 elections, Obama doesn’t need a majority in Congress to get his way, the Fox News commentator said.
“The way he could do it is through fiat, through executive order, and we’ve already seen him start to go down that road,” she said. A second Obama term, she warned, “would be a far more imperial presidency than we’ve seen so far.”
“He would make sure all his radical, leftist policies were so entrenched in this country that it would be almost impossible for us to ever roll it back,” she said.
Although Obama wants to spend eight years in the White House, his real ambition is not so much for himself as for his agenda. She cited the 2010 election, when she said Obama ignored the pleas of blue dog Democrats whose seats were at risk to moderate his policies.
“He doesn’t really care how many bodies he loses [in Congress]. He’s willing to willing to sacrifice his majority in the House, bodies in the Senate and perhaps even re-election,” she said.
Crowley sees an unsettling trend in the Occupy Wall Street protests that have cropped up in cities around the country. The protests are part of a “socialist, anarchist” movement dedicated to tearing down the existing order, she said.
“Barack Obama is Occupy Wall Street,” she said. “Barrack Obama is plugged into that world. That’s what he believes.”
As for the race for the Republican presidential nomination, Crowley believes it is boiling down to a two-man contest: former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney vs. former House Speaker Newt Gingrich.
As for the rise and fall in the polls of contenders such as Rep. Michele Bachmann of Minnesota, Texas Gov. Rick Perry, and Georgia businessman Herman Cain, Crowley thinks it indicates that conservatives are looking for an alternative to Romney.
If Romney does win the GOP nomination, “we will probably hold our noses” and vote for him, she said. But Republicans as whole are dreaming of a more charismatic candidate.
“People are looking to be jazzed,” Crowley told Newsmax. “We’re still waiting for our Barack Obama.”
She sees possibilities in the next generation of Republican politicians, citing Sen. Marco Rubio of Florida, New Mexico Gov. Susana Martinez, and Rep. Allen West of Florida. “But this isn’t their time, so now we have to look at what we have.”
The Republicans’ best choice now, she said, is either Romney or Gingrich. Romney’s organization has the necessary infrastructure, and the candidate himself looks presidential and has improved his debate performance, he seems to have “maxed out” in the polls, Crowley said.
The former House speaker is “a serious, conservative intellectual,” she said, adding that “Newt Gingrich would cream Barack Obama in a debate.”
Republicans have to think about the general election, Crowley said. “A lot of voters are trying to visualize, ‘Who do I want to send into a debate against he of the silver tongue Barack Obama?’ . . . Newt Gingrich would make mincemeat out of Barack Obama.”
Obama is expected to raise as much as $1 billion for his campaign war chest, Crowley said, and he will be looking to mobilize the same sort of broad coalition that swept him into office in 2008: minorities, young people, the unions.
He probably won’t command the same breadth of support, but Republicans need to think “more strategically,” Crowley said.
“Obama and his groups that are big money like the unions, they are going to be able to mobilize. They go full out and they play dirty,” she said. “I’m not saying Republicans should play dirty, but they’d better be prepared for what’s coming at them.”
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