Yes, He Still Can

Despite conditions at the start — a crisis of confidence and a crisis of hope — it’s too early to eulogize Obama. The American public is still likely to let him finish what he started.

On the eve of decisive battles in the American Revolution, in the harsh winter of 1777-1778 in Valley Forge, PA., General (and future president) George Washington looked at what was left of his frozen and ragged soldiers and wrote in his diary: “Now will be our winter of discontent.”* In the harsh winter of 2011-2012, Barack Obama, 44th president of the United States, will look at the city of Washington, D.C., at Wall Street in New York and at Main Street in any other city in America and say the same thing.

In late August 2008, three months before the presidential election in New York, I met with the vice president of Lehman Brothers, an investment fund manager who managed $14 billion and a forced retiree who, three months before, was still one of the vice presidents of Bear Stearns, that had by then collapsed and vanished into thin air. There was a consensus: The hapless candidate who is elected as president will be a one-term president.

Their explanation? The size, scope and depth of the economic problem, the collapse of the “Wall Street” model and the lack of decades of investment in infrastructure and education would not allow the president, any president, to succeed in his role. He could rightly blame President Bush and the lawlessness of the Republican administration, which had inherited a budget surplus from Bill Clinton in 2000 and left a budget deficit and a debt of $9 trillion, but in 2012 the responsibility would be his. Three months later, on Sept. 18, Lehman Brothers collapsed and the value of the investment fund whose manager I met had shrunk to $2 billion.

Five Main Reasons for Obama’s Difficulties

Obama is surely dreaming of a campaign reminiscent of Reagan’s 1984 “Morning in America,” which promised a decisive victory. However, the economic crisis on Obama’s watch is greater and more immense by all measures than that which Reagan faced.

Obama faces a double-dip recession, enormous external debt, a budget deficit the whole world learned of in the debt ceiling crisis two months ago, the Wall Street collapse, a tax crisis, an unemployment rate of 9 percent that has yet to show all the signs of the decline and will not show up until November 2012, an average family income decrease in 49 out of 50 states, and most importantly, a crisis of confidence and a crisis of hope.

The second cultural-social-philosophical thread of America has always been hope for the future, which is now wearing and fading away. 72 percent of citizens believe that the U.S. is not heading in the right direction. This isn’t Obama’s fault — it’s beyond his power as president to change the course of events — but it’s happening on his watch.

There are five main reasons that explain Obama’s difficulties:

1. Bush’s legacy: a disastrous economic situation, unsolvable in terms of the structure of the financial markets, and two active wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

2. Republican opposition that borders on sabotaging national interests, all policies and initiatives that require cooperation between the two parties. The Economist, which is not a fan of Obama, has called Republican behavior in the debt-ceiling crisis “wanton idiocy.”** From this view, Obama paid a price for the disappearance of the political center. In the past, a third of conservative Democrats and a third of the most liberal Republicans cooperated and reached compromises, even if sometimes it didn’t seem too pretty. But this allowed for more effective governance and the ability to advance large-scale action. The center has been replaced by a poisonous partisan polarization that produces consistent and permanent deadlocks. It is no coincidence that the level of public support of Congress is only 13 percent.

3. The unrealistic expectations that accompanied his election. Former New York Governor, Mario Cuomo, once said that campaign is poetry and government is prose. The “yes, we can” with its almost messianic hope for the presidency were crushed when they met with reality. In this regard, Barack Obama’s election was historic and revolutionary; his presidency is much more earthly and conservative.

4. Barack Obama himself. His presidency and leadership style is often perceived as too rational, too detached, too alienated, too quiet and too academic. Last year, when it was clear that the U.S. was in another recession and that the apparent recovery of 2009 was just a delusion, Obama allowed his opponents to define him. One of the guiding principles in modern political campaigns in a modern American presidency is to define yourself and to avoid a situation in which your opponents define you and decide who and what you are as president (or as presidential candidate), which can create negative perceptions in public opinion, putting you constantly on the defensive. Obama failed to apply this principle and his failure was exacerbated by the Republican victory in the 2010 Congressional election and their takeover of the House of Representatives.

5. Order of priorities: The most important thing in modern leadership is establishing the right order of priorities to balance what the public thinks and wants with the things that you want to advance in the economic/political/global reality. Obama chose to focus on health insurance reform — a vital issue of the utmost importance, but whose results and benefits are only evident after years — instead of the most distressing problems for Americans: employment, unemployment and job security.

Obama Will be Judged

Still, Obama has not unreasonable chances for re-election. The public will not judge him based on a miraculous improvement or economic miracle by November. They do not expect him to make such a difference. Obama will be judged by public opinion regarding his seriousness, commitment, talent and quality of policies that he will implement to ensure a better future.

Obama needs the average American — even if only the 53 percent that previously voted for him — to buy into his line of “Let me continue to apply what I started in dreadful conditions.”** If voters understand that the government is not necessarily a problem, but maybe the solution, and that in times of crisis, “big” government is indeed more suited to deal with challenges, while “small” government is responsible for the crash of 2008-09, and if they look at the unimpressive gallery of the opposition — odd and eccentric, which the Republicans portray at this stage — Obama has a chance.

The road to 270 delegates is long and hard, and Obama has more than one route to reach the end. Not necessarily by passing through the traditional Rust Belt in Ohio, Michigan and Pennsylvania, but rather by means of an effective campaign in states with a higher concentration of wealth, whch are more highly educated and have a higher Hispanic population, like North Carolina, Virginia and Colorado.

This is not simple. The economy is working against him and he isn’t able to change much, but it’s not unattainable. Obama’s model is the 16th president, Abraham Lincoln. Of all of Lincoln’s quoted remarks, Obama surely must subscribe to one in particular: “I claim not to have controlled events, but confess plainly that events have controlled me.” This is a sincere, simple and harsh statement that attests to Obama’s presidency, as well as modern political leadership almost anywhere.

*Editor’s Note: Quote is Shakespeare. Washington noting this in his diary could not be confirmed.

**Editor’s Note: This quote, while accurately translated, could not be verified.