Obama hasn’t been blaming Bush enough
Yes folks, you heard it here first—Obama’s polls are sagging because he hasn’t been blaming Bush enough:
When Obama first arrived, he often arraigned his predecessor’s record. The first chapter of Obama’s initial budget document was “Inheriting a Legacy of Misplaced Priorities.” Obama still delivers some similar jabs. But more often, he diffuses blame for the downturn across “a perfect storm of irresponsibility… that stretched from Wall Street to Washington to Main Street.” Obama, at other points, has emphasized his continuity with Bush’s approach, particularly on financial bailouts. (Liberal critics such as Reich believe that link extends beyond rhetoric to policy.) The result is that Obama has mostly shelved what political scientist Stephen Skowronek of Yale University calls “the authority to repudiate.” That’s the effort, employed by consequential presidents, such as Franklin Roosevelt and Ronald Reagan, to build support by portraying their agenda as the remedy for their predecessors’ failures.
Absent such a framework, public opinion about the economy is clearly shifting toward the GOP as the downturn persists. Obama’s economic approval rating has sagged to around 40 percent, and his lead over congressional Republicans on managing the economy has virtually evaporated.
Of course, we all know that it is Bush’s fault that Obama has not been saying “It’s Bush’s fault” often enough lately.
Brownstein’s lament is amusing not just for its delusional insistence that Obama’s ‘authority to repudiate’ has been self-abdicated but in his political naivete.
Axelrod for one, has to be advising Obama that continued ‘blaming of Bush’ has become counter-productive and is increasingly perceived by independents and even moderate Democrat voters as the whining excuses of an ineffective President.
Clearly an academic liberal, Brownstein simply can’t accept a hard political reality.
Obama’s actions are why only 27% of the electorate now strongly approve of his job performance, of which Brownstein is surely one. Obama’s numbers indicate that he is down to his core base for unqualified approval.
While 19% of those in the ‘moderate middle’ ‘somewhat approve’ of his job performance because everything he and the Democrats are doing and propose to do is demonstrably making things much worse, while mostly ignoring the economy, those poll numbers are certain to decline still further.
In the late Summer when Iran starts up its nuclear reactor and denial of Iran’s coming nuclear weapons capabilities is no longer tenable, Obama and the Democrats will have to wear that albatross as well.
They will be permanently labeled as incompetents in the foreign policy arena and have failed in their primary responsibility; keeping the country safe.
A party can survive public perception to be incompetent in either the domestic or foreign policy arena but not both. It is a level of political self-destruction not seen since the Whig party’s decline.
In November, when the Republicans take back the House and Senate, doubts about Obama’s effectiveness as a leader will start to rise, even among his core liberal supporters and he will increasingly be perceived as even more incompetent than Carter. Obama’s prestige rests entirely upon others accepting that he will always and eventually triumph over his opposition, when that fails, his precipitous fall from ‘grace’ is sure to be swift and certain.
And it will suddenly be acceptable for all on the left to acknowledge that “the emperor has no clothes on”.
What the Brownstein’s most fail to appreciate is that in extending unqualified approval of Obama’s radical agenda they are creating the conditions for a ‘corrective’ swing of the political pendulum back to the right.
Just as Carter did Reagan. Only this time we will not forget or forgive either their traitorous attempts to geld the Constitution nor their aid and comfort to the enemy. The left has made their bed and they are damned well going to lie in it.
Evil Booooosh!
Harken back, Y’all, to those days of yesteryear when we had a strong, patriotic, stand-up, lover of American Exceptionalism & Might. Remember those extraordinary people whom he wasn’t afraid of surrounding himself with?? Cheney, Rummy, Condi, Colin, Feith, Bolton, Wolfowitz, etc.
And, harken to the present with mediocre political sewage of the abismal kind…Like Billy Bubba, The Bamma’s narcissism won’t allow huge talent near The One.
