You know it’s nearly over for the Obama regime when CNN broadcasts far and wide that the 20-page “new” four-year plan released yesterday doesn’t add up. (And the Wall Street Journal says it outlines a second first term: “Meet Obama’s new agenda, same as the old agenda, only less.” — at a cost of $2 million plus>/a>?)

So, is the blueprint “new”? Ah, that would be a “no”. Yesterday, ahead of the slick brochure’s release, even Politico called The New Economic Patriotism: A Plan for Jobs & Middle-Class Security a “glossy 20-page repackaging”.

If you really want to know what the “new economic patriotism” is all about, I wrote about it last month in Obama conjures up ‘severely creepy’ liberal screed ‘new economic patriotism’. It’s ‘backdoor nationalization’, stupid!.

Not to put too fine a spin on it, the titles of the booklet’s sections could have been ripped from the table of contents for Fool Me Twice, the book I co-authored with Aaron Klein and which was released August 7th.

As reported by Politico, the Obama pamphlet headings are: “Building an Economy from the Middle Class Out … Reviving American Manufacturing … Energy Made in America … Growing Small Businesses … Improve Education for Middle-Class Jobs … A Tax Plan That Cuts the Deficit and Creates Jobs … Putting YOU in Charge of Your Health Care … Protecting Retirement Security … Moving America Forward.”

Fool Me Twice chapters provide information on studies, reports, and proposed and introduced legislation that could be implemented in a second Obama term, including “A Jobs Plan for America’ … Blueprint for a New Economy … ‘Equal Pay for Equal Work’ and Other Acts of ‘Fairness’ … Government Health Care for All.” Sound familiar?

BTW, if you care about the “quality education” the Obama team is promoting in the booklet, I recommend you read Mary Grabar’s current article and recent report on the “ObamaCore” dumbing-down education plan for America’s children. It will put an end to both private schools and home schooling. (You can also read about Race to the Top and more Obama education plans in Red Army, which I also co-authored with Aaron Klein, and which released in October 2011.)

The booklet also points to the plan to use half the savings from winding down the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan for domestic infrastructure investment.

As Aaron and I wrote in Fool Me Twice, the plan to redistribute $1 trillion defense dollars over ten years — as proposed by the Obama admin — is found in a task force report — 2012 Unified Security Budget (pdf link to report on page) — co-authored by Lawrence Korb of the Center for American Progress and Miriam Pemberton of the Institute for Policy Studies, using funding from the Open Society Institute and the Connect US Fund (all George Soros-funded groups). (As we wrote in Fool Me Twice, the Connect Fund has direct ties to the Obama White House, promotes global governance, and provides funding to pro-UN groups.) Other task force members come from similar progressive groups.

It seems that, because I live in one of those so-called battleground states (New Hampshire, Virginia, North Carolina, Florida, Ohio, Wisconsin, Nevada, Iowa and Colorado), and because I am a registered undeclared independent voter, I should have one of those 3.5 million copies in the mailbox any minute now (not to mention I will have to watch the 60-second video about it ad nauseum on tv).

Michael A. Memoli writes in the LA Times:

Even with the new messaging effort, the Obama campaign is walking a fine line. The plan “reiterates his concrete and specific second-term plan,” the campaign says, adding that the policies he’s outlining are the same ones he laid out in his “State of the Union” speech in January and amplify the goals he set out in his convention speech.

A website that the new ad directs voters to also features an earlier Obama ad, this one a two-minute spot that aired in swing states last month, in which the president answers his own question, “What’s my plan?”

Republicans described the new Obama push as a last-gasp effort to “reframe” the debate and an admission that the president has failed to lay out a second-term vision up until now.

Alana Goodman observes at CommentaryMagazine.com:

Funny that the cutting-edge social media gurus on Team Obama are counting on a booklet to carry them through the final stretch. It’s a bit late to change the message, but apparently Obama realizes his go-negative strategy has failed in the last weeks of the campaign. Romney debunked all the summertime attack ads in a single debate, simply by opening his mouth and seeming reasonable. Now the Obama campaign realizes it actually has to present a positive alternative.

But a sudden shift like this also gives the impression of desperation, and the timing suggests that internal polling isn’t looking as good as the Obama campaign claims publicly. That would also explain the president’s overly-aggressive demeanor in [Monday] night’s debate. Maybe he knew he needed a knockout punch to change the dynamic of the race.

If voters like slick poltical brochures with big pictures and small print, this is the ticket. However, this one is definitely not a “knockout punch” and will most likely go the way of most junk mail, into the dust bin.

Update: And MSDNC’s Morning Joe is unimpressed: