Numerous recent polls underscore how low President Obama and his policies have fallen in the eyes of the public. But the President’s essential problem is that his policies are too extreme for most Americans and yet not extreme enough for his base. Even among blacks—the constituency from whom Obama has long enjoyed unflinching support—there are signs of rebellion. The Congressional Black Caucus (CBC) recently signaled that it is “growing frustrated,” according to member Maxine Waters, with the President’s handling of the economy and because he didn’t visit any black communities during his pre-vacation “bus tour.” This is not surprising given a national unemployment rate of roughly 20% among blacks.
Waters told a crowd full of black voters last week that the CBC was just waiting for blacks to “unleash us” to rhetorically attack Obama.
It isn’t only blacks who are upset. Obama has managed to upset just about every major liberal constituency. The radical environmentalists are frustrated that “Cap and Trade” hasn’t become law. Immigration reform advocates are furious that the Development, Relief and Education for Alien Minors (DREAM) Act has not been taken up, and gay rights activists are steaming because Obama still won’t admit he supports gay marriage.
Obama’s agenda has an impressive capacity to roil advocates across the ideological spectrum. Consider Obama’s foreign policy. He has enraged the Left by, among other things, failing to fulfill his pledge to close Gitmo, and by adding, not subtracting, to America’s military commitments abroad.
The President’s foreign policy has won him no friends among conservatives, however, who are frustrated by Obama’s worldwide apology tour, fruitless outreach to foreign dictators and shunning of American allies.
Obama’s lead-from-behind approach to the Libyan crisis is emblematic of the administration’s desire to shrink American power abroad.
Neither side is happy with Obama’s belligerence toward Israel or his seeming indifference to human rights violations across the globe.
The Left has found Obama insufficiently socialistic on the domestic front. There is a liberal consensus that the $1 trillion stimulus was too small, that Obama surrendered to the Tea Party in the debt-deal fight and that he didn’t push hard enough to enact a single-payer health care reform model. Liberals are also upset about Obama’s failure twice to repeal the Bush tax cuts.
But it’s not just Obama’s policies that bother the Left. It’s also his personality. Liberals once swooned over Obama’s cool detachment. Now they find him unacceptably placid.
Rep. Peter DeFazio (D.-Ore.), a founding member of the House Progressive Caucus, lashed out at Obama for caving to congressional Republicans on a host of issues, including in the debt-ceiling debate.
“Fight? I don’t think it’s a word in [Obama’s] vocabulary,” he told a Portland radio station last week. DeFazio also predicted that Obama will “have a very tough time getting reelected.”
The Left’s dissatisfaction with Obama probably won’t translate into that many more votes for the GOP nominee. But it may mean fewer liberals end up voting at all on Election Day.
More important than the liberal anger is the President’s problem with independents, a majority of whom disapprove of Obama’s job performance. Independents are upset by Obama’s role in creating both high unemployment and spiraling deficits.
As Politico has reported, by inauguration day 2013, the government will have added more than $22,000 of debt for “every man, woman and child in the nation” during Obama’s presidency. The unemployment rate has increased by more than a third (from 6.7% in November 2008 to 9.1% today) on Obama’s watch.
The last two incumbent Presidents to lose reelection bids, Jimmy Carter and George H.W. Bush, faced unemployment rates hovering around 7.5%.
None of this means defeating Obama will be easy. Obama has time on his side. Fourteen months is an eternity in politics. In August 1983, Reagan had a 43% approval rating and ended up winning in a landslide.
Obama also has the advantages of a huge war chest, the presidential bully pulpit and a coddling media. And the Obama campaign has already signaled that it will viciously attack the Republican nominee no matter who he or she is.
In 2008, Obama was able to run a largely above-the-fray campaign, focusing his fire on the outgoing President Bush as he promised to heal America’s racial wounds and unite the country.
This time around, no longer able to blame his predecessor for the economy and with no real accomplishments to run on, Obama’s campaign will embrace a much different strategy: Inflict rhetorical wounds on his opponent and divide the nation—by race, class and any other category he finds useful.
In a late July interview, Obama acknowledged that the 2012 election will be a referendum on his job performance.
“… [I]f next November [voters] feel like I’ve been on their side, and I’ve been working as hard as I can, and I’ve been getting some things done to move us in the right direction, I’ll win,” he told a Kansas City TV station. “If they don’t, then I’ll lose.”
I’ll allow that President Obama has been working hard (vacations and golf outings notwithstanding). But voters vote for their leaders based not on effort but on results.
The simple truth is that most Americans don’t believe Obama is moving the country in the right direction. And, having antagonized constituencies across the political spectrum, it’s becoming increasingly difficult to see where Obama can build the foundation for a winning coalition.
