Posted by M.Bailey on June 3, 2010 at 1:37pm
Today Johnathan Allen and Carol Lee wrote in Politico that the White House political team is stumbling and bumbling. I couldn't disagree more. To believe that he is stumbling is to believe that at some point this Presidency was walking fully upright, striding forward. It never was.
There is a very telling quote in this article. It comes from an unnamed House Democrat who wonders "how one group of people can be so good at campaigning and so bad at politics." In fact Barak Obama was really never that great at campaigning. His candidacy arose in response to a country-wide malaise. People had, over many years, grown tired of politicians. Approval ratings for Congress were in the toilet, and approval ratings for President Bush were in the toilet. Americans wanted something different, and they, more or less, decided that Barak Obama was the lesser of several evils. Sure, he fired up some crowds, but he never captured the imagination of the country. There was talk of JFK, and talk of Reagan, and talk of Abraham Lincoln, but that was just all talk. All sizzle, no steak as they say. Barak Obama ascended to the Presidency due to circumstance, not due to any cunning strategy set forth by shrewd political advisers, nor due to any fabulous rhetorical flourish.
Fast forward to today and the bloom is officially off the rose. People have become bored and irritated with this President just as they tend to become bored and irritated with most Presidents. Not because the President is doing anything differently, but precisely because he is refusing to do anything differently. He never made the jump from presidential candidate to President. His Presidency isn't stumbling... it never managed to stand up in the first place.
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