Much has been said and written about how many voters are saying that President Obama does not deserve a second term and many are expressing frustration with his leadership. While I agree that things have not turned around fast enough and there is much more that needs to be done, what is the alternative? Since taking office nearly three years ago, President Obama has a solid list of accomplishments. Those are good for any incumbent and many previous presidents have been elected to second terms with far less accomplishments (GWB for one).

Here are some of them:

• Obama has passed the first major health care reform legislation and program since the passage of Medicare and Medicaid in 1965. Although far from perfect and not yet completely in effect, this is a major accomplishment.
• He has successfully ended the war in Iraq and is bringing our troops back home from there.
• He has a plan and a timetable to wind down the war in Afghanistan and has the Taliban on the run.
• He has crippled Al Queida to the point of becoming inefective and Osama bin Laden. has been killed.
• He has passed a major stimulus bill that according to many leading economists has prevented unemployment from reaching more than 10%.
• He has proposed a major jobs bill that promises to put many people back to work and improve the nation's crumbling infrastructure.
• He has instituted greater transparency in government.
• He has begun to address the deficit and problem with the national debt with a balanced approach involving increased revenue and spending cuts.
• He has seen major reform of Wall Street with the passage of the Dodd - Frank bill and the establishment of a Consumer Finaicial Protection Agency.
• He has restored the United States standing with foreign nations and has reached out to the Islamic nations as well.
• He was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 2009, becoming the first sitting president to win that honor since Woodrow Wilson in 1919 (the only other sitting president to be so honored was Theodore Roosevelt in 1905).
• He has prevented the domestic auto industry from going belly up and saving thousands of American jobs at GM and Chrysler whilemaking sure that they remain American run auto companies.

What makes even these accomplishments look better is that the Republican party has done everything in their power to stifle and obstruct whatever the president has proposed. The health care reform act and stimulus bill received no Republican votes. The Republicans in congress almost brought this country to the brink of default and almost brought another government shut down. How many other presidents have faced an opposition party where one of their leaders said their major priority was to make sure that the president was a one term president?

I am sure that there are other accomplishments as well as major disappointments since Obama took office in January 2009. But when one considers where the country was in January 2009 and what we were facing back then, a lot has been accomplished. When one considers the alternative, even from 2009; things have turned around.

Could any of the Republican candidates who want Obama's job have done any better? Could any of them do better over the next four years running this country?

IMHO when I consider the accomplishments of the president so far and the overall weakness of the field arrayed to oppose him in 2012; President Obama should win in a landslide. But it will not be a landslide because too many voters wouldn't vote for Obama even if he could raise the dead and walk on water.

I can show articles and polls from 1935 showing people disaffected with FDR's performance as president as well as many opponents arrayed against him that make the present crop of opponents pale by comparison. I can also show similar polls and articles from 1971 showing Richard Nixon was in trouble and did not deserve to be re-elected. I can show similar articles and polls from 1983 showing that Ronald Reagan was in trouble and many felt that he did not deserve a second term.

But in 1936, FDR won re-election in a landslide. In 1972, Nixon won in another landslide and Reagan won in a landslide in 1984. Once the voters compare President Obama to the alternative, it is like comparing a Mercedes Benz with a Yugo or a diesel locomotive with a tricycle.

O.K., a brief digression: the Federal Reserve doesn’t actually print money (the Treasury does that). But the Fed does control the “monetary base,” the sum of bank reserves and currency in circulation. So when people talk about Mr. Bernanke printing money, what they really mean is that the Fed expanded the monetary base.

And there has, indeed, been a huge expansion of the monetary base. After Lehman Brothers fell, the Fed began lending large sums to banks as well as buying a wide range of other assets, in a (successful) attempt to stabilize financial markets, in the process adding large amounts to bank reserves. In the fall of 2010, the Fed began another round of purchases, in a less successful attempt to boost economic growth. The combined effect of these actions was that the monetary base more than tripled in size.

Now, it’s still very unlikely that Ron Paul will become president. But, as I said, his economic doctrine has, in effect, become the official G.O.P. line, despite having been proved utterly wrong by events. And what will happen if that doctrine actually ends up being put into action? Great Depression, here we come.

Read the entire column at this link: http://www.nytimes.com/2011/12/16/opinion/gop-monetary-madness.html?_r=1&scp=1&sq=the%20monetary%20madeness%20of%20the%20GOP&st=cse

I know that the "true believers" in Ron Paul will dismiss this as another rant by some leftist liberal and completely ignore it. However Paul Krugman is a PhD in economics and was awarded the Nobel Prize in Economics while Ron Paul is a former obstretician (who hasn't precticed in years) who has decided to become a politician. I do not know about the rest of the population, but as surely as I wouldn't want a Doctor of Economics delivering babies, I surely would take the words of a Doctor of Economics over that of a Doctor of Obstetrics when it comes to monetary and economic policy for the nation.