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The Campaign Spot

Election-driven news and views . . . by Jim Geraghty.


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If You Were in Obama’s Shoes, Wouldn’t You Be Worried?

Today’s Morning Jolt, the last of the week, features more bad economic projections — separate from today’s unemployment numbers, out at 8:30 Eastern, Charles Krauthammer thinks one White House staffer deserves a raise, and this thought, which I think summarizes the week:

Hey, Can Somebody Wake Up the President and Remind Him It’s September 2011?

Does it seem like there’s a certain . . . lack of urgency around this White House lately?

Try, for a moment, to put yourself in Obama’s shoes. You’re fulfilled your lifelong ambition to become President of the United States, when the American people became exhausted with the opposition party and a severe, sudden economic crisis triggered hard times for millions upon millions of Americans. Shortly after taking office, your allies, controlling Congress by a wide margin, enacted your plan for recovery. You enacted several other big pieces of your agenda. And now, almost three years into your term . . . unemployment is 9.1 percent. (It will change today, but August is traditionally a slow month; chances are we’re looking at 9.2 percent, 9.1 percent or 9.0 percent. Pretty lousy, any way you slice it.) Your approval rating tumbled to about 50-50 and in recent weeks it’s slumped some more. The right track/wrong direction numbers are abysmal.

Don’t you react to these circumstances with a sense of . . . if not panic, deep concern? Wouldn’t you be worried that you were on the verge of being a failed president? Wouldn’t you be on the phone with the opposition leader, pulling out all the stops to get some sort of big set of reforms that might give businesses and the markets a new shot in the arm of confidence? Would you go vacation at Martha’s Vineyard for a week, pledging that you would reveal your new plan later? And would you try some sort of cutesy-brinksmanship over the timing of your big unveiling of your proposal?

Doesn’t Obama seem strangely detached from his own current predicament?

Okay, he’s not detached. He’s outraged, at least according to the Politico headline writers.

What he’s outraged about . . . well . . . “It seemed like a trivial matter: On Wednesday, House Republicans forced the president to delay his speech to a joint session of Congress by one day. Who cares? The White House cares. Very much. ‘It is a big deal that the House said “no” to the president from our end,’ a White House source with intimate knowledge of what took place between the House and the president told me Thursday. ‘This confirms what we all know: They will do anything in the House to muck us up.’ The White House is viewing it as very consequential, however. ‘It is a big deal,’ the source said. ‘It shows the House Republicans will do no outreach, nothing.’ And who does the White House believe was really behind treating the president so shabbily? ‘At first, I didn’t think it was Boehner, but his caucus,’ the source said. ‘But maybe not. Maybe it is him.’”

Yup. That’s what gets the president outraged. Not the “Fast and Furious” scandal, not Bashir Assad continuing to mow down people in Syria, not the number of Americans on food stamps, not the Gibson guitar raid, not waste in the stimulus bill, not the loss of $500 million or so in that Solyndra . . . no, having to compromise on speech timing is what really grinds his gears.

Tags: Barack Obama

New on The Campaign Spot. . .


COMMENTS   7

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   09/02/11 08:27

There is another reason why the President should be anything but calm about this election: this is the first time he will be facing an electorate that knows his record. He was an unknown who got set up to win a state senate seat; then an unknown state senator running for US Senate who faced weak opposition in a blue state in a Democratic year; then an unknown Senator facing a weak candidate for President following an unpopular GOP President.

This time he has to face a group of voters that never existed before: people who know him. And according to all polls, they don't like his policies, don't think he did a good job, and don't have confidence in his abilities. The relative ease of previous victories seems to have lulled him into an overconfidence not supported by reality.

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   09/02/11 09:12

a SCOAMF to the end ...

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   09/02/11 10:12

I have to hear a lot of hiphop because of my kids (I wear a Pop Culture is Filth T-shirt in my mind) and this has such the feel of the rivalries in hiphop culture. Obama got in their face, he was gonna show them who was the player, but then they fought back and shut him down. So now he's angry, not because of anything substantive but just because he feels dissed. That's what so much of inner city black culture is-- fighting (often with deadly results) over status and "respect" with no substance beneath it beyond the purely personal.

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JudithL
   09/02/11 11:10

Remember that O said nothing negative about Jeremiah Wright until Wright embarrassed him in front of the National Press Club.

O is a sad, troubled, fragile human being.

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   09/02/11 13:29

Obama is like the brother that announces to the family that his wifes birthday party is at your house - because you have the pool - without asking. The night he picked your daughter has a concert and OH, can you get a keg.

Its only slightly tackier than sending an Ipod to a Royal and returning that dusty statue to a Prime Minister.

Why does this chapter of "Pivot to Jobs" soap opera have to be at a Joint Session of Congress, so he can berate some Justices again, or to pout that his buddies didn't get Card Check

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Ron11
   09/03/11 13:51

He is not worried at all. The last minute before the election he'll produce all kinds of executive orders and announce "the future has arrived". Even though it will be all smoke and mirrors; the very same voters who elected him on "Hope & Change" will again be duped and ALL rush out to vote for their messiah.

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Kathy from Kansas
   09/04/11 01:12

Yes, indeed, Obama seems very oddly unconcerned about it all. Perhaps that's because he knows something we don't know.

I can think of any number of things that could happen between now and November 2012 that might lead to a declaration of national emergency -- which, in turn, could lead to imposition of martial law -- which, in turn, could lead to suspension of elections.

If that sounds far-fetched, consider the kind of plans that, not so long ago, were being made by Obama's bestfriend/mentor/neighbor/officemate/sponsor Bill Ayers...
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