Grumbling About Obama

President Obama’s Honeymoon with the American People is Slowly Winding Down.

America is coming to its senses. The honeymoon with their new President lasted 5 months, but Barack Obama’s popularity is declining in two different surveys. There’s no drama; there’s no hangover headache after the intoxicating party and neither are there any regrets. But people are now looking more closely at the black man in the White House and they still seem to like what they see. The only thing that is making them a bit uncomfortable is what he’s doing in the Oval Office.

It’s his policies rather than his personality that are causing more and more Americans to have doubts. Mainly, it’s the gigantic budget deficit caused by government attempts to jump-start the American and the global economies that causes alarm. Recently, 58% of Americans surveyed say the deficit frightens them more than the prospect of losing their jobs or the possibility of another terrorist attack.

Obama senses the grumbling. His demographic advisors have obviously spotted the trend as well. That’s precisely why the President has been sharing his inner thoughts with the public and admitted in a recent television interview that the deficit situation was causing him sleepless nights as well.

That’s classic Obama. He almost always finds the right tone when he tells the people “I understand!” But over the long term, words aren’t enough. This is exactly the new (and simple) rationale for the latest surveys: his supporters are beginning to measure him by his deeds. A full 46% of them still hold George W. Bush responsible for the current financial crisis, but the bonus of not being George W. Bush is rapidly disappearing and Obama has no concrete mid-range plan to reverse the red ink. The country may still like the man and his speeches, but that won’t be enough. After less than six months in office, Obama’s presidency will stand or fall with the economy. If the economy doesn’t begin to pick up, his personal popularity will begin to suffer as well. Thus far, Obama has been successful in cleverly using the inherited crisis to his own advantage, for example in attracting investment in more social and ecological projects via the gigantic stimulus plan.

But as long as the so-called stimulus fails to bear fruit, Obama will be unable to risk further reforms. His new course, engaging the government as the engine for economic modernization, has to show successes – or else his whole agenda will become bogged down.

We’ve already seen that his health care reforms can’t be realized as quickly as planned. Congress is balking despite the clear Democratic majority. It has become a vicious circle: Obama desperately needs victories now more than ever before, or he will soon have no victories at all.