Barack Obama, Nostalgia Forward

Getting impatient, Barack Obama? A series of attacks launched at Mitt Romney last week has provoked the media’s concern. Has the always very level-headed president lost his cool? Why is he—who is rarely flustered—suddenly entering the arena? The elections are five months away and the two adversaries are already fighting like cats and dogs. The other day, Mitt Romney, who was passing through the plains of Iowa, compared the United States debt to a “prairie fire.” To which the president, spinning the rupestrian metaphor, retorted that it was a “cow pie of distortion.”

Barack Obama has gotten off to a very early start. He attacks head-on, according to the precept that demands that his adversary be “definite” before summer, so that he will be able to spend the autumn ridding himself of the negative image he has garnered (in this case, that of a financial vulture). Usually outgoing presidents wait until the end of summer—George Bush, for example, had barely pronounced the name of his rival, John Kerry, in the months before his re-election. History will decide whether camp Obama’s tactics were the right ones or not. As journalist-blogger Frank James has said, the candidates are already tossing cow pies “and it’s just May…”

This May, Barack Obama held his first two campaign rallies, with [wife] Michelle, in two states that are crucial for him to win: Virginia and Ohio. In Richmond, Virginia, it felt like it was 2008 all over again. The line snaked around the university’s gymnasium. The first arrivals tweeted that the stands were not quite full, but they were quickly contradicted. The audience included many impassioned militants who had jumped on the campaign bandwagon back in 2008, such as Florence Bucholz, a teacher. This year, however, they are volunteering in the primaries and many have agreed to become “team leaders,” organizing their suburbs. Just like four years ago, attention was paid to the smallest details, starting with Michelle’s dress, which was the exact same shade of turquoise blue as the bottom of the signs brandished by the militants: “Forward.” It’s the new slogan.

Waiting for the speech, the organizers screened videos of the 2008 campaign’s greatest moments. The first victory in Iowa, the “Yes we can,” Hillary’s surrender (applause) … The nostalgia was at full blast, all the more so because the campaign is—at this stage—all about remobilizing Obama’s supporters. The music could well have been recycled from the 2008 campaign. And the number to dial in order to subscribe to text message updates about the campaign is still—in case you’d forgotten—62262. Even that hasn’t changed. Even Edith Childs is back, on the big screen, once again recounting how she invented the 2008 slogan (“Fired up? Ready to go”) one rainy day in South Carolina when the senator was feeling grumpy. She, alone, was the proof cited by Barack Obama that “one voice … can change a city … a state … a nation.” And why stop there if one individual can “change the world”? She has swapped her church hat for an “Obama 2012” tee-shirt.

In place of “Change we can believe in,” (the 2008 slogan), the presidential candidate proposes movement: Go forward, as opposed to the backsliding that the Republican economic policy would represent. “Not back!” plead the inscriptions on the reverse of the “Forward” signs.

In proper dialectic fashion, Barack Obama returns the questions. To those who wonder if they are “better off than … four years ago,” the question that was popularized by Ronald Reagan, Obama suggests thinking, rather, about what they will be tomorrow. “The question … is not just about how we’re doing today, but how we’ll be doing tomorrow.” Won’t America be doing better if education improves? If it is less dependent upon foreign oil?

In his speech, Barack Obama tried to combat the well-established perception that he has not kept his promises. His spokespeople have developed an advertisement in which he defends his record. The ad lasts no fewer than seven minutes and seventeen seconds. When he arrived at the White House, 4.4 million jobs had been lost. His stimulus plan “saved up to 4.2 million jobs,” affirms the clip. To which are added 1.1 million automobile industry jobs.

The ad trumpets the credit card reform, the regulation of Wall Street, the health care reform (companies may no longer refuse to cover children suffering from chronic illnesses), the tax cuts for 160 million Americans, the highest rate of oil production in eight years, the record levels of gas production, the 27 percent increase in the production of renewable energies, the end of the war in Iraq, and the “liberation” of Libya. One of the most applauded moments is invariably Osama bin Laden’s execution.

The president is trying to reignite some passion. To everyone he has disappointed, Obama asserts that they can be proud. “And when people ask you what this campaign is about, tell them it’s still about hope, it’s still about change.” He swears that he still believes in them, adding, “I hope you still believe in me.” Failing to arouse hope like he did in 2008, Barack Obama succeeds, in any case, in arousing nostalgia.