Editorial
Part III: Why Obama Will Win in November 2012
Richard Neustadt’s classic ‘Presidential Power’ is, perhaps, the leading authority on the actual role of the American president. At its core, Neustadt argues, the presidency is just about being persuader-in-chief.
Although he is the most powerful man in the world, the President is also a slave to divided government between the Executive, Legislature and the Judiciary. Thus, if he is to wield his awesome power, the president must, first and foremost, be persuasive in getting Congress and the Courts to see his point of view.
This thought is rife throughout Bob Woodward’s latest criticism of Barack Obama. The Price of Politics basically makes the case that the 44th president did not use everything in his arsenal to get the recalcitrant and mostly obdurate Republicans to help in governing his problematic nation. Within the delicious nuggets of journalistic detail about the embarrassing debt ceiling crisis of 2011, Woodward also gives us insight into why Obama is not necessarily the diabolical failure that the Republicans and conservatives say that he is. Mr. Obama is, instead, a person who made slight errors that were turned into major issues by his opponents.
To illustrate: At a key juncture of negotiating with John Boehner, Speaker of the House, Obama decided to use the phone to stipulate his requirement for an additional US$ 400 billion dollars in tax revenue. Woodward says that instead of making this demand face to face, Obama used the phone – faux pas in a highstakes poker game! And this is, perhaps, one of the series of compounding factors for the debt ceiling crisis. But here, it is important to note that Woodward does not say that things went awry because the president was unreasonable in his demands on his opponents. It was, in extrapolation, because of gamesmanship, brinkmanship and sheer, bloody luck.
These three last elements – in looking at the status quo of American politics – are what seemingly conspire to ensure that Obama is re-elected president come November 2012. Many Americans assume that Obama is just a good guy dealt an extremely bad hand of economic misfortune. The majority of American blames Bush II for the sour state of the economy. Most voters think that Obama, in juxtaposition to Mitt Romney his opponent, is a good decent family man.
Of course, Mr. Obama is buoyed by an efficient character assassination blitz media campaign against Mr. Romney [where the latter was painted as a cold, calculating risk averse capitalist who’d choose profit over compassion and employed Americans]. Either way, what seems to matter is that Mitt Romney has, to this day, failed to make the case that he’d be a better steward of the world’s largest economy. It does not matter that he has painted Obama as a failed president and neither does it seem to bother the general electorate that the unemployment rate is above 8 percent.
No American president has been able to win re-election with this many people out of work. Apparently, Obama is lucky enough to be immune to the anger that comes from the hungry.
Obama’s imminent November victory might defy history and common wisdom especially because his opponent is, fundamentally, flawed. Mitt Romney is a Mormon. Mitt Romney was governor of a liberal state like Massachusetts where he endorsed abortion and did not do all he could to oppose same sex marriage.
These and a few other elements already encumber his path to the White House on an extremely conservative ticket. But the conservatives are more empassioned to get rid of Obama than anything else. This is what, until the Democratic National Convention in Charlotte last week, gave the Republicans wind in their sails. They, in their Tampa convention, made the case that Mitt Romney was as much of a family man as Obama. Mitt Romney was a generous man who had his party solidly behind him. The major networks covered the Republican convention and brought the Republican message to the living rooms of people around the world.
But then the Democrats held their convention – receiving the same treatment by the media – and it seems as though their message – the Democrats – was more compelling. While the Republicans spoke to individual freedom and the need for smaller government, the Democrats made a case for Keynesian economics, they spoke to the true value of America, their first lady spoke to the sheer decency of the man who governed their country, a former president made the case that Obama was handed a series of unfortunate events [events not even Slick Willy could curtail] and Obama’s vice president told everyone that the American president was made of steel.
Then on Thursday September 6, 2012, Obama gave his acceptance speech. In what was, definitely, one of his worst performances, the president looked much, MUCH better than Mitt Romney did at his best. What was the American public supposed to do? Well, it seems as though the polls have it in for Romney. While Romney did not receive a bounce after his coming out party, Obama almost definitely got a bounce in his and is NOW ahead in the polls! RealClearPolitics is alive with pro Obama data in contrast with the previous week and it just seems as though Mr. Romney has failed to find his inner Neustadt.
Romney has not been persuasive enough to everyone. On the other hand, it might be that the conservative ideology is not quite as charming as it used to be.
Dennis Matanda,
Editor – editor@thehabarinetwork.com