People are finally getting weary of Obama’s words and are watching his actions. Of course he’s losing the economic debate. He wants to burden our already fragile economy and most people see it for what it is. I don’t see it turning around either because this man apparently can’t help but want to harm America and ordinary Americans.
Geoffrey Britain:
I sincerely hope you’re right, but I despair. It seems that the pendulum swings to the left, then back the right somewhat, then further to the left, then back to the right but not as much as before. The net result over time is that the country moves ever leftwards. Not steadily, but in fits and starts. Still, it appears that the ratchet only moves in one direction.
When the Republicans took control of Congress in 1994, I remember hearing some rhetoric about “defunding the Left”. I took that to mean ending taxpayer support for left-leaning outfits like NPR and the NEA, and eliminating the federal Department of Education. That idea went nowhere. Now tax money for leftist organizations like ACORN (or whatever they’re calling themselves now) is baked into the budget in a thousand different places. It can also be argued that government financial aid for students amounts to a taxpayer subsidy of leftist college faculty. How are we ever going to unravel this?
The radical Democrat leadership that is systematically and deliberately dismantling our country needs to do hard prison time for their crimes, at a bare minimum. But even if the Republicans win overwhelming majorities in November, I have a hard time believing that they will pursue investigations and indictments.
Words like ’embedded’ and ‘woven into’ barely scratch the surface of what has happened over the past seventy years. Sure, the media and academia are wholly owned subsidiaries. These true believers try very hard to make the Left’s assumptions our frame of reference, and of debate. But the infestation is much more thorough than that. ACORN funding is an example. NPR, (O sound track of my young manhood!) is another example, but it could probably be self supporting, if it were cut off from Uncle Sugar. Judges? In all parts of the country, from District judges, through Appellate Courts to the Supremes, everything we do or attempt to do is squeezed through the Left’s sieve. Even Howard Dean has been pretty open about the “advantages” of controlling the mechanisms of elections in as many jurisdictions as possible, and that control, with the aforementioned control of the judiciary, gave us Senator Franken, and nearly gave us President Gore.
Add to all of that, the combination of patronage and the perception of largess, of the government “helping people,” and you see why we need, at the least, a very different kind of Republican, from the rather lazy but extremely pleasant and affable sort we have elected over the years, including my own beloved Cornyn and my well-tolerated Senator Muffie. (KB Hunthinson)
No, I don’t intend to vote for Ron Paul or his ilk. It’s not that they are too far to the Right and turn people off. It’s that they come across as crazy. I’ve spent too many of my nursing years working, in what we call in the trade, the loonie bins, to give those guys the keys to the asylum. Rubio seems naive but teachable. Paul Ryan is not naive, and still learning, after demonstrating that he already knows more than a lot of the old veterans, while retaining his grit and determination. All of us need to send people to Washington who will be happy to come over early in the morning for coffee, made easier by the fact that they were not invited to last night’s glittering party. Signs of introversion in a candidate’s spouse are also markers indicating a good electoral choice. If she wants to go to DC to shop and party, or he is looking forward to choosing Senator Wife’s interns, let’s find those candidates a nice judgeship in the provinces, where they can do some good, and surely less harm.
People in many parts of the country are wising up to the deceptiveness of pork projects brought home by Congressman Sausagier. Some recipients of largess are starting to do the math, and seeing that the Dems give back less than a fifth of what they extract from us. We do have alternatives to the Libel media. Barring a coup, and I wake up in the night worrying about that, we can take back the country as the bourgeois republic it was intended to be.
Rickly,
I share your gloom about the leftward tilt of our society. Winning elections isn’t enough, we need to win the debate at the street level. It means a constant vigilance and a challenge to every thing we hear that we know is wrong. It means, perhaps, getting in people’s faces about their delusions. It’s an uncomfortable and sometimes unpleasant place to be but like a parent instructing wayward children, we have to educate.
ROFL. Really. It’s taking me a while to stop laughing.
Yes, President Obama needs to continue to do nothing about the economy and make speeches every day, and those speeches need to blame others for his failures. Yeah, that will work.
