Obama's 'Year of Action' Becomes a Year of Fear

Obama's 'Year of Action' Becomes a Year of Fear
Voters are rattled on several fronts, and that's bad news for Democrats.
BY JAMES OLIPHANT

Americans are afraid. The White House is afraid. Democrats are afraid.

President Obama's "Year of Action" has turned into a Year of Fear. The country seems mired in dread. And that could have mortal consequences for midterm Democrats.

New polls out this week betray a rattled public, one that is jittery about war, security, and the economy—and one that is increasingly looking to the GOP, not the party in power. Even as the White House has sought to reassure Americans that the campaign in Iraq will be limited, that the president isn't going to act alone on immigration in the near future, and that the economy is doing better, the damage appears to be done.

Obama and his aides have been caught between messages: that the country wasn't going to war, until it was (sort of). That the president couldn't act on immigration, until he could, until he wouldn't (yet). That the economy had turned the corner, but not quite. (Wait.)

All of it has brought Obama's credibility into question and disrupted the narrative that the administration wanted 2014 to advance—the one where employment rose, the war in Afghanistan ended, and the president walked tall in the face of gridlock.


You remember the #YearOfAction, right? That was the president proclaiming loudly and boldly, beginning in January's State of the Union address, that he would act in the face of congressional paralysis. The White House built an entire campaign around it.

And Obama did indeed act. On minimum wages for federal workers. On workplace safety. On climate change. But the centerpiece was going to be his provocative, punch-the-Republicans-in-the-nose executive action on repairing the nation's broken immigration system.

Until it wasn't. Senate Democrats in red states began to squawk, worried that Obama's unilateral move would alienate moderates at just the wrong time. The president reached the edge of the cliff and backed off, fearful that he would lose his Senate majority and, with it, his best hope for congressional leverage for the rest of his term. The about-face left immigration advocates and liberals angry and confused; days before the delay became public, they were praising the president for his decisiveness. The praise quickly turned to bitterness, as they fret now that Obama will never act.

But part of the president's decision to step back was rooted in another kind of fear. The child-migrant crisis this summer jangled the public's nerves about border security and eroded support for executive action, despite Obama's best efforts to clamp down on the flow of illegal immigrants.

As the public felt increasingly insecure about the border, the administration began to stoke concern about the Islamic State forces raging across Iraq, using terms that wouldn't have been out of place in the Crusades. Obama termed the militants "barbaric" and "evil." Secretary of State John Kerry said they pose "a severe threat" to the United States. Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel called ISIS "beyond anything we've seen" and said the group was worse than al-Qaida.

If the goal was to alarm the public and rally support for the president's military operation in Iraq—and potentially in Syria—then it worked. Polls show widespread backing for U.S. airstrikes in the region, and the latest CNN/ORC survey found that almost 90 percent of Americans were "very concerned" or "somewhat concerned" about ISIS. Most in Congress, too, are on board with Obama's plans, although few of them have the stomach for a vote to formally authorize them ahead of the midterms.

But the White House's tough talk has come at a political cost. As the administration has worked to put the country on alert and begun, in essence, to replicate the national-security posture of the Bush years, the public increasingly views the GOP as the party that can best protect it. The latest CNN poll shows that a solid 40 percent of Americans now fear being victims of terror.

In a CBS News/New York Times poll out Wednesday, the public's confidence in Obama's capacity to counter the threat of terrorism fell a whopping 12 points from the spring, to 41 percent—right about where his overall approval rating sits. (You might call it the loss of the bin Laden bounce.) Fifty-seven percent of those surveyed said Obama wasn't being "tough enough" on ISIS despite a steady wave of U.S. air attacks, and the GOP holds an almost 20-point advantage over Democrats on fighting terrorism.

At the same time, voters' confidence in Republicans' ability to handle foreign policy, the economy, and even immigration has risen, according to the poll. Support for a path to citizenship for illegal immigrants inside the country has dropped, while support for deportations has risen. And while on some level, the White House, it can be argued, is a victim of events beyond its control, the administration hasn't helped its cause, either, in the cases of ISIS or immigration reform.

Critics have long charged that Obama waffled on his stance on arming Syrian rebels and was slow to realize the threat that ISIS posed to the Iraqi government. More recently, Obama has been stuck between drumming up support for his military plans and assuring a rattled public that he isn't launching another open-ended conflict in the Middle East. The result was the flap over Obama saying the U.S. doesn't "have a strategy yet" and an administration that sometimes doesn't appear to know whether it is at war or not (last week it was the White House saying "Yes" and Kerry saying "No") or whether ground troops might be necessary (this week it was Gen. Martin Dempsey saying "Yes" and the White House saying "No").

On immigration, Obama started the year by contending that he lacked the power to significantly reshape the federal immigration system, saying it was a congressional matter. Then, once a reform bill predictably went nowhere, the president suddenly claimed the power to act on his own. That reversal could make whatever order Obama ultimately issues look more extralegal than it might otherwise be. Moreover, the messaging problems were compounded when the president, eager to show off his border-security bona fides over the summer, conflated the child-migrant crisis with the overall flaws in the immigration system.

Even his decision to kick the executive-order decision until "after the holidays" has felt like a lose-lose proposition. Obama tried to help nervous Democrats by delaying the order, but he had to placate restless advocates by pledging that he would still act. That means the issue of "amnesty"—as Republicans call it—isn't going away for the midterms. The White House has already talked too much about it. GOP candidates can gin up voters' worries about the issue all they want.

Senate Democratic candidates won't be calling on the president, however, to explain what he's going to do, because they're terrified to be seen with him. They also won't be embracing the Affordable Care Act, even though it's reducing the nation's uninsured, because it remains unpopular.

There's that fear factor again. It's an anxious time, and the White House is feeling the brunt of it. And there's more: According to the latest CNN poll, a full quarter of those surveyed are worried about contracting the Ebola virus—despite assurances from the president that it's highly unlikely. That's when you know that Americans may be listening, but they aren't hearing you.

http://www.nationaljournal.com/white-house/obama-s-year-of-action-becomes-a-year-of-fear-20140917