some good comments from Wm Galston of Brookings on what he perceives as a loss for Obama
Obama began the year determined to talk about selective public investments as the key to “winning the future.” He ended up focused exclusively on the Tea Party’s preferred agenda. Once he couldn’t avoid the fiscal issue, he wanted a balanced approach but was forced to settle for something quite different. He tried to position himself as the adult riding herd on a brood of squabbling children; he ended up portraying himself as a suitor left at the altar, not just once, but repeatedly. Most Americans will accept a president with whom they disagree. Above all, they want two things from the occupant of the Oval Office—a core of convictions they can understand and the strength to fight for them. They will stick with that kind of president, even when results are slow to materialize. Ronald Reagan, whose leadership Obama is said to admire, avoided electoral disaster in the 1982 midterm elections, when a 10.8 percent unemployment rate could have done to his presidency what the 2010 elections did to Obama’s. Even when Reagan’s approval rating dipped below 40 percent, the people knew who he was and where he wanted to take the country, and to an extent that is surprising even in hindsight, they stuck with him. Obama has 15 months left to convince the people that he is that kind of president. The odds are getting longer, and the time is getting shorter.
tnr.com
You're right, Karen, Obama's only core conviction is in his own specialness. He is clueless about policy and a bad negotiator because his red lines are always political and always about himself, not principles. He gave away the grand bargain he could have had with Boehner, which would have been a better outcome for him (and a much worse deal from our perspective) because his true red line was getting through Nov 2012, not the so-called 'balanced approach' he kept preaching and scolding about.
Like Peggy Noonan said, "Nobody likes sly, nobody respects it." |
