Obama Comes to the Rescue of the Democrats

The president starts a cross-country tour seeking to avoid an electoral disaster

The Democratic Party has placed in the hands of Barack Obama its last and faint hope for avoiding a disaster in the November congressional elections. The president begins a cross-country tour today, going from west to east, in which he will attempt to respond to the legitimate worries about the economy, challenge the myths that have been created concerning his administration and highlight some of the half-hidden merits of his first two years in office.

With all the ills besetting Obama, his political health is considerably better than that of his Congressional colleagues. Forty-five percent support his management and more than 50 percent have a favorable opinion of him personally, valuing his efforts although not necessarily sharing his ideas. For all the media noise surrounding Sarah Palin and the tea party, the president remains today the most popular politician in the country.

Hence, Obama will travel today to the state of Washington to help his party colleagues capitalize — to the extent possible — on his own relative popularity. He then goes to California and Nevada, two states where the Democrats have a great deal at stake. In the former, due to its size and importance, the Democratic Party risks, simply put, “to be or not to be” — not only in these elections but for many others in the coming years. Losing California would mean losing the national majority. In Nevada, the seat of the current head of the Democratic majority in the Senate, Harry Reid, is in serious jeopardy. His defeat would be important in terms of highlighting the weakness of a party that is unable to secure the election of its most important legislative leader.

Obama is coming to the aid of these colleagues with desire and confidence, but without any guarantee of success. In the recent past, he was unable to avoid defeats of his colleagues in Massachusetts, Virginia and New Jersey. In this campaign, a number of candidates in very conservative districts have chosen to maintain their distance from the president or even to boast about voting against health care reform and other key White House initiatives.

The stereotype that health care reform represents an immense waste of money and an intolerable interference on the part of the government in private affairs has taken root among an important sector of the electorate, which likewise believes that this administration has raised taxes and increased the deficit like no other.

The aim of Obama’s tour will be, in part, to counter these impressions, and he has arguments in his favor. Obama has increased the federal deficit to nearly a trillion dollars, primarily because it was necessary to inject about $800 billion in the economy to put a brake on rising unemployment (an objective partially achieved) and more than $700 billion to avoid a breakdown in the financial system (the majority of this money has already been recovered). But never has the deficit grown as much as it did during the presidency of George W. Bush, who took a country with a surplus of $230 billion and left it with a deficit of almost $450 billion, although in those days the tea party didn’t show any signs of life.

Obama also has arguments regarding taxes. In reality, this administration has not only not increased any tax, but has reduced them, although, as shown in an article published yesterday in the New York Times, only 10 percent of the population is aware of this. Up to 95 percent of Americans have benefited from the various tax reductions in recent years, in part because a major portion of the economic stimulus plan was aimed precisely at reducing taxes in order to stimulate consumption. What is at issue in this electoral campaign, however, is the decision taken by the president not to extend, beginning next year, the tax deductions Bush granted to those with annual incomes above $250,000.

Obama’s cause is thus in need of a good advertising campaign. The problem is that he no longer benefits from his previous credibility. It’s not easy for him to counter the opposing tide by himself. And, for the moment at least, he will have to do this unaided, since there is no one in his party in a position to give him a hand, with the possible exception of Bill Clinton, who in this campaign is defending the interests of Obama and of his own family name.