Prior the the Great Transition of November 4, the DNCC issued a midterm report card on the Obama Administration's progress. It was headed "This is what a successful Presidency looks like."
President Obama Took
Office January 2009 Today
7949 Dow Jones Index 17.573
7.8% Unemployment 5.8%
-5.4% GDP Growth 3.5%
9.8% Deficit GDP Growth 2.8%
37 % Consumer Confidence 94.5%
About the same time, Economics Nobel Laureate Paul Krugman, professor of Economics at Princeton, and popular NY Times columnist and author, wrote in an article in Rolling Stones Maga-
zine, "Obama has emerged as one of the most consquential, yes, successful presidents in American history. His health reform is imperfect but still a huge step forward, and it's working better than anyone expected. Financial reform fell far short of what should have happened, but it's much more
effective than you'd think. Economic management has been half-crippled by Republican obstruction, but has nonetheless been much better than in other advanced countries. And environmental policy is starting to look like it could be a major legacy."
Mr. Krugman went on to say: "This isn't what you'd expect to see if a failing president were dragging his party down."
But, apparently, the Democrats did not believe their own message, and were not persuaded by opinions such as those of Mr. Krugman. Yet their frenetic last-gasp solicitations of money avowedly
had for their purpose the support of Mr. Obama and all Democrats running for their congressional lives. What in the wide world of hanging chads was going on?
In a separate unrelated interview on NPR prior to the elections, Senator McConnell of Kentucky emphasized his opinion that a president is the face of his party. It's the president that gets the bouquets and the president that gets the brickbats. That can't be some glorious new emanation from the Fountain of Knowledge. Not if McConnell has heard of it. But them as can't legislate, prosnosticate. Or recite the obvious.
This was certainly the Demos' election to lose, and they made an impressive job of it. They failed to connect sufficiently with the acknowledged strength of the party; seniors, youngsters, Hispanics, African-Americans, religious minorities. They should thank their lucky stars that women voting for them actually increased over the 2010 midterms. Trouble was, a measly 36.3 % of all eligible voters bothered, the measliest turnout since 1942. The get-out-the-vote claxon failed to alarm, and the Demos were left to feel like Old Ned.
How could anyone in the 99% category vote Republican? What do Republicans advocate, what does their platform favor? Was anything of the kind mentioned within the mind-numbing cacophony of stereotyped sight and sound that always ended with an ill at ease robot assuring us that he or she approved this message? Even though it probably was no clearer to them than it was to their haplessly unwilling audience? Did they tell the 99% that they are dedicated to the elimination of Social Security? Medicare? Affordable Health Care? Environmental Protection?
Did the GOP ever acknowledge in any election or campaign the Party intent to reduce income taxes for corporations and 1% individuals? To maintain and expand offshore havens in which to hide money in order to avoid taxes? Adding to a Supreme Court that redefines the English language and rigs presidential elections? Subverting the concept of equal access to the airwaves by encouraging amorphous unidentified organizations to buy unlimited amounts of advertising for partisan purposes?
Railing against big government but championing the creation and expansion of the unfortunately named Department of Homeland Security, the largest police force in the world?
Actually, what the Repos said or didn't say was irrelevant. The succeeded in boring the electorate out of its mind. The Demos didn't vote. The election was lost. President Obama must accept the blame. Six years of Republican obstruction, obfuscation, and obduracy should have filled his political arsenal. Instead, his participation was ethereal. Wraithlike.
When Mr. Obama arrived on the scene in 2008, he brought with him the reputation of being a stirring orator. He's kept that reputation pretty well under wraps.
There was an illuminating, astral, epochal, galvanizing inspiration presented in early autumn when Ken Burns assembled and broadcast film of President Franklin D. Roosevelt guiding the nation through its darkest hours, persuading by the soundness of his policies and the transporting appeal of his personality. One hoped that Mr. Obama would see it and be stimulated to go directly to the people with his administration's successes and with renewed promises of hope that remain unfulfilled.
Perhaps wisely, the President abjured. He certainly evoked no comparisons.
However, he cannot continue to fade in and out over these last two years in office. He must lead. He must go to the mat. He can obviously appeal and motivate. He did so in 2008 and 2012. He must put forth no less effort in 2015 and 2016, even though he will not be a candidate.
After eight years of Republican refusal to participate in representative government during the Clinton years, followed by the utter disaster of Bush-Cheney, and the current promise of two more years of Republican demurral, bringing the total once again to eight, and three eights make twenty-four, the country simply cannot afford to continue clownish government manipulated by the cynical rich.
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1 comment:
You are absolutely right, Rev.
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