Obama's Second-Term Slide Mostly About Us, Not Him
As President Barack Obama heads into the final half of his final term, many of us Americans wonder whatever happened to the fresh promise of that cheerfully charismatic optimist who dominated the political stage back in 2008.
Some of those who voted for him now say they're sorry they did. A poll by USA Today/Suffolk University finds, among those who say they did vote for him in six states that have key Senate races this fall, as many as one in seven say they regret it.
Of course, it also is significant to note that some of those folks are liberals who think Obama has been too conservative. I am thinking, for example, of Cornel West, the celebrity activist-intellectual who told Time magazine he didn't vote for anybody in the 2012 presidential election. To me, that was essentially a vote for Mitt Romney, but I don't expect Professor West to brag about that.
Obama's slump isn't all that special. Every two-term president in recent decades has suffered a dip in approvals half-way through his second term. But Obama's slide is startling for a man who, only two years ago, became the first Democrat since FDR to win a majority of the popular vote in two elections.
That's why you won't see him campaigning alongside Democratic candidates in close Senate races. They're delighted to receive the money he helps to raise but they don't want to be seen with him.
Why has the thrill gone? I can think of three big reasons:
ONE: Public impatience. After six years in office, any president has been seen and heard too many times to satisfy the public's relentless appetite for something fresh and new.
"We claim that a president is tired or looks tired," wrote presidential scholar James Mann in a recent New York Times op-ed, "when what we really mean is that we are tired of him."
TWO: An anti-incumbent reflex in news media. The most powerful media bias, I often have argued, is our bias against any political narrative that sounds like old news. Our current president looks less exciting than the menagerie of wannabes on the horizon.
THREE: Obama's own distaste for the politicking that is an inevitable and, in many ways, essential part of presidential leadership.
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