Hillarysworld

Good article here.

October 8, 2010

Which Obama Will Emerge After the Storm?

By David Paul Kuhn

Excerpt:

Locating that Obama is difficult. Obama's persona was kept deliberately ambiguous. We witnessed this strategy, most clumsily, when Obama said it was "above my pay grade" to determine when a baby has human rights. Yet, writ large, Obama's disciplined obscurity worked. Constituencies projected their ideals onto him. They believed.

It's been said that "anger always comes from frustrated expectations." This is why the Rorschach politician has not only struggled as president, but faces a difficult struggle to revive his presidency. Political faith is a fragile port. It awaits the charismatic politician. People easily anchor their ideals onto him. But if the politician's anchor falters, he will quickly lose the people and soon find himself adrift, unable to connect as he once did.

Obama is now a man without a port. He must re-anchor. He needs a new narrative that emerges from his first narrative. Great presidents push policy proposals that flow from the persona that won the office and principles worthy of that office.

Obama was elected to "turn the page" and begin a new chapter. He came to be seen as a liberal from earlier chapters. By 2010, Democrats were haunted by revived stereotypes (tax and spend liberal). By summer, a majority of independents told Gallup pollsters that Democrats were "too liberal."

Obama's ambiguity has been filled in, and in a bad way. He can rebound. But he must build upon his image, rooted not in 2008 but 2004. The Obama of the Democratic convention: "There's not a liberal America and a conservative America -- there's the United States of America."

Full article @ RCP

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Unfortunately getting to the 2004 message from the 2 botched years is gonna be near impossible... unless the GOPers need so many wins to overcome their standoff treatment of the past two years that they actually extend a hand to the POTUS. If that happens, he gets very lucky and yes, he gets two Clintonesque years, and wa-la, he gets to repeat what he said in 2004. Could happen. Unlikely though.  He just has not developed any kind of relationship with the GOPers.  And the GOPers' agenda is not paletable to him in any way.