Friday, October 10, 2014

The Thrill Is Gone

It’s a portrait of a failed presidency. Democrats who thrilled to the advent of the Age of Obama are now running for the exits. The American public, entranced, enthralled and seduced by the promise of Barack Obama has discovered that it was all a mirage, a waking dream, that they had been tricked.

Democratic candidates in the midterm elections have understood it well. They are all running, as fast as they can, away from Barack Obama.

Writing in The London Telegraph Peter Foster describes how Americans fell out of love with Barack Obama:

Six years after offering hope and change, polls show the American public has fallen out of love with their president – so where did it all go wrong?

Barack Obama romped to the presidency of the United States in 2008 on a tidal wave of ‘hope and change’. Back then, the financial crisis was raging and US troops were still engaged in combat in Iraq and Afghanistan, but a fresh-faced Mr Obama brimmed with confidence.

He predicted that future generations would look back on his election and see the moment “when the rise of the oceans began to slow and our planet began to heal…when we ended a war and secured our nation and restored our image as the last, best hope on earth.”

Six years later, Mr Obama is weary and greyed and finds his job approval ratings stuck in the low-40s. This October is the 17th consecutive month in which polls show that a majority of Americans disapprove of his leadership.

With November’s mid-term elections less than a month away, even fellow Democrats won't be seen dead with the man who once transformed their party's fortunes. Apart from some closed-door fundraisers, Mr Obama is all but invisible on the campaign trail.

Of course, the Telegraph leans right. So it is more telling to see Will Saletan, writing for Slate—which leans left—offering the same assessment:

Six years into Barack Obama’s presidency, voters are sick of him. Most of them disapprove of his job performance. In state after state, Republicans are tying him around the necks of their Democratic opponents. What’s a poor Democrat to do?

The answer, it seems, is to attach yourself to a different president. If possible, a Republican. Or find another conservative icon to embrace: the last GOP presidential nominee, or the one before that, or some Republican colleague you barely know but once worked with on a fish inspection bill. 

How bad is it?

Yesterday, Allison Lundergan Grimes, the Democratic senate candidate in Kentucky refused to say which presidential candidate received her vote in 2008 and 2012.

The Washington Post described the scene:

Alison Lundergan Grimes (D), who is trying to unseat Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R) this fall, appeared before the Louisville Courier-Journal editorial board on Thursday to make her pitch for their endorsement. The life-long Democrat, whose father represented Kentucky for the party in the state House and who herself has been on the ballot in the state on the Democratic ticket, was asked a simple question. Did she vote for President Obama in 2008 and 2012?

And she didn't answer. Repeatedly.

In an interesting nod to the times, the interview was streamed live, meaning that it took no time at all for Republicans to clip the non-answer and put it online.

Of course, as Democratic candidates repudiate their president, Paul Krugman has written an article detailing his opinion that Barack Obama is:

… one of the most successful presidents in American history.

Should we ask what Krugman knows that no one else does? Or should we ask what the American people and Democratic politicians know that Krugman willfully ignores? 

6 comments:

  1. When one sees Alan Grayson D-FL making sense in reference to ebola then one knows that the democrat world is going to HELL in a "hand basket." Unfortunately most democrats are a reflection of Obama's failure to lead and just voting the party line no matter the efficacy of the laws the enact.
    The democrats I feel a little sorrow for are the ones that stood up to Obama. Sadly that was a precious few.
    One wonders whether minority voters will finally recognize that their votes for the same party consistently has gotten them almost nothing and gotten them no respect from the people who have consigned them to the "Liberal Plantation." One cannot gain political power by becoming predictable. It is said to see Americans who could be the masters of their destiny give power to a government, party and power structure that has every reason to keep them poor. This given that almost every immigrant group has suffered tremendous bias at first, but have gotten past it. NOTE: The Irish were some of the first slaves in this hemisphere transported here by the English.
    This should be a "teachable moment" as Obama is fond of stating. One cannot vote for people just because of their race, gender, et al and expect it to not come to this. I am not sure how many tims we can make this mistake in large cities like Detroit, or at the federal level before we finally learn this lesson. It is the content of one's character that is important not the color of their sKin or the fact they don't have a penis that determines how they will do the job they were elected to do. Can anyone seriously say that Obama has been good for Blacks. The only equality Obama has created is one of misery and poverty.

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  2. Krugman is right; Obama has been vastly successful in growing the state and advancing the power of the collectivist state. That is his core task as a Democrat in the Oval Office.

    As every Democrat and every conservative knows, Obama's corruptions of the institutions of government will be permanent under any establishment Republican who might follow him in office. So, regarding America's future, Obama's actions are written in stone. By any measure Krugman would apply, that makes Obama "one of the most successful presidents in American history".

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  3. Obama has served his purpose. Of course they will turn their backs on him, horrified to discover he's an empty suit... and always was. But he has transformed lots of things about American life and the citizen's relationship with the government... as if citizenry meant anything with this Administration, headed by a "Citizen of the World," which is yet another a non-distinction.

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  4. I think we all can agree the world should be different than it is. But it's not. Lefties love to parade around as magi of intelligence saying "the definition of insanity is..." Then they turn around in outrage that there are no subsidies for this, that, and the other "rights." Self-proclaimed, of course, and dependent on the coercion of others to deliver the material bounty produced under this bizarre concept of delivering said "rights." An adequate description of an insane, hallucinating, ranting lunatic is one who believes that money grows on trees planted by the magical government. Outside the imagination of Leftist mathematics, no such trees exist. And that's the way things are. Oh, the horror!

    Didn't you hear? Ebola was invented by the CIA.

    And no, Dennis... people have voted for Obama because of their race, gender, etc., and they did not eclectic it to come to this. Obama is the Messiah. And no, Obama has not been good for blacks. That's why the black leaders love him: it gives them a steady customer base -- guaranteed victims for life! We're you also not aware there is a war on women?

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  5. "Of course, as Democratic candidates repudiate their president, Paul Krugman has written an article detailing his opinion that Barack Obama is:… one of the most successful presidents in American history."

    Krugman is a phony leftist. His fuming about Obama bailing out Wall Street was just a shtick.
    He is very happy that his fellow elites got the package from Obama.

    Obama is no less a Wall Street whore than GOP sockpuppets.

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  6. Ignatius,

    When one votes for someone based on their race, gender et al they are demonstrating that they are not considering the real important reasons to vote for someone. "Hope and change" is not a policy nor is the expectation of that phrase is something that can be used to determine one's vote.
    Again people who vote in this manner should have recognized this possibility. A free country depends on the literacy of its citizens to exist and prosper. What is literate about one's gender or race, et al?
    There are far too many groups who depend on keeping minorities from becoming something other than useful tools and in poverty. These same people will do the same thing to any immigrant group that comes into this country. At some point we either go back to being a "melting pot" with all of its good ingredients making a fine mixture of flavors or we suffer the fraying of a "coat of many colors" that loses its ability to stay a lasting and functioning item of use that serves all.

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