While we’ve spent so much time comparing Obama to Carter, maybe we’ve left out the other one-term president of recent memory: George H.W. Bush. Bush, let’s recall, had soaring popularity ratings and then plummeted because of a recession that had technically ended long before reelection. And one of his biggest problems is that he was perceived as being too politically passive, unwilling to fight for his core beliefs, to the extent he had them. When he went populist, it seemed phony and calculated. He was undone in large part by his flip-flop on taxes and a primary challenge to his right.
Sound familiar?
Indeed, one of the key points liberals who mock the notion of Obama losing in 2012 is that he won’t have a primary challenger. But now the dumb left (read the last paragraph for what one reader likened to a circus VW where the clowns just keep pouring out) is starting to talk about it in earnest and it may not be long before more serious folks join the conversation.
Obama betrayed a principle and promise as profoundly as Bush 41 did when he agreed to extend the Bush 43 tax cuts. Unfortunately for the RNC, there’s no video as powerful as Bush 41′s “read my lips” convention pledge, but I’m sure there are plenty of soundbites that will suffice.
I should add, I think he did the right thing. But his grudging, bitter, defensive announcement last night made him seem weak. Indeed, that was one of Bush’s biggest problem after he signed the budget deal. His administration got bogged down defending itself from criticism from his friends for the rest of his presidency.