A bit more than a week ago I wrote that "it's safe to conclude there's not an outside observer left who doesn't believe there's electoral trouble stirring," and now come a couple of new polls -- one showing the symptoms of a national rage turned inward; the other, mostly just the rage.
The first -- the depression-diagnosing Associated Press-GfK poll -- I briefly mentioned yesterday in reference to Afghanistan. The American body politic's demoralization is deepening: In merely one month, a whopping seven percent of respondents added themselves to the disapproving chorus.
Roughly the same percentage joined the ranks of those who "disapprove of Obama's handling of Iraq," which, given Iraq's relative obscurity in the news of late, was, I would wager, more of an indication of generic discontent than any specific dissatisfaction.
But that, almost literally, was just the half of it. While Obama's overall approval rating still hugs a plurality, we are, observed the AP about its own poll's findings, "an increasingly pessimistic nation." The AP's story was littered with descriptive downers: we're "grouchy"; we're "dispirited"; we're "gloomy"; we're suffering from a 1970s' "malaise"; our "hope" is slipping; we're in a "terrible" state which, in the words of one respondent, is "getting worse and worse and worse and worse" -- mostly in terms of the economy.
Public approval of Obama's handling of such is in the minority range -- 46 percent, yet what's more troubling is the poll's "wrong direction" trajectory. In less than a year it has creeped from 49 to 51 to 56 percent.
What should Obama do? No one can offer an uncontestable answer to that; there are too many variables, too many unknowables, way too much unpredictability. But I can say with no equivocation whatsoever and the highest level of certitude that very first thing he should do is fire his scheduler.
On the heels of a Bushlike New Orleans flyover en route to a multimillion-dollar San Francisco fundraiser, Obama paused just long enough yesterday, before embarking on an eight-day tour of Asia, to announce a wintry White House forum on jobs.
Aside from the deplorable optics and egregious scheduling of such a trip at such a domestically miserable time, this nation doesn't need forums and study groups and blue-ribbon commissions to gather on the non-enigma of unemployment. It needs -- unshockingly -- jobs. And Laffer-untainted macroeconomists already know how to create them: take a titanic pump, sufficiently prime it, and let 'er rip.
Within our crumbling infrastructure alone, there is $1.6 trillion worth of work to be done over the next five years, says the American Society of Civil Engineers. And if it isn't all shovel-ready, that's OK; just hand out the shovels for now and tell the freshly hired to wait but look busy -- while also paying the mortgage and buying groceries and sizing the kids' new shoes. In short, the re-creation of a demand-side economy, the rebuilding of our nation, a lovely multiplier effect and thus, in the long run, a lower deficit and debt.
That, I think, is at least part of the answer; but, as suggested, it would also be vastly contested. As the Politico's Jim VandeHei observed the other day in a cable-news interview, Obama is burdened with an "anti-choice, pro-gun" Democratic Party in Congress -- in broader terms, a shifted conservatization which accounts for the party's expanded majority in 2008.
The political result has been foot-dragging and deadlock, notwithstanding rather sizable Democratic majorities. And that brings us to that second poll I mentioned in the opening -- the one delineating not depression, but rage: Voters, according to Gallup, now say they'd prefer a generic Republican to a Democrat in 2010.
But that finding should be read as less a preference for demented Republicans than absolute fury at do-nothing Democrats. That, anyway, is the way I read it.
The same mildly conservative and increasingly unemployed voters who put Democrats in broader power are more furious at Congressional clusterfucking than they ever would be at progressive movement and spending on jobs. That's at the root of the rage, and depression, out there -- untapped American pragmatism; just do something, for God's sake, and if it doesn't work, try something else.
And that, need I remind President Obama, is the soaring and hopeful and motivated spirit that got him elected. He has, since then, retreated into timidity. For that, I blame him not; he promised to give Sunday-social cooperation a try. Well, he tried it. It didn't work. Now it's time for another change, another strategy, a whole new approach.
No, I don't want to see him out there bellowing demagogically like some Huey Long. But he's going to have to get mad -- publicly -- and in the process take on a sizable segment of his own party. He's going to have to go to war at home. And in a war, one must tap the electorate's spirit, rather than console its dispiritedness.
Such a revised strategy might indeed prove a colossal flop. But I would leave the president with this one question: What's the alternative?
