We’re less than five months out from the 2010 mid-term elections, in the midst of an anti-incumbent populist wave. Sitting lawmakers on both sides of the aisle are quaking in their boots, but it is true that as the party in charge, House and Senate Democrats are prepared to take the worst of it, should dire electorate predictions come to fruition. I am looking at you Harry Reid.
There is much discussion as to how we got here. A large part of America was swept away in idealist visions of hope and change as 2008 came to a close, even after a staggering blow dealt in the form of a collapsing economy. Conventional wisdom had it that outgoing President George W. Bush brought us to the brink: fiscally, socially and while carrying a big stick of an ineffective foreign policy. But no matter, Barack Obama was going to change all of that. He had the charisma, the intellect and the look needed to show the world that America had broken with the backward stagnation of the last eight years.
But a funny thing happened between November 2008 and the moment I sit at my computer with cursor to screen. The newly elected President swept into Washington D.C. with all the confidence and support that a record setting (actual attendance as well as televised ratings) inauguration can bring. Over the course of the next 16 months, he worked with his advisors, eclectic cabinet choices and the Democratic party (Republican lawmakers, including former “maverick” John McCain, choosing the role of Senate chamber squatters and killjoys) to pass a lot of important and necessary sounding acronyms. The American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 (ARRA) was designed to put Americans back to work. According to President Obama at the time of it’s signature, the act was intended to save or create some 3.5 million jobs nationwide.
Next came the Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP), otherwise known to most Americans as the wildy unpopular, PR toxic “Wall Street bank bailout.” Though TARP was inarguably effective at stabilizing the nation’s teetering financial system and loosening, however slightly, the chokehold of the credit markets, for better or worse, Obama was hung in effigy in the court of public opinion, for his perceived empathy with ailing corporations over and above the struggling American family.
And finally, by signing his name 22 times, Obama made the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (PPACA), commonly known as “health care reform”, a reality. Many of us in the media and blogosphere will be forever scarred by the brutality of the debate leading up to getting this done. Obama’s dubious “crowning achievement,” remains, after more than a year, a bill with a high price tag that few understand.
After these rapid policy “wins,” the short attention span of pundits, and honest suffering of a large number of American families led to the expectation that so much capital spent, and so much Congressional activity, must lead to the improvement of our existence. Except…it hasn’t. While we have put distance between our daily lives and the open panic of late 2008, the economic recovery, which has been good to corporations, has been unforgiving to the unemployed. For example, the private sector added an anemic and unsustainable 41,000 jobs to its payrolls last month.
Bank of America, Citigroup and J.P. Morgan, the three robber barons viewed as largely responsible for the burst of the housing bubble, are back, and in some cases (Bank of America) better than ever. Meanwhile, families continue to be forced out of their homes at a record pace.
And finally, the euphoria, the declared momentum of overhauling America’s broken, wasteful health care system has felt somewhat misspent and misleading. While the multitudes of jobless college grads feel swell about being able to remain on Mom and Pop’s insurance plan while they continue to live at home, the other promised benefits have been difficult to ascertain. Somehow the final bill doesn’t feel like the revolution those of us on the left were promised. And those on the right, the deficit hawks who didn’t seem to mind Bush’s unpaid-for war in Iraq, tax cuts and Medicare prescription benefit, are suddenly howling about the administration’s fiscal irresponsibility.
How did so much faith in “the One” turn toxic so quickly? One need only pay a visit to the comment sections of The Huffington Post or The New York Times, traditionally left leaning platforms, to find that even Obama’s most ardent supporters see the shine has worn off. Though the immediate focus is on the pending November elections, it is by no means presumptuous to look ahead to the 2012 Presidential race. And depending on your personal politics, it is either surprising or fully expected to find President Obama facing the prospect of playing a familiar role: underdog.
It is not only the things he has worked so hard to achieve that have had a perverse way of leading to a dip in the President’s poll numbers. This might just be the most hard-luck individual to ever take the reins as Commander-in-Chief. How many controversies, domestic and otherwise, can a man with such problems to deal with on Day One, be expected to add to his burden? Things in Afghanistan are not going well. Solid allies (Israel) have created numerous diplomatic headaches even as Obama tries to usher in a new era of dialogue and restraint in the Middle East. North Korea is dancing dangerously close to smashing sixty years of detente with its neighbor to the South. Iran and its maniacal leader, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, display every intention of continuing to flout international opinion.
At home, Arizona makes up new immigration policy as it goes along, daring to flirt with adding to the stringent bill it passed an April, a provision that will put a target on the back of children of illegal entrants. The BP environmental disaster in the Gulf of New Mexico is a trifecta of a crisis: ecologically, financially and politically, that shows no signs of easing. With so much negative and very little positive energy on Obama’s side (members of his team who make the rounds on Sunday morning talk shows have the appearance of spent punching bags), is it premature to ask aloud how he can possibly avoid becoming a one-term president?
As someone who proudly voted for Barack Obama in 2008, and will surely do so again in 2012, I am more than a little concerned. In many cases, such as the transition of power in Iraq, I do not believe the President has gotten nearly enough credit. The Wall Street bailout made me sick in my heart, but I understood intellectually that it was unavoidable. The alternative was unthinkable. The jobless economic recovery is more than unfortunate, and must be a priority for this administration, but it is hardly surprising. This is the expected lovechild of the corporate bedfellows of offshoring and financial recklessness. Obama has made tough choices borne out of inheriting the privilege of running the country at one of its most bewildering historical moments. However, he has done so with an even temper, a grace and a sensibility that Americans were not deceived in expecting, even as he has struggled with messaging.
And yet, the latest polls, according to Rasmussen Reports, show that 41% of Americans “strongly disapprove” of Barack Obama’s handling of his presidency, to the 27% that feel the administration is on the right track. That kind of response cannot inspire confidence in Obama’s team as they gear up for a grueling re-election campaign. This is evident in the White House’s sudden reluctance to engage with anymore political hot potatoes such as immigration reform or an energy bill. Even funding a jobs initiative before the end of the year is perceived by many as a short-term death wish. The once energetic Obama team has suddenly become afraid of its own shadow. In addition to protecting the President’s back, the Oval Office Squad does not want responsibility for weakening the position of Democratic candidates around the country.
And suddenly the metaphorical image of a unpluggable oil leak seems grimly perfect, and the lack of competency and expediency on the part of the BP response team bitterly and ironically astute. As we wait for August, when the relief wells might begin to afford an opportunity to clean up the dreck and start fresh, will the Obama Presidency be able to follow suit?
Becky Sarwate | Contributor
I am about as liberal as they come, and please don't expect to change me, though I do sometimes sneak up on you with a surprise (pro-death penalty, for instance). I am a freelance writer for several Chicago publications. I write about all things urban, Hollywood, my own turbulent life, and of course, my number one passion: local and national politics.
Read more by Becky on RootSpeak
See Becky in action at:
