The next
five months should be interesting — given that Barack Obama is now experiencing
something entirely unique in his heretofore stellar career: widespread criticism
of his performance and increasing weariness with his boilerplate and his
teleprompted eloquence.
Starting with his Occidental days, and going on through Columbia, Harvard,
Chicago, the U.S. Senate, and the 2008 campaign,
rarely has Mr. Obama faced much criticism, much less any accountability that
would involve judging his rhetoric by actual achievement.
Yet what worked for so long now does no longer. Obama simply cannot run on
40 months of 8 percent–plus unemployment, a June 2009 recovery that sputtered,
$5 trillion in new debt, serial $1 trillion–plus annual deficits, and dismal GDP
growth. Few believe any more that what he and the Democratic Congress passed in
the first two years of his administration worked — and fewer still that the
Republicans are to blame in the last 17 months for stopping him from pursuing
even more disastrous policies. He cannot turn instead to the advantages of
Obamacare, a dynamic foreign policy, national-security sobriety, a scandal-free
administration, or stellar presidential appointments.
The furor over security leaks makes it harder to keep conjuring up the
ghost of Osama bin Laden.
What then to expect if the race remains tight or Obama finds himself
behind?
1. There will be lots more “the dog ate my homework” excuses for the dismal
economy. The troubles in the EU, the Japanese tsunami, the East Coast earthquake, ATM machines, Wall Street,
inclement weather, the Republican Congress, the Tea Party, and George W. Bush
have pretty much been exhausted. But there is always hurricane season, a Greek
exit from the euro, or a Middle East flare-up. Expect sometime before October to
hear that a new “they” upset the brilliant recovery and is to blame for the
chronic economic lethargy. One of the strangest aspects of Obama’s
rationalizations is their utter incoherence and illogic: He brags that America
pumped more oil and gas under his watch, even as he did his best to stop just
that on public lands; he brags that he put in fewer regulations than did Bush,
even as he boasts that he reined in business; he brags that he had to borrow $5
trillion to grow government in order to save the country, even as he claims he
reduced the size of government. Why does Obama try to take credit for things on
Tuesday that he damned on Monday? Is his new campaign theme: Despite
(rather than because of) Obama?
2. Mitt Romney is a tough target. If Obama once loudly admitted to abuse of
coke, Romney quietly confesses to avoidance even of Coca-Cola. His personal life
is blameless. His family seems the subject of a Norman Rockwell painting. And
Romney has more or less succeeded at most things he has attempted. No matter, he
is Mormon. Expect legions of Obama surrogates to focus on the Church of Jesus
Christ of Latter-day Saints, especially its supposed endemic racism, sexism, and
homophobia. Religious bigotry is not especially liberal, but the
race/class/gender agenda trumps all such qualms, and in any case Obama and his
team have never claimed to be especially tolerant or fair-minded in using any
means necessary to achieve noble ends. Whereas the Reverend Jeremiah Wright and
Trinity Church were off the table in 2008, Mormonism will be very much on it by
late summer.
3. We will read and hear about race 24/7. Racism is not an easy sell today,
given that without tens of millions of white voters, Barack Obama would not have
been elected. Nor is it easy to condemn America as racist when the white vote in
2008 was split far more evenly than were the 96 percent of African-American
voters who preferred Barack Obama. Nonetheless, racial relations are at an
all-time low. Almost weekly a member of the Congressional Black Caucus levels
yet another bizarre charge of racism, and a Hollywood actor or singer blurts out
something that would be deemed racially offensive were he not African-American;
the polarization over the Trayvon Martin case threatens to overshadow the
polarization over the O. J. Simpson trial; flash mobbing in the inner cities is
as much daily fare on the uncensored Internet as it is absent
from the network news; and both Barack Obama (the Skip Gates affair, the Trayvon
Martin quip, the “punish our enemies” call, etc.) and Eric Holder (“cowards,”
congressional oversight is racially motivated, “my people,” etc.) have made it a
point to make race essential, not incidental, to their governance. If in 2008
liberals celebrated the election of Barack Obama as proof of a new postracial
harmony, in 2012 a tight race will be cited as greater proof of a new ascendant
racism. The idea that to elect Obama wins the nation racial exemption, and to
defeat him earns condemnation, is illogical. No matter: By late fall, expect a
desperate Obama administration to be dredging up the charge overtly, nonstop,
and in person.
(points 4 and 5 tommorrow)
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