One of the reasons Barack Obama got elected president is that to a majority of voters he was right on the major issues facing the country. Obama's views regarding the war in Iraq, the economy, the environment and the need for widespread change in our government resonated with an electorate that had grown very critical of the Bush administration's approach to these and other issues. While candidates are often judged by their views on major issues, presidents are more frequently judged on their performance. The two are not unrelated, so, for example, because Bush was perceived as a failure by 2008, Obama's positions, most of which were in direct opposition to Bush's, were more popular among voters.
This is the environment which now frames the Obama presidency. The protestations of the far right notwithstanding, Obama's position on issues are still relatively popular, but they are no longer particularly relevant to how the president is viewed. For almost all presidents, opinions on issues are considerably less relevant once they are in office. Occasionally this dynamic even works to their favor. Many voters never really cottoned to President Reagan's far right ideology, but they were pleased enough with the results he delivered to reelect him in a landslide in 1984. Needless to say, this dynamic has not been nearly so helpful for Obama.
On many issues including the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico, the economy or the debt, it is easy to craft a relatively clear argument about how these problems are due to the misguided policies of previous years and how the Obama presidency has taken a more reasonable approach to all of these problems. However, nobody cares about these arguments anymore because Obama is the president and he is expected to produce results not arguments.
Accordingly, Obama, like most presidents, is faced with essentially two options. The first is to solve problems and make things better. Given the extreme nature of the problems he inherited, and the unprecedented nature of problems which have occurred during his presidency, this has been extremely difficult. Turning the economy around quickly or immediately passing new regulations which would prevent the almost inevitable environmental catastrophe which is a direct result of these deregulations was not a realistic expectation for Obama, or any president. Thus, this first option may simply have not been possible given the gravity of the problems Obama faced.
The second option would have been to be outraged and angry at Bush, the Republican Party and other forces that helped create the economic, foreign policy and environmental mess in which the US now finds itself. Behaving this way is always at least somewhat disingenuous as feigning powerlessness and outrage is usually an easy and popular but unproductive way out for a politician. Moreover, Obama seems unable to express outrage, feigned or real. Even, when he is angry or outraged, Obama's demeanor remains calm and cool. In some respects, this disposition is reassuring, but it is a political liability.
The difficulty involved in digging the economy out of a recession of truly historical significance or in solving one of the worst environmental catastrophes in recent memory should not be understated, but Obama has made mistakes regarding these issues that have harmed his presidency. It remains inexplicable why it took the administration so long to sharpen their rhetorical focus on jobs. Obama could not have single handedly reduced unemployment in his first year, but by spending so little time talking about it, and by failing to explain the strong connection between reforming health care and creating jobs, the president made it easier to be attacked as uninterested in the problems of unemployment.
Similarly, although the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico demonstrates the failure of Republican energy and regulation policy and the disastrous consequences of "drill, baby drill", these policy realities are less significant than the appearance of administration that did not immediately show enough concern for the problem and finally capped the oil well after several months of oil spewing into the Gulf of Mexico.
While images of that oil gushing may have been illustrative of failed Republican policies, it was also a powerful daily reminder, for many, of perceived inaction on the part of the Obama administration.
The Obama administration needs to develop a new narrative, one that draws attention to their successes, highlights the energy and focus they bring to their work and, yes, shows the president being a little more impassioned about the problems the country faces, but continues to keep expectations low. If, however, the administration continues to rely on the narrative that they are doing their best after coming to office in a very difficult time they would be making a mistake. This narrative is essentially true but it is no longer of interest to most Americans who are more interested in results than explanations, even when those explanations are sound, or positions, even when those positions are the right ones.
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ME:
Were YOU in a coma?
Here are some headlines during those 6 years.
A)2001:
1)Bush raid on Social Security stirs growing alarm
2)Bush ready to raid social security to fund tax cuts
3)Bush Administration Announces $159 Billion Deficit for Year 2002
---pssst -remember - W started with a SURPLUS & in one year created a DEFICIT.
4) Since W inauguration, Dow Jones down 11%, Unemployment rate up 49%, $281 billion surplus now a $500 billion deficit.
um ... those were the headlines in year 1 ... They increased exponentially in subsequent years.
ME:
Were YOU in a coma?
Here are some headlines during those 6 years.
A)2001:
1)W" raid on Social Security stirs growing alarm
2)"W" ready to raid social security to fund tax cuts
3)"W" Administration Announces $159 Billion Deficit for Year 2002
---pssst -remember - W started with a SURPLUS & in one year created a DEFICIT.
4) Since W inauguration, Dow Jones down 11%, Unemployment rate up 49%, $281 billion surplus now a $500 billion deficit.
