WASHINGTON -- In his Senate office, Barack Obama gave pride of place to a famous sports photo: Muhammad Ali (Cassius Clay back then) howling in triumph over the dazed hulk of Sonny Liston, belly-up on the canvas.
Like his boxing hero Ali, Obama is floating like a butterfly -- essentially untouched -- thus far in his presidential prizefight with Mitt Romney.
And that is not good for anybody: for the country, for the voters, for the political parties or even for Obama and his administration.
If American democracy is to work -- if we are to prevent the blood from clotting in the body politic -- presidential elections must be real contests over real ideas and real records, informed by real facts.
This campaign hasn't really been any of those things.
Presidents do not deserve to be reelected by default. If they did, why would anyone expect that a second term to be any better or wiser?
And elected leaders need to be held to account -- pinned up against the wall, so to speak -- if citizens aren't to become utterly disillusioned with the idea that we live in a system of democratic self-government.
On the surface, it is ridiculous to say that a president whose foes have dumped hundreds of millions of dollars worth of ads on his head is "untouched."
It also is ridiculous to say that a president who has been hit with non-stop ridicule, contempt and even xenophobic hatred from some precincts of the Republican/conservative opposition is "untouched."
But that is the truth.
Look at the numbers. A year ago, the president's job approval rating was an abysmal 42.1 percent, his disapproval rating at 51.3. Today, his approval rating is 50 percent, his disapproval 46.3 -- an upward swing of more than 12 points.
A year ago, voters' view of the future could hardly have been bleaker. By a margin of 76.8 percent to 16.8 percent, they thought the country was "off on the wrong track" rather than "headed in the right direction." Voters are hardly popping champagne corks today, but that yawning negative spread of 60 percentage points has closed to 17 percentage points (55.3 percent to 38.5 percent).
And of course the president is well ahead on the Electoral College trends.
He has managed to do all of this without having to seriously and substantively defend his first-term failed promises or shortcomings, and without having to say much, if anything. about what, if anything, he might do substantially differently if he is fortunate enough to win again.
Unless I missed it, the president has yet to give a detailed answer to why he has failed to meet or even come close to his promises about reducing the unemployment rate. Saying that the task was harder than he initially thought isn't (or shouldn't be) a convincing explanation.
He hasn't given a detailed answer as to why he and his top advisers, led by Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner, failed to focus sufficiently on reviving the housing market, rather than just bailing out banks.
He hasn't explained why his own administration is now saying that at least 6 million Americans, most of them in the middle class, will indeed face a tax increase (penalty) in 2014 if they do not buy health insurance -- a new estimate substantially higher than earlier ones.
He hasn't explained whether he shares any blame for the failure of budget talks on a grand compromise. And if the art of presidential leadership is to cajole your foes into doing deals they don't want to do, what are we to make of his famous charming effectiveness?
He hasn't given a detailed defense of the vast expansion of the security state under his watch -- a policy that, in effect, has doubled down on the global war on terror-based approaches that his predecessor, President George W. Bush, initiated.
He hasn't given a detailed explanation for why he didn't close Guantanamo, as he had promised he would.
He hasn't said how, even with a Simpson-Bowles-style budget deal, the country is going to seriously grapple with long-term unfunded liabilities in the tens of trillions.
I could go on.
But the real question is why has he been able to butterfly along thus far? Here are some reasons:
ROMNEY STRATEGY. Last fall, as he was establishing the overall strategy for his campaign, Mitt Romney and his team were confident that the Obama presidency would collapse of its own weight; that the economic and job-performance numbers were so bad that the president was unelectable. They felt that the slogan they came up with, "Obama Isn't Working," was so self-evident that all they needed to do was depict how bad things were and the race was over. They saw it as nothing more or less than a referendum on Obama's (and the economy's) record. They were wrong.