Agreed
But will Barack rise to the occasion? I doubt it. He will continue to fiddle while Rome burns. Watching his attempts to try and reclaim his base using the bone for the dog method (see Afganistan, 911 trials etc), while screwing them on the important domestic issues, is getting painful. The white house seems unable to grasp the fact that the liberal base is more intelligent than tea party idiots, and wont be manipulated by distractions. They are aso principled, and willing to go to the matt for their principles. The congressional leadership dosnt seem to realize that in the wake of the wall street thievery and bailouts, they can no longer keep up a populist facade while tilting all legislation in favor of the corporate elite. The democrats would probably lose seats this year no matter what they did, but without the liberal base they seem to delight in screwing over, they will lose everything. It almost seems as though they want to be wiped out. In the meantime the rabbits and sheep known as "independents" and "swing voters", in their terror, will run back to big daddy GOP, because even though they know that the GOP despises them, they will at least do something. Even if its bad for them and the country, its something.
Excellent Column
I don't have time to elaborate, Carp, but you are on target today. Good show.
No change
The voters did not like the direction in which the country was headed and we tossed the Republicans out. The Democrats promised to go in a new direction but are still using the Republican map. Next year, the voters might punish the Democrats for not going in a new direction by returning the Republicans to power. That's insane!
The Democrats and Republicans are just different flavors of the Corporate Party. As long as the fools in this country continue to elect members of the Corporate Party, we will continue to be ruled by a bunch of corrupt buffoons selected not for what they do for us but for how far they will go to get their corporate bribes. We will get bad government, bad policies and bad laws as long as we continue to vote only for Republicans and Democrats.
If you want REAL change, start making your vote count and use it on anyone but a Republican or a Democrat.
I disagree...
...that it was conservative Democrats who paved the way for the Dems' victory in 2008. These Democrats, along with Obama, campaigned as progressives in a nation fed up with the right wing then pulled an about-face when told to by their contributors in the financial sector. Other than Ben Nelson, I had no idea there were so many conservative Democrats in Congress because there weren't. The whole election was a bait-and-switch paid for by Wall Street. Let's stop making excuses for Obama. He's no dummy. He will continue gallivanting around the world pointlessly because he believes being elected president entitles him to behave like a billionaire on our dime. He thinks he can stave off discontent by holding forums and giving speeches while quietly fighting to maintain the status quo regardless of how many Americans lose their jobs and homes. He doesn't care and neither does anyone in the Senate. Don't let the major parties talk you out of voting Green or Libertarian. It may take many years to win elections but that's all the more reason to start rejecting the Dems and GOP now instead of later.
An easy one
"What should Obama do? No one can offer an uncontestable answer to that;"
LEAD! ........ simple stuff.
progressiveness is the way
A return to progressiveism is the only way to save the Obama administration.He campaigneed as a progressive before returning to his conservative roots and that certainly hasn't worked.If we had wanted a conservative we would have elected a Republican.So many more positive things get done that leave people feeling great when you use liberal ideas
No More Kinder And Gentler Corporatism, Barry!
Did someone burn the pod, Carpenter? You are making much more sense today than you have in a while.
If I may piggy-back on your comments, the American Society of Civil Engineers has been wanting infrastructure improvements for years. Back in 2004, the CEO of UPS joined them, openly calling for governmental investment in our infrastructure and calling it a necessary improvement lest our competitiveness be affected. But the Bush administration did nothing.
Now if I was a smart person in the Obama administration, I would be asking the ASCE to advise me on which projects need priority, what needs to be done, how many are needed to perform the work, and then I would begin organizing the job and getting it going. This could have been happening since Obama's inauguration, but I guess the whole lot of the presidential advisors is so into Goldman groupthink that they are unable to delegate and multitask.
As for those Blue Dogs you treat so courteously by not calling a mangey cur a mangey cur, Obama should have been appealing to the American People over the heads of the hounds to support his entire agenda instead of repeatedly trying different keys and tempos for yet another round of Republican Kumbayah. It should have been obvious to the college professor that trembles in the Oval Office that this tactic wasn't working way back in March.
While the public is somewhat somnulent, that doesn't mean that we aren't still powerful. No matter how much money a Congress-slug gets from the lobbyists, We the People still have to validate their re-selection with our votes for them to remain in the handout line. While it doesn't happen often enough, we can and have removed the worst offenders from office. No lobbyist will ever again pay any attention to a used-to-be! Horrors! Obama could and should have been tapping into this power instead of surrendering contantly!
Obama posed as a populist during the primary only to abandon that stance once the election was in the bag. Presenting himself as a kinder and gentler corporatist IS MISERABLY FAILING as Gallop has discovered. There is still time for Obama to return to populism (yes, not of the loud and pointless Huey Long variety but that of FDR of the fireside chats), but he is going to have to stop traveling abroad where they really do love him and do some traveling domestically to see for himself how the people who put him in office are suffering so much that their esteem of him is ebbing away.
Maybe re-awakening the community activist will bring him to realize that he will have to grow a set and use them on behalf of his nation. If not, he's done as of next year.