Obama Lacks the Fire

The president is on the horns of a dilemma. The weak U.S. economy isn’t his fault, but many Americans blame him anyway. If Obama wants to win in November, he has to rediscover his passion.

There will be another great debate. And again, it will be Ohio where just as in 2008 and 2010 Barack Obama came into the Rust Belt to promise a better future. In Cleveland today, he will promise to look after the middle class and say he doesn’t think much of the idea of continuing to give the wealthy everything in the hope that a little will trickle down to the rest of the nation. His fans will cheer him ecstatically and the president will believe his speech struck just the right note and that he will be reelected on November 6.

But: Obama won’t win with that. The 44th president of the United States will lose because a majority of Americans no longer believe his promises. He will lose not because his opponent is the better choice – because he certainly is not. Obama will lose because he has nothing left to offer other than “business as usual.” But this is depressing. “Business as usual” means a continuation of high unemployment, high debt, political inertia and unfulfilled hopes.

Obama deserves the least blame for that fact, but it is on his watch that it has all come to pass and so many Americans believe it is the president who wakes up every morning and sets the day’s gasoline prices. And in equal measure they also believe that the unemployment figures and the national debt are his fault. Obama cannot counter those beliefs with new promises. The man whose magnificent rhetorical skills brought him to power four years ago has to come up with a new strategy.

It’s only natural that Obama gets the blame. No postwar U.S. president has had to wait so long for economic recovery. No other president has had to contend with a Republican opposition so firmly set on obstruction. No other president has had to swallow so much abuse and personal attack due to a program as major and genuinely socially beneficial as his healthcare reform. No president has ever gained so little political capital from the fact that he bolstered national security while simultaneously bringing the world’s top terrorist and mass murderer to justice.

21st Century Politics is Unfair

Is that fair? Of course not, but that is the way it is with politics in the twenty-first century. This is an era marked by shortness of breath, increasingly rapid judgments about political decisions and a decaying historical memory. Thus Obama is also wrong to blame previous administrations claiming he can do nothing about conditions today. He may gain sympathy for that viewpoint but it won’t win the election. Nor can you win elections by denigrating the financial success of your opponent, as is the case with Mitt Romney who made his fortune as an often-unscrupulous investor. Criticizing success in an era when the entire nation longs for it? Not a great idea.

What Bill Clinton’s brilliant adviser, James Carville, advised Clinton to focus on 20 years ago as he went up against President George H.W. Bush still holds true today: It’s the economy, stupid.

In his campaign in 1992, Clinton talked about what would improve under his leadership and why the U.S. would generate renewed vigor. Unlike Obama, Clinton didn’t turn to Wall Street millionaires who then filled their own pockets. Clinton nurtured youthful optimism. Economy is psychology – confidence, the desire to take risks. That is as true today as it was then.

The charismatic Obama could do exactly the same thing if he would only make some changes — drop the intellectualism and rediscover his passion. As that fails to materialize, Democrats are so nervous five months prior to the election that James Carville himself came out with a memo in which he tells Obama exactly what changes he must make in order to be reelected in November. He says Obama has to show people that he understands their concerns and let them know what he intends to do about them. He advised against saying everything was fine and all that was needed was to stay the course, noting that after four years of crisis that argument no longer held water and would be turned around and used against him. Such advice also brings Bill Clinton to mind when twenty years ago he said “I feel your pain.” That lent a measure of humanity to Clinton ‘s campaign.

Obama needs to do likewise. Now.