http://www.politickerny.com/5131/great-obama-panic-2009The Great Obama Panic of 2009
By Steve Kornacki
Pardon me for not getting too worked up about the Stunning Decline In Barack Obama’s Poll Numbers.
snip//
Republicans have treated Obama just as they did Clinton in ’93—with hostility and demagoguery. This was a brilliant strategy in ’93 and ’94, when Clinton pursued an ambitious agenda and voters were still uneasy about the economy. But when the country recovered its footing, the G.O.P. had nothing left to stand on, and the Dole debacle of 1996 was the result.
(Post-post-game analysis from conservatives tended to sound a lot like this 1997 Wall Street Journal piece from William Kristol and David Brooks, who was then an editor at the Weekly Standard: "The way to defeat the unctuous and trivializing politics of Bill Clinton is by making it seem petty and contemptible in light of the greatness of the American experiment.")
There’s no reason—yet—to believe that Obama’s story won’t play out similarly over the next couple of years, once again leaving the pundits who now believe they're watching the unraveling of a presidency to wonder how he managed to conjure political success out of the flotsam of 2009.
But
there's no magic to it. Obama inherited two wars and the worst economy in generations, with an unemployment rate that might hit double digits before it returns to earth. The magnitude of the country’s problems explains why his early approval ratings were so high: everyone wanted to believe.
Given all we know about how fickle mass opinion is, it’s not at all surprising or even that significant that those numbers have dropped so much. The economy is still struggling, and Obama’s programs are either just being implemented or still working their way toward ratification. In terms of poll numbers, this is the perfect atmosphere for the unified rejectionism that Republicans have shown.
Brooks and other critics suggest that Obama's path to recovery is to give in to the polls and pare back his agenda. This same advice was given to Clinton when he pushed for his budget in ’93. “It’s a bad piece of legislation that the public hates—get rid of it and let’s make a fresh start!” they urged him. But Clinton pressed ahead and eventually found out what we’d all be wise to remember now:
It can take time, but when the economy comes back, so will the voters.
Printer-friendly format
Email this thread to a friend
Bookmark this thread
(1000+ posts)
Send PM |
Profile |
Ignore