ROMNEY. Neither charismatic nor convincing, Romney has failed to establish himself as a credible, trusted vehicle for delivering attacks against the president. As a businessman used to spreadsheets and the cold calculus of the deal, he seems to have regarded voters as shareholders in a troubled company, who would welcome a takeover based on what the balance sheets showed. It doesn't work that way. If voters are going to have to sacrifice -- and they instinctively know that they do -- it matters to them whether the new boss has a heart and a soul as well as a sharp pencil.
ROMNEY AGENDA. The GOP candidate's action plan is so vague that it allows the president to be vague, too. And in many cases, Romney is poorly positioned to launch an attack, in part because of the radical anti-government stance he has adopted for this 2012 race. Rather than lean on the banks to write more mortgages, for example, Romney wants to lean on them less, for anything.
DAVID AXELROD. The strategy of Obama's message minister from the start has been to destroy Romney by any means necessary, and, with continuing help from Mitt himself, Axelrod has succeeded. Far from eschewing the politics of class resentment (a Clinton doctrine), Axelrod has embraced it with gusto, given the biography of his foe.
OBAMA. The president doesn't believe in the legal pleading called "confession and avoidance," in which you admit error as a way of mitigating or even eliminating a judgment against you. No, Obama is deft and unabashed about blaming others -- Republicans, Washington insiders, selfish millionaires, Congress, Europe, banks, voters with exaggerated expectations (which he encouraged, of course), even pessimistic Americans. He casts blame in a tone of regret and sorrow, but doesn't regret it one bit.
MEDIA. Obama was such a cool and uplifting story to so many in the media in 2008 that they essentially ceded ground to him that they have yet to reclaim. He ran a tightly controlled message campaign then, and has run an even more tightly controlled White House, with few press conferences and deep access only to those most likely to write positive stories. Univision didn't get the memo, and its reporters hammered the president about immigration last week. It was a rare moment. But, again, it was one upon which Romney could not capitalize. The last thing Mitt wants to do is start a debate on immigration, given how obnoxious his stance is to most Latinos.
So score another for Obama. He got stung by a bee, but he's still floating.
For Howard Fineman's full 2012 Countdown, click here.
Follow Howard Fineman on Twitter: www.twitter.com/howardfineman
 |
 |
|
| Obama | Romney | |
|---|---|---|
| Electoral Votes (270 to win) |
332 | 206 |
| Obama | Romney | |
|---|---|---|
| Total | 65,899,660 | 60,932,152 |
| Percent | 51.1% | 47.2% |
| Democrats* | Republicans | |
|---|---|---|
| Current Senate | 53 | 47 |
| Seats gained or lost | +2 | -2 |
| New Total | 55 | 45 |
| Democrats | Republicans | |
|---|---|---|
| Seats won | 201 | 234 |
In fact NO CITIZEN of the United States ever voted for Grover Norquist...but he seems to have supreme power over the GOP. That means that we, the people, have NO power with the Republicans WE elected to office. They are Grover Norquists' puppets.
But the American people, albeit by a slim majority but nonetheless a majority, are little children who don't want to wake up and face the realities of the problems that have been created over the past 100 years. The media's bias, is in fact the bias of the American people. Until that changes, the American people will continue to get the government they deserve.
But our fiscal and economic woes are the culmination of a 50 year push towards a secularized society and being our own gods. We've gotten here - very directly - by aborting babies, contracepting, making sex about our own pleasure, divorce, and undermining the family structure.
The result is a society where more and more people do not have kids, have never had kids, or never will have kids. They have ZERO stake in the future of this country. They plan on leaving the party before the hangover.
We've got a long way to go to fix things, but it doesn't start with Washington, that will be the last place you see the change, it starts at home.
Fr. Barron noted in one of his "Catholicism" episodes that we've forgotten how to have a good religious debate. We either end up with a milquetoast, "believe whatever you want" attitude or the Islamic view that any dispute over religion must be answered with violence. There used to be a wide and healthy middle ground.
But when we quit belieivng in absolute truth as it pertains to religion, it didn't stop there, it has permeated every aspect of our society, to the point where working for a Fortune 200 company, I can't see many executives that can chart a course forward because they don't believe there is a right path to success.
