Sitting in my house outside Austin, Texas on my porch on the Blanco River, as the water slows to a trickle because of the awful drought and historic heat wave (we have already had 56 days about 100 degrees!), I wonder if this August represents for President Obama a late summer resetting of the table as it was for President Bush in August 2005.
In 2005, President Bush had a tenuous grip on his ability to affect public opinion and communicate effectively with the American public. Two wars in Afghanistan and Iraq had dragged on; casualties continued to pile up; his leadership overall seemed to be ineffective, and he seemed disconnected from the American public. August ended with Hurricane Katrina, basically the tipping point for his presidency. President Bush couldn't recover. As I and my co-authors, Ron Fournier and Doug Sosnik, noted in the book Applebee's America, the events of August 2005 and President Bush's haplessness in handling them broke his value connection with the American public, and he never recovered. His approval rating never again got above 42 percent, and no speech he gave or policy initiative he launched could fix that fundamental turn by the American public.
I am not saying Obama's situation is as dire as President Bush's was from 2005, but it certainly has a similar feel. His approval ratings have now sunk to the unelectable spot of the low forties. The last few speeches he has given have, at best, fallen on deaf ears. They may have made his political situation worse. Two weeks ago he gave a high profile speech in the Oval Office on the debt-ceiling crisis, and leaders of both political parties ignored him. And Standard and Poor's just downgraded the country's bond rating for the first time in our history because of ineffectual leadership in Washington, DC. While the rating agency didn't put the full blame on President Obama, as leader of the country he owns the problem S&P highlighted.
Can he recover from his August or has there been a fundamental break with his connection with the American public? I honestly don't know at this time. We will learn in retrospect. Still, it does feel like a real turn has taken place in President Obama's ability to lead the country. And this isn't a communications or marketing problem. This is a substantive issue that can only be fixed by a substantive solution.
A couple ways out from my perspective:
Will Republicans meet him part way? Again, I don't know, but the American public would like to see President Obama give it the college try. Is the president capable of building these kinds of relationships and fixing the dysfunction in DC? I think so, but it will require discipline and an acknowledgement of mistakes, both of which he seems incapable of at this point.
The country is at serious economic and political risk, and President Obama's presidency seems on the edge of falling into political irrelevancy. Now is the time to address both problems in a different fundamental way. If the same playbook is used on either problem, the same results will happen -- it will only get worse. And President Obama's river of leadership capacity will slow to a trickle in this heat of August, and the only thing left available is for the voters to look elsewhere for rain and relief.
Matthew Dowd, a National Journal columnist and analyst for ABC News, is a veteran political strategist who has worked for Democratic and Republican politicians -- including former President George W. Bush.
This post originally appeared in National Journal.
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The electoral dilemma the Ds must eventually deal with is that Obama's ideology is far too conservative for main stream Dems. The strongest message for the Ds to run on is antithetical to Obama's policies and apparently his beliefs. If Obama succeeds in muting the message, as he did last year, the Ds will suffer another rout, and the country is screwed.
I'm sick and tired of these Republicans. Disgusted is a better word. They aren't helping at all. But then, maybe that's their goal.
It happened with Healthcare, it happened with Don't Ask, Don't Tell, it happened with the whole birth certificate nonsense, which reached its climax when he actually brought out his birth certificate and then he got Bin Laden. It also happened during the campaign with the whole rev. wright and bill ayers rubbish.
Here, he is running from GWB, who made him a well-known figure.
But that can't be it really. It must just be August.
John F. Kennedy
If the people cannot trust their government to do the job for which it exists - to protect them and to promote their common welfare - all else is lost.
Barack Obama
Alas, we can only know Obama through his actions - not his words.
Beware of false prophets, which come to you in sheep's clothing, but inwardly they are ravening wolves.
Ye shall know them by their fruits. Do men gather grapes of thorns, or figs of thistles?
Even so every good tree bringeth forth good fruit; but a corrupt tree bringeth forth evil fruit.
A good tree cannot bring forth evil fruit, neither can a corrupt tree bring forth good fruit.
Congress has approval ratings in the teens while President Obama is in the 40's.
(What Alberto is saying is that he and most people coming to the U.S. to work and who supported and those who voted for President Obama feel rejected. Thanks, Maria).