Alright, it is time to address this.
1. The President has a support problem, but it may not be what you think it is.
2. If you think it is his friends, you are at least in the ballpark. If you think it is his friends in the media you are on to one, but not the only, answer. The President has a support problem with the likes of Ed Schultz who, on a scale of one to ten, is about a two when it comes to coherence. As the most vocal of the President’s TV supporters, he is little or no help at all. Even the choir to which he preaches is not generally amused.
The other MSNBC folk seem to lack anyone who actually understands the president. Or, to put it differently, who understands how this president changes the news cycle.
3. So what really is the president’s support problem? One might be tempted to go to the polls which currently show him slipping on specific issues. These slips reflect, in part, the MSM’s continual failure to actually report in depth on the Obama program. A careful daily examination of the White House site, even if you are critical of the President, will tell you more than you will find on TV and generally more than you will find in newspapers and magazines. Not to mention online.
So yes the media are a problem. But Obama already knew this. And his strategies are related precisely to the shabby, lazy and superficial performance he encounters daily.
4. And the result is that he does not have a support problem. The people support both him and his programs. What they do not support is the opposition’s characterization of them. The lies of folk like Limbaugh, Steele, Gingrich, Cheney, Sessions and many others represent exactly the sort of smokescreen that was leveled at FDR. No one supports fiscal irresponsibility. No one supports government bureaucratic interference. No one supports the suppression of free enterprise. And that includes Barack Obama.
FDR became beloved because when the dust settled he was perceived to have brought the US through a very difficult time.
Six months into his first term, Barack Obama is absorbing everything the GOP can throw at him and he has yet to be defeated. When he has had to compromise, as on card check, he has done so. He will do the same on issues related to Guantanamo. I devoutly hope he will find a way to contain and eventually move beyond our commitments in AfPak.
I have little doubt that, whatever the President does, his popularity on issues will hover at the 50 percent mark as his overall popularity hovers well above 50 percent. I have every hope, however, that as health care is accomplished, as the other parts of his agenda are enacted, as the green future becomes believable on main street, a glint of appreciation will emerge among the whip-sawed independents and the decent Republicans. Added to a highly supportive Democratic base, this movement will be adequate to generate serious victories in 2010.
One more thing.
The president’s support problem is made moot by a simple fact that everyone can agree with. The performance of the president’s opposition remains inept, fraught with lies and has a seeming tolerance for more and more hate politics.
A recent GOP town meeting in Rhode Island degenerated into a fiasco, A recent Young Republican election almost made Michael Steele seem normal. If the going gets rough we can most probably depend on the GOP, like John McCain, to be the gift that keeps on giving.
To summarize, as the President shifts into high gear to accomplish health care in his first term, he has no support problem. He has a continuing problem with his friends and with the media generally.but it is really their problem, not his. It is they that end up the losers. He has the popular support he needs to push through changes that are herculean in scope. As the changes take place, his support will become obvious. And even polls will take notice. And if all else fails the thought of a return to ineptitude in the White House will diminish any fear the the President is on weak ground,
