The Washington Post finally gets around to wondering if Obama really felt voter’s pain, and realizes that The Lightworker is rather detached
President Obama’s failure to channel the anxieties of ordinary voters has shaken the faith that many Democrats once had in his political gifts and his team’s political skill.
Political gifts and skill? Perhaps on the campaign trail, however, as we have all seen, and most of us instinctively know, campaigning is very different from actual governance. Like in the private sector, a great interview doesn’t mean that person will be a great, or even competent, executive. You know, the job Obama never held. And a chief executive can’t simply vote present or punt a decision. Like Joe Biden said, “The presidency is not something that lends itself to on-the-job training.†Fortunately, Biden did think Obama was “articulate and bright and clean and a nice-looking guy”, but, he couldn’t “recall hearing a word from Barack about a plan or a tactic.â€
In his own assessments of what went wrong, the president has lamented his inability to persuade voters on the merits of what he has done, and blamed the failure on his preoccupation with a full plate of crises.
Right. Cause it couldn’t be that the legislation stunk like one of those diaper tubs, the ones you look at over at a friends house and think “dear, Lord, that thing’s gonna blow!”
But a broad sample of Democratic officeholders and strategists said in interviews that the disconnect goes far deeper than that.
“There doesn’t seem to be anybody in the White House who’s got any idea what it’s like to lie awake at night worried about money and worried about things slipping away,” said retiring Tennessee Gov. Phil Bredesen (D). “They’re all intellectually smart. They’ve got their numbers. But they don’t feel any of it, and I think people sense that.”
Well, yeah. We also sense that the legislation was terrible for the country, as well. You can put the diapers in the repository and speak well of it, but, when push comes to shove, the turds are still there.
Obama “is not Bill Clinton in the sense that he’s not an extrovert. He doesn’t gain energy by connecting with people,” said a Democratic strategist, who worked in the Clinton White House and asked not to be named while offering a candid criticism. “He needs to be forced to do it, either by self-discipline or others. There’s no one around him who will do that. They accommodate him, and that is a bad thing.”
The $25,000 question is, does Obama really care? Did Bill Clinton really care? Maybe yes, maybe no. Yet, Clinton was able to connect with the American people by speaking to them, not at them. He showed empathy, and even sympathy. The thing is, Obama didn’t connect with voters on the campaign trail: he connected to them. He gave rousing speeches as a king or queen would, firing them up, but, the connection and feelings were one way. Nothing showed this better than the Greek columns during his official nomination. He was connecting from the mountain top.
“Hope is a sentiment, not a strategy, and quickly loses credibility without a road map,” Galston wrote in a paper released two days after the election. “Throughout his first two years in office, President Obama often struggled to connect individual initiatives to larger purposes.”
Oh, there’s a road map, and it is one which Obama wouldn’t dare tell the American people, one which moves the country on the path to massive government and massive control by the government, one where wealth is somehow created by the government, and trickles upwards. One where the government is in formally linked, and even in charge, of parts of the private sector (that would be known as Socialism). One where they control your health care decisions. One with unsustainable spending based on class warfare. Hope may power a campaign, but, it doesn’t lead to sound, realistic, and wise policy decisions.
Crossed at Right Wing News and Stop The ACLU. sit back and Relax. we’ll dRive!
Have you noticed that almost all of his photos has him sticking his nose up in the air!??!