Obama strategists said last year they would need to "kill Romney" in order to win the Presidential Election.

Well... Barack Obama was surely listening. He conducted the most negative campaign of my lifetime -- and won, because he effectively did kill Romney -- if only metaphorically.

Or... maybe people were just so happy with Obama's stewardship of the economy and inclusive politics that they said "I want 4 more years of high unemployment, a shrinking workforce, higher costs for energy, higher taxes, and a nation divided along class and racial lines."

I mean, it's possible.

Really?

No...not really.

In any case, I say we in return kill Barack Obama with kindness, condescension, exclusion, and irrelevance. Remove him from the discussion. Marginalize Barack and he can only be effective on the margins in any budget discussion -- or anything of import that needs congressional action.

The separation of powers delineated in the Constitution relegates the man to non-factor status in enacting legislation. He can propose and he can lobby, but if the last 4 years are any indication, he is incapable of doing either. He can also sign or veto legislation -- duly enacted by both houses of Congress -- but that presents its own opportunities for the opposition.

Let the president do what he does best, give campaign speeches and pretend to be a leader. There is no reason to include him in negotiations between the Senate and the House. He is the executive, not a legislator.

Certainly in the past, opposition to the president and his policies has been weak and unsuccessful, with the Republican Party and their elected officials in government being particularly flaccid and hopelessly ineffective when trying to reach a compromise with this president -- allowing him and his minions to paint them as intransigent and uncompromising, as well as evil and uncaring.

Just as Marley before him, by Election Day, Romney was dead as a door-nail. We must now take a page from the progressive playbook, and do the same to Barack Obama -- and believe it or not, time and economic trends are on our side.

Backers of the president have unabashedly claimed the .1% decline in economic growth for the fourth quarter of 2012 to be a good thing, in fact, Paul Ashworth, the Chief Economic Economist for Capital Economics claimed the 0.1% decline "the best-looking contraction in U.S. GDP you'll ever see."

I mention this because it a perfect example of what is possible when you control the message -- even failure can be framed as success -- and if anyone is the poster child for failure framed as success, it is Barack Obama.

The biggest mistake the Republicans have made in dealing with Barack Obama, has been dealing with Barack Obama. In meeting with the president, they have set themselves up, time and again, to be destroyed by him. It's very difficult to beat someone when you are constantly playing their game. Just ask Mitt Romney.

A man like Barack Obama cannot be negotiated with. First of all, there never were negotiations -- it was always him speaking without interruption, informing any opposition, foolishly optimistic enough to be present, how wrong they were and afterward, going out in front of the cameras and telling the world the same thing, but with the added dimension of imparting evil motives to any and all dissent.

Barack does not play well with others.

How many times do Republicans have to do the same thing before they realize they are being taken for a ride on the Obama express to embarrassment and irrelevance? It calls to mind the apocryphal Einstein statement that insanity is doing the same thing over and over again, while expecting different results.

He doesn't respect you, so stop trying.

The template seems to revolve around a manufactured crisis, emergency meetings with the big brain in the White House -- if he can fit it in between parties, vacations, golf and skeet shooting -- and then, no negotiation, no compromise and no deal.

When a deal is finally realized through the aegis of others -- in the case of the fiscal cliff debate, Joe Biden -- Barack invariably takes credit and declares victory, while the mainstream media retakes its customary position of worship, on their knees in front of him, to enlighten citizens about his great success.

Allow me a couple of small digressions.

As Rod Serling used to say "picture if you will" Barack Obama with a shotgun. I've seen the man throw out a baseball... I'm just saying.

And... can you imagine any senescent adult delegating authority to Joseph Biden for anything? Barack did. Again... I'm just saying.

At least it seems at this point, Boehner has switched tactics, and has decided to cut Barack out of the picture and exercise the powers granted in the constitution to the House of Representatives.

The debt ceiling extension was brilliant in its way -- continuing the government's ability to borrow at the same level as last year until May 1, 2013, at which time, Barack will have to go back and ask for more...

I think future extensions should be no more than 2 months and Republicans should make Obama sweat for every one of them. Sooner or later, people are going to start to notice that Barack, who is constantly claiming to have cut, and is continuing to cut, spending -- in a "balanced" way, of course -- always wants more money.

...And requiring that the Senate pass a budget or not get paid is brilliant as well. If it was up to Harry Reid, there would never be another budget, continuing resolutions work well and have the advantage of disguising the size of deficits and what the money is being spent on. The Senate under Reid -- in defiance of law -- last passed a budget on April 9, 2009. Threatening to hit him and his fellow Senators in their wallets will certainly go a long way toward compelling compliance.

Rest assured, this year Dirty Harry will finally make our day and pass a budget. It will be an Obama approved budget -- even though he will be forced to wield influence behind the scenes -- and it will have a deficit of more than a trillion dollars. You know it will -- Obama always overreaches. Until now, he has never had to pay a price for it.

Minions in the Senate will have to vote for it. And, is there anything sweeter than watching Democrats vote for trillion dollar deficits, as far as the eye can see, while talking about fiscal responsibility?

The House will pass a Paul Ryan budget, which, by its very nature, will put the nation on the path toward eliminating the deficit. Then, both houses will meet in conference to hammer out the differences.

Now... Reid and the Democrat leadership in the Senate could refuse to negotiate and then claim it is the Republicans in the House who lack good faith, but that will require defense of their trillion-dollar deficits and Barack's position of not cutting one single dollar from the budget.

No... there are elections in 2014, and they will deal and a compromise will be reached -- all while Barack Obama is not sitting at the table.

The president will not like the result, since it will involve him not getting everything he wants, but what can he do? He can veto it, and then explain how trillion-dollar deficits are good for the nation and our children's future, or he can sign the legislation and take credit for something that the entire world has just seen he had nothing to do with and doesn't approve of.

It's one of those "lose-lose" situations the president is so unfamiliar with -- and because of that, he will handle it badly, displaying his petty, divisive nature. He may even stamp his feet.

And... let the sequester proceed. It may cut Defense by $600 billion, but it also cuts discretionary spending by the same amount. It's already the law of the land (from the 2011 debt ceiling agreement) and its implementation will be a huge defeat for Obama.

Even though it is bad for the nation's military capabilities, Defense will recover -- there is no other nation on earth that can respond to a crisis the way America can.

Giving up the sequester because we are afraid of the Defense cuts would be short-sighted, because it is the cuts to discretionary spending that are the first step toward solvency, however small that step may be.

Remember, this was designed for public consumption by Barack and his White House cadre, with the assumption that Republicans would never go through with it, since it was believed they would be incapable of cutting Defense.

But, with Hagel as Secretary of Defense, spending is going to be cut anyway.

In any case, have no fear for the future. If we cannot regain control of spending, America is finished anyway, regardless of the strength of our military.

...And wouldn't it be nice to hand Barack a defeat that he himself designed? It's akin to forcing him to punch himself in the face.

Isn't that a wonderful image? You can almost hear Obama saying that on the one hand it was the best punch anyone has ever thrown, and on the other, it didn't hurt a bit.

Maybe the title of this article should be Let Barack Beat Barack.

I'm sorry, but I love it.