We've come unhinged as a society.
Gay Marriage - why do you care? How does it hurt you? No church is forced to marry two people of the same sex - that would be 100% wrong. You're not even required to talk to a gay person, except at work, and then only because you have to do your job. You might: accidentally talk to someone who is gay before you know he or she is gay; render a kindness to someone who is gay, but even that isn't required unless you are a medical provider. Have you reviewed the divorce rate for heterosexuals in this country? 50% of heterosexual marriages fail. Gays are not destroying the sanctity of marriage...it's happening without their participation.
Abortion - no point in discussing that. The issue is so emotional that neither side will ever convince the other side to change their opinion.
Your comment about people who don't have children - most people, whether they have kids or not, have nieces and nephews they love and want to have good lives in the future. Most people want to have some kind of legacy to pass on to the future generations, no matter how small that legacy is. T
As for gay marriage, we love to pretend this is new and "progressive". It isn't. Homosexuality and gay marriage go back to the time of Jesus, ancient Greece, ancient Rome, it is as old as man. The reason we think it is new is because societies that went down this path died off.
A good tree bears fruit. Fruit, from the human tree, are babies, children, life. And life that grows up to bear more fruit. We are a generation removed from being a healthy tree.
Having neices and nephews, knowing a kid you like down the street, not the same as being a parent. As for those who want a "good life in the future", 66% of people in a traditional marriage are for Mitt Romney (and I say this as an Independent who most likely will not vote for either Romney or Obama).
That percentage of support is almost the same for Obama among people who are not married (i.e. divorced, hooking-up, gay, never married, no intention of married, young and single).
Those are the facts. The only reason these social programs and the welfare state have survived as long as they have is because we had more people working and paying in than taking. We are almost to the opposite point. It is because with the Boomers we stopped bearing fruit. Encouraging behaviors (difference between encouraging and tolerating), like homosexuality that bear no fruit is not the way back.
Luckiest incumbent ever in terms of the challenging party's dismal field of clown school candidates.
--Hillary supporter-- (toldya so)
Every time Mitt Romney opens his mouth, though, he proves that he is, shall we say, under-equipped both intellectually and personally for the position of President of the United States that it scares me.
It also makes me think he really doesn't want to win.
Luckiest incumbent ever in terms of the challenging party's candidate.
There are things that he needs to explain and tell us why he did them the way he did, like why Geithner and Summers as the economic team? And where did he get that Attorney General? But Howard, explain things? Maybe if you and the rest of your comrades would report the facts we wouldn't need to have things explained to us. We would know what really happened and as for the why? Well we are adults are we not.
Obama won in 2008,
because McCain wanted
to go to war with Iran.
Obama is winning now
because Romney wants
to go to war with Iran.
Americans are tired of
wars.
The world is not as simple as Obama wants his deluded followers believe.
And remember he had complete dem control for 2 yrs, and did nothing good with it.
But your comment basically makes the case that their will be no change and continued stagnation if Obama is reelected. There is zero possibility that the repubs will lose control of the house, and they might get the senate as well. But Obama has already proven he cannot deal with the other party (or they cannot deal with him, does it really matter, no matter what nothing will happen).
If you want something other than continued partisan gridlock and stagnation , Obama must go. The Woodward report makes that pretty clear.
By the way, Obama laying all this solely on the repub congress is just another example of his buck passing and leadership failure. Every prez has to deal with hostile congresses. Do you seriously think Boehner is harder to deal with than News Gingrich was, but Clinton found a way to get stuff done. Only your precious Obama seems completely incable of working with the other party, and as the 1st 2 years proved isn't even that great at working with his own.
Wow. This is an MSNBC contributor.
Of course, many journalists admitted the same thing after the 2008 election, it was just assumed that after Obama was president, he would be treated as a grown-up.
Obama might have won in 2008 and 2012 on the strength of his ideas and performance. We'll just never know.