5) W bail out Airline Industry
um ... those were the headlines in year 1 ... They increased exponentially in subsequent years.
To conservatives, being wrong is street cred, and stealing billions of dollars makes you adored by the "fiscal conservatives".
Contrast that with Obama, who won by more votes than any other President in US history.
McCain didn't fail... conservatism has failed. Epically and disasterously. And everyone knows it except for the tiny fringe who still self-identify as Republican.
if you can do better run for president .
Another symptom of the same disease are the 2 near misses by Islamic extremists. The Christmas day underwear bomber and the Time Square plot. It was nothing but sheer ineptitude of the bombers that averted disaster. Remember Napalotano saying that everything had been working properly and thats why the Cristmas day bombing failed. HUH?? The next day she admits there may have been a little something out of whack.
I would implore the President to make it a priority to uncover other festering pimples left over from Bush. Too much time has passed to blame him for these types of SNAFUS. First thing he needs to do is fire Ken Salazar for not knowing or worse, knowing and doing nothing about a stinking pile of dung under his responsibility. Especially in a department involved with something as critical as off shore drilling and the mining of coal
http://www.beyondchron.org/news/index.php?itemid=7923
He did NOT do his best to reign in Senators Lieberman and Lincoln when they opposed the bill based on the public option:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/12/21/lieberman-obama-never-pre_n_399355.html
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/03/17/lincoln-obama-never-calle_n_502245.html
but he DID to his best to convince Congressman Kucinich to vote on the bill, when he opposed the bill due to a lack of public option and the lack of protection for states from big health insurance lawsuits should they ever go the Canada route to make their own single payer systems.
http://www.cleveland.com/open/index.ssf/2010/03/rep_dennis_kucinich_to_vote_xx.html
President Obama and the dems support the patient killing for profit regime that passed several months ago, despite the fact that the majority wanted a public option.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/10/19/AR2009101902451.html
http://rawstory.com/2009/2009/12/sixty-percent-americans-support-public-option/
http://blogs.wsj.com/washwire/2009/10/08/quinnipiac-most-americans-support-public-option/tab/article/
http://blogs.abcnews.com/politicalpunch/2009/10/abc-news-poll-more-americans-prefer-public-option-to-bipartisan-bill-.html
http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSTRE5B20OL20091203
Failing right at the very beginning is a halmark of Obama's so-called "leadership".
With 58 Democrats, 2 Democratic-caucusing Independents, and 1-3 Republicans, the "triggered public option" had 63 Senators possibly considering a bill with it in it. In the same legislative body where "progressives" on the net cry about the Senate's arcane rule of needing 60 votes to end debate on anything, 63 votes were ON THE TABLE when considering the "triggered public option". And with 58 Democrats in the cluster of 63 possible votes, a "triggered public option" would've probably ended up being pretty strong too. And, most of all, in my opinion, the President was fully ready to sell the "triggered public option".
Yet all the "progressives" did was actively fight to kill that proposal before it could even leave the committee. If it didn't end up eliminating the private insurance market or didn't end up starting on the day that the legislation was signed, they didn't want any of it, darned the legislative consequences.
Everybody knows that "progressives" never really cared about the 'public option', as actions clearly showed. Stop lying to people about it.
We have already seen Obama get accused of things, it is shown wrong, and either right-wingers pretend that they never said anything OR try to weasel their way out of it by stating that Obama WOULD have done whatever they accused him of
Huh?
He campaigned on a list of ideas and proposals, won the 2008 election, put his Administration in a position to try and legislatively achieve the ideas and proposals that he campaigned on, and, for the most part, has delivered on a list of his major initiatives, with another host of them on the docket for completion before 2012 comes around.
The man's delivered on what he campaigned on, and both fringes hate him for it. The right thinks he's the 2nd coming of Mao, Lenin, Hitler, angry Malcolm X, and a Kenyan witch doctor, all rolled into one, while the left has latched onto this follish notion that, somehow, Obama tricked the country into electing "another Republican in Democratic clothing, a la Clinton and Jimmy Carter, instead of the mix of angry black man, LBJ, and FDR that they thought themselves into thinking he was.
The man just can't win.
The problem for Obama and people do not like to admit it, depsite his skin color, despite his single parent situation, he has had a charmed life. Some how, despite how some made his life to be difficult, he did not grow up fighting and his lack of fight is clear and obvious.
Some might like to call this a wide variety of nuanced responses but he simply does not have any fight to him. He has got by on his pretty face and smile for a very long time and both have worn thin for more and more people.
Am I the only one that believes 90% of Obama's policies seem to be the same as Bush's?
AT this time I see no republican that could defeat Obama in an election. But I do believe Hillary could defeat Obama. Easily