Warning - Front-Page WaPoOn the January night in 2008 when he won the Iowa caucuses, Barack Obama delivered a victory speech that would reverberate forcefully across a divided America. Iowans, he said, had come together -- Democrats, Republicans and independents -- to stand as one in calling for a new politics of unity and hope. It was a message that would help carry him to the White House 10 months later.
Simon and Garfunkel, 1968 - "A man hears what he wants to hear, and disregards the rest." He never had more than 52% of the folks, he just believed he had everybody.
Two months before the 2012 election, the campaign has become an all-or-nothing battle over the future direction of the country.
Did you just arrive from another planet?
Obama's reelection is threatened most by the state of the economy. But he also could be hurt because of the disappointment felt by voters who invested so heavily in what he seemed to offer four years ago and for whom expectations were raised to stratospheric heights.
Some saw -even four years ago - that vague promises would be interpreted a thousand different ways.
Some saw four years ago that the man delivering those vague promises had no ability, and no intention, of keeping them...
The president's advisers contend that Republicans chose the course of obstruction and intransigence from the day Obama was sworn in.No stooopid - he had a majority in both houses, which he squandered. Then the people gave the House back to the Trunks.
White House communications director Dan Pfeiffer said there has been a misunderstanding of just what Obama was talking about in 2008 when he called for a new politics.
We common folk often fail to understand what the smartest guy in the room is talking about.
An inspiring speaker, but not very coherent.
"The president didn't promise an era of kumbaya politics in which everyone agreed," he said. "The primary thing he talked most about was that politicians too often ran from big problems that had haunted our country for decades. Whether folks like it or not, he did jump in and take on very big problems with full knowledge that they would have political consequences for him."
One- very big pseudo-problem was all he took on and the process by which he did so poisoned the well. So to speak.
Another problem was that he -- literally -- grabbed all the money in sight and handed it out to campaign contributors and supporters for "shovel-ready projects"...
There are also a He also missed or passed up opportunities to show his willingness to challenge the status quo. And there is not much evidence that, as things turned sour, there was a fallback strategy for how to change the climate. Through the first 21 / 2 years, there were ongoing efforts toward accommodation, but he found no way to break through the divisions. When the debt-ceiling negotiations collapsed amid recriminations on both sides, Obama decided to move virtually full time into campaign mode.
There''s a nugget of truth - the Campaigner in Chief.
The call for a new politics shorn of bitterness and red-blue divisions had long been at the heart of Obama's political persona. He wove that message into every important speech of the campaign, from his announcement in February 2007 all the way to his inauguration speech. By then, however, Democrats and Republicans on Capitol Hill were already at odds over an economic stimulus program. Republicans call the stimulus battle the original sin of the Obama presidency. White House officials mark it as the moment when hope and change collided with Republican intransigence.That''s enough. It''s not the Republicans who are obstructing - they only represent the people wjo put them there. Until the House goes back to the Dims, it''s the people who are blocking The one, and he just can''t get over it. Nor can the WaPo.