Bill Wilson is commonly credited with the observation that, “The working definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different result.” Ever since Obama took office he’s been in constant campaign mode, and a big part of the constant speech making is blaming the GOP and President Bush. And ever since he took office, his numbers have been steadily declining. Any reasonable observer would look at that and say, “Hmmm. Maybe this isn’t working, and maybe we should do something else.”
Reading this idiot’s writing is great fun, too. For example.
RE: “President George W. Bush’s anti-regulation, tax-cutting policies not only to the 2008 meltdown but also to the economy’s meager performance over his entire tenure. ”
Bush’s tax cutting policies helped the economy’s performance. Unfortunately, Bush added to the regulatory burden. The Bush administration not only added to the number of pages of the Federal Registry, it added 51% more than the Clinton administration during the “midnight period” (the period between the election of the new president and inauguration day).
RE: “(During Bush’s two terms, the economy created only one-fourth as many jobs as it did under Clinton; poverty rose sharply; and the median family income declined, after rising 14 percent under Clinton.)”
“Median family income”? I don’t see those numbers coming from a reputable agency. Personal income (excluding government payouts) increased 12.7 percent during Mr. Bush’s eight years in office. So far, personal income under Obama has dropped 3.2% That’s more powerful than Obama’s speeches.
RE: “Although times remain tough, positive economic signs are sprouting more frequently: job growth in March, rising retail sales, and a stock market that has soared 70 percent since its 2009 low.”
Unemployment in Jan: about 9.7%
Unemployment in Feb: about 9.7%
Unemployment in Mar: about 9.7%
And I’m sure that the large number of unemployed will take great comfort in seeing the stock market doing well.
kevino said (sarcastically): “And I’m sure that the large number of unemployed will take great comfort in seeing the stock market doing well.”
I agree with your sarcastic remark. I am also increasingly convinced that the stock market is being driven by short term interest and the same kind of thinking that helped give us various bubbles over the last few years.
” . . . the ratchet only moves in one direction.”
I’d like to propose another dynamic, one that Tolkein illustrated. There’s a kind of devolution happening, a ratcheting down, as the great battles remove the greater “species” of life.
This makes some sense when you consider a current demographic: About 50% of the American populace only purpose for living is security of their ongoing consumptive existence. And they demand we make their living for them.
I believe this kind of “leveling” criticism, however, was a progressive criticism first aimed at capitalism and democracy. (eg. Daniel Bell, “The Cultural Contradictions of Capitalism.”) Ironic that it’s happening, now, in a society streaming towards socialism and fascism.
Therein lies a real banality of evil.
Oh would that Obama would repudiate in word and deed “his predecessors failures”.
Bush’s “failures” were in spending too much. Another “failure” (arguably but not certainly) was the first “Stimulus”.
How can Obama repudiate Bush when he is failing ten times over Bush by doing ten times more of what Bush should not have done?
Bush’s success? Tax cuts. That led to employment numbers Obama will NEVER SEE as President, and this great nation of ours will NEVER SEE AGAIN until Democrats and their policies and their spending programs are repudiated, removed, and repealed.
Period. End of story.
Want recovery and prosperity? The game plan is known and possible. But it cannot happen as long as Obama and Democrats are in charge.
No way. Never. Forget about it.
You like misery, poverty, and meanness? Vote Democrat.
Dan Janousek wins the thread right out of the box.
Time’s Klein: Beck, Palin Potentially Committing Sedition against U.S. Government; Heilemann Adds Limbaugh
Nothing. Got that? So all of you opponents of Obama’s policies had better sit down and shut up, if you know what’s good for you.
“So all of you opponents of Obama’s policies had better sit down and shut up, if you know what’s good for you.”
I didn’t see it scanning through the last several posts – but someone said in the last day or so something about doing the same thing over and over expecting different results – the thing is that in these circumstances that is *exactly* what is confusing them. It is just that since most of those people have become politically aware has this not worked so it seems that is stupid to think it will.
