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�It�s no exaggeration to say the undecided could go one way or another,� was arguably one of the most profound statements made by George Bush Snr., in 1988, when the vice president to Ronald Reagan was trying to be his own man by standing for the highest office of the land. Four years later, during the 1992 New Hampshire presidential primary, the under-siege President Bush topped it by saying to employees of an insurance company, �You cannot be president of the United States if you don�t have faith. Remember Lincoln, going to his knees in times of trial and the Civil War and all that stuff. You can�t be. And we are blessed. So don�t feel sorry for � don�t cry for me, Argentina. Message: I care.� What was the issue, Bush Snr was under a lot of pressure from both his party and America. His first term as president was seen as uninspiring; his domestic policies had made Americans poorer; it was all about the economy, stupid! He told Americans he cared for them but ended up introducing policies that hurt their pockets. At the 1988 Republican National Convention, as he accepted the nomination on August 18, he made a promise that became his biggest self-inflicted undoing. He said, �And I�m the one who will not raise taxes. My opponent now says he�ll raise them as a last resort, or a third resort. But when a politician talks like that, you know that�s one resort he�ll be checking into. My opponent, my opponent won�t rule out raising taxes. But I will. And the Congress will push me to raise taxes and I�ll say no. And they�ll push, and I�ll say no, and they�ll push again, and I�ll say to them, �Read my lips: no new taxes�.� The promise not to raise taxes was broken quickly once he won power. Bush raised taxes to reduce the fiscal deficit. Indeed, so damaging was the impact of this broken promise that for the third time in the 20th century history of America (after the elections of 1912 and 1976), a sitting Republican president had to face a serious challenge from his own party. In fact, the conservative commentator and evangelist, Pat Buchanan, cited the broken promise not to raise taxes as what got him to challenge Bush. Buchanan�s campaign was instructive. He said the ruling party could no longer blame the opposition for their mistakes. He said, �We Republicans can no longer say it is all the liberals� fault. It was not some liberal Democrat who said �Read my lips: no new taxes,� then broke his word to cut a seedy backroom budget deal with the big spenders on Capitol Hill�, the legislature. Last Saturday, President Mills won a decisive victory against his only challenger, Nana Konadu Agyeman Rawlings. Out of 2,861 delegates, Mills got 2,771, with Mrs Rawlings receiving 90 votes. In percentage terms, 96.9% to 3.1%. While the NDC leadership has every reason to celebrate this huge victory by the President, they should exercise a bit of caution. Since we don�t have any local precedent, we may have to cross the Atlantic for some reference. President Bush Snr, another vice president-cum President, won his presidential challenge with 2,166 delegates� votes. His closest rival, Pat Buchanan, got just 18 votes. That translates into less than 1% of the votes. What should be instructive for the NDC is the fact that in the Republicans� case, besides the delegates� vote, there was a popular vote as well. There, Bush got 9,199,463, (72.84%) and Buchanan got 2,899,488 (22.96%). Bush went on to suffer the second largest electoral vote shift in American history (517 vote shift), after Jimmy Carter�s victory in 1976 (560 vote shift). On November 3, 1992, Bill Clinton beat Bush by receiving 43% of the popular vote, against Bush�s 37%. The New Patriotic Party should however approach the 2012 election as if the NDC is formidably united, determined to win by all means. The party should not allow the NDC to make that cheap argument that a second term is a matter of entitlement. In an interview granted the New Statesman, Jake stated that it is not automatic that every government will get two terms in office as this is dependent on performance and not on �songs�. He said, �It is not an entitlement. It must be earned. Otherwise, no government would see the urgency in achieving anything in its first term, like we are seeing now.� He could not have put it better. According to the NPP Chairman, the NDC has nothing better to offer Ghanaians as they have shown in their previous two terms and the last 2� years. Jake cited a litany of broken promises to the rising cost of living of Ghanaians ever since the NDC took power. �In 2� years corruption has double doubled, prices of goods and services have double doubled, utility tariffs have double doubled and petroleum prices, which candidate Mills promised to reduce drastically, have double doubled. Virtually the prices of everything have double doubled under Mills,� he said. He went on to give some examples, �The cost of constructing a 6-unit classroom block in 2008 was GH�80,000. In 2011, this has more than double doubled to GH�260,000 under Mills. Senior High School students paid fees within the region of GH�200 in 2008. Similarly, under Mills, this has double doubled to the region of over GH�400. Even the price of pure water has double doubled under Mills from 5 pesewas to 10 pesewas.� Well, a Nigerian pastor, T B Joshua, might have done his bit to get Mills elected. But it is even rumoured that he warned against a second term! Today, the NDC is putting its fate in another Nigerian Pastor, Uche, and his song, �Double Double�. Ghanaians should not trouble trouble or else double trouble will trouble them in double time.