Yesterday Mike Allen of Politico spotlighted this exchange on ABC News’s This Week (all emphasis in original):
JAKE TAPPER, to The N.Y. Times’ JEFF ZELENY, on ABC’s “This Week”: ”What are the odds that President Obama is going to be able to introduce [a jobs plan] that will pass Congress?”
ZELENY: ”I think the odds are pretty slim, and they realize that. But it’s not about getting it passed, necessarily. It’s about framing the argument for the fall, and really into next year. They’re trying to draw this distinct line between him and Republicans. . . . For all the powers of the incumbency, for all the advantages he had as he was rolling through Minnesota, Iowa and Illinois, one thing that hung over him is REALITY. That’s one thing that he didn’t have to deal with in 2007 or 2008. He could say all these things, make all these promises, which he did.
“But now his own supporters are coming to him with really tough questions — looking for relief, not just framing the argument.So I think he has to do more than simply fight with Congress. He has to try and go back again and get something with Speaker Boehner. But the reality just really confronted him, even in these friendly areas. I mean, imagine how it’s going to be when he goes to some harder places — some counties in Michigan, some counties in Wisconsin, Ohio, Pennsylvania.”
Notice the all-caps emphasis of “REALITY.”
Reality is, in fact, Obama’s real opponent in this election.
Reality is proving so challenging for the Obama administration because Obama ran as a fantasy. All of the following images from the 2008 campaign can be found, saved for posterity, on the “IS BARACK OBAMA THE MESSIAH?” blog:
And of course, our reality.