As far as people have come most still have not really looked at how their own ideas have been formed. Say, for instance – lets use the phrase “State Militia” – what comes to mind? I will bet that 99+ percent of the people think of McViegh and violent “seditious” groups. Frankly there is almost nothing that can combat that idea now as it is so strongly implanted.
State militias feel about like a tea party gathering, at least everyone I have been too. Yet the actions of a VERY small handful allowed Clinton and the MSM to paint them all as that. They did so with enough strength that I know most even here will now paint me as a radical.
In the end though I guess I’m getting the last laugh – this time around it isn’t working. This time around people have access to information that is curbing their ability to do it. However they persist because since the 60’s this *has worked without a flaw* – it has worked to the extent that even those that are vehemently not taking it now *still* harbor those old prejudices.
It’s not like it is the first time they had some issues getting their “word” out either – they just have to find the right message. A great deal of the carping about their wording is only recent – that wording has been consistent for decades, it is just few cared to notice. This type of thing doesn’t just appear overnight since 9/11, it took decades to establish.
It’s really only those that have awoken since 9/11 that are seeing it for the first time and are shocked. There is still more to come before they will hit a truly never before seen wall, even though this one is larger than any before it it looks familiar.
I hope you’re right, strcpy, but I remember in 2004 when the Texas Air National Guard memos were proven to be forgeries on the internet within hours of their release by CBS News. A lot of us hailed the rise of the internet and the demise of Old Media.
But then in 2008 Old Media learned their lesson, and circled the wagons around their preferred candidate and overwhelmed the blogosphere by sheer volume.
yeah, yeah, thats the ticket…
like watching the habitual liar skit IRL…
“But then in 2008 Old Media learned their lesson, and circled the wagons around their preferred candidate and overwhelmed the blogosphere by sheer volume.”
That was a short term victory and had more to do with the current situation than any long term trends. Indeed, I generally feel the Blogosphere impacted that more than the MSM.
Bush was disliked by both sides quite a bit and not because of the media (though they did have some impact). Conservatives didn’t like the spending, and liberals didn’t like him at all. Republicans had been in control and spent like drunken sailors and were fairly disliked by everyone (for pretty much the same reason Bush was). At best the MSM helped the Dems talk about fiscal responsibility.
They were really onle effective for Obama in the primaries, but then they were speaking to their own people at that time. They will continue to be effective speaking to them too, they are their traditional source of information.
As for the election – I do it agree it would have been true that if they had not been in the tank for Obama he wouldn’t have been elected, but I also think that was not an Obama magic moment but a Democratic magic moment. Indeed, given the state of affairs with respect to popularity of the Republicans and McCain in general had it *not* been for the blogosphere it would have been a near total landslide for Obama.
Also do not discount the fairly large number of conservatives who wanted to teach the Republicans a lesson and either didn’t vote (a huge number there) or voted for Obama. That was a product of the Blogosphere right there, that is certainly a case of having power but not understanding the consequences of said power.
They gave everything they had and eeked by an unpopular candidate in an unpopular party that had lost a large portion of it traditional base. It should show how truly weak they are, had it not been for a great deal of people around the conservative blogs banding together to “protest” with their vote then it may not have happened that way.
It does, however, seem that at least a number of people have realized doing that isn’t a really a “protest”, it is just plain stupid (and why there is a saying “cut off your nose to spite your face”). Marching in the streets, phone/letter campaigns, and support in the primaries and elections is the correct way (that is – the tea parties). The conservative protest machine has finally awoken on how to actually protest instead of commit seppuku.
There has been no overwhelming – if you want to see overwhelming talk to politically active conservatives from the early to mid 90’s. They are a voice amongst many now, maybe the most visible but I do not even think the most influential any more. Remember too that there are at least two sides of the blogosphere – just because conservative lost a battle doesn’t mean the MSM was the culprit either, nor does it mean the war is lost.