Obama's election edge

[Aardvark154]

An interesting op-ed peice by Shelby Steele of the Hoover Institution on the President's election edge

The Wall Street Journal

Shelby Steele

Many of the Republican presidential hopefuls should be able to beat President Obama in 2012. This president has a track record now and, thus, many vulnerabilities. If he is not our "worst president," as Donald Trump would have it, his sweeping domestic initiatives—especially his stimulus package and health-care reform—were so jerry-built and high-handed that they generated a virtual revolution in America's normally subdued middle class.

The president's success in having Osama bin Laden killed is an exception to a pattern of excruciatingly humble and hesitant leadership abroad. Mr. Obama has been deeply ambivalent about the application of American power, as if a shameful "neocolonialism" attends every U.S. action in the world. In Libya he seems actually to want American power to diminish altogether.

This formula of shrinking American power abroad while expanding government power at home confuses and disappoints many Americans. Before bin Laden, 69% of Americans believed the country was on the wrong track, according to an Ipsos survey. A recent Zogby poll found that only 38% of respondents believed Mr. Obama deserved a second term, while 55% said they wanted someone new.

And yet Republicans everywhere ask, "Who do we have to beat him?" In head-to-head matchups, Mr. Obama beats all of the Republican hopefuls in most polls.

The problem Mr. Obama poses for Republicans is that there has always been a disconnect between his actual performance and his appeal. If Hurricane Katrina irretrievably stained George W. Bush, the BP oil spill left no lasting mark on this president. Mr. Obama's utter confusion in the face of the "Arab spring" has nudged his job-approval numbers down, but not his likability numbers, which Gallup has at a respectable 47.6%. In the mainstream media there has been a willingness to forgive this president his mistakes, to see him as an innocent in an impossible world. Why?

There have really always been two Barack Obamas: the mortal man and the cultural icon. If the actual man is distinctly ordinary, even a little flat and humorless, the cultural icon is quite extraordinary. The problem for Republicans is that they must run against both the man and the myth. In 2008, few knew the man and Republicans were walloped by the myth. Today the man is much clearer, and yet the myth remains compelling.

What gives Mr. Obama a cultural charisma that most Republicans cannot have? First, he represents a truly inspiring American exceptionalism: He is the first black in the entire history of Western civilization to lead a Western nation—and the most powerful nation in the world at that. And so not only is he the most powerful black man in recorded history, but he reached this apex only through the good offices of the great American democracy.

Thus his presidency flatters America to a degree that no white Republican can hope to compete with. He literally validates the American democratic experiment, if not the broader Enlightenment that gave birth to it.

He is also an extraordinary personification of the American Dream: Even someone from a race associated with slavery can rise to the presidency. Whatever disenchantment may surround the man, there is a distinct national pride in having elected him.

All of this adds up to a powerful racial impressionism that works against today's field of Republican candidates. This is the impressionism that framed Sen. John McCain in 2008 as a political and cultural redundancy—yet another older white male presuming to lead the nation.

The point is that anyone who runs against Mr. Obama will be seen through the filter of this racial impressionism, in which white skin is redundant and dark skin is fresh and exceptional. This is the new cultural charisma that the president has introduced into American politics.

Today this charisma is not as strong for Mr. Obama. The mere man and the actual president has not lived up to his billing as a historical breakthrough. Still, the Republican field is framed and—as the polls show—diminished by his mere presence in office, which makes America the most socially evolved nation in the world. Moreover, the mainstream media coddle Mr. Obama—the man—out of its identification with his exceptionalism.

Conversely, the media hold the president's exceptionalism against Republicans. Here is Barack Obama, evidence of a new and progressive America. Here are the Republicans, a cast of largely white males, looking peculiarly unevolved. Add to this the Republicans' quite laudable focus on deficit reduction and spending cuts, and they can be made to look like a gaggle of scolding accountants.

How can the GOP combat the president's cultural charisma? It will have to make vivid the yawning gulf between Obama the flattering icon and Obama the confused and often overwhelmed president. Applaud the exceptionalism he represents, but deny him the right to ride on it as a kind of affirmative action.

A president who is both Democratic and black effectively gives the infamous race card to the entire left: Attack our president and you are a racist. To thwart this, Republicans will have to break through the barrier of political correctness.

Mr. McCain let himself be intimidated by Obama's cultural charisma, threatening to fire any staff member who even used the candidate's middle name. Donald Trump shot to the head of the Republican line by focusing on Mr. Obama as a president, calling him our "worst" president. I carry no brief for Mr. Trump, but his sudden success makes a point: Another kind of charisma redounds to those willing to challenge political correctness—those unwilling to be in thrall to the president's cultural charisma.

Lastly, there must be a Republican message of social exceptionalism. America has more social mobility than any heterogeneous society in history. Isn't there a great Republican opportunity to be had in urging minorities to at last move out of their long era of protest—in which militancy toward the very society they struggled to join was the way ahead? Aren't Republicans uniquely positioned to offer minorities a liberation from both dependency and militancy?

In other words, isn't there a fresh new social idealism implicit in conservative principles? Why not articulate it and fight with it in the political arena? Such a message would show our president as unevolved in his social thinking—oh so 1965. The theme: Barack Obama believes in government; we believe in you.

Mr. Steele is a senior fellow at Stanford University's Hoover Institution. Among his books is "White Guilt" (Harper/Collins, 2007).

 

[danmand]

Mr Steele predicted in 2008 that Obama could not win. Now he is predicting that he cannot lose!

 

[WoodPeckr]

Shelby Steele of the Hoover Institution has either been popping too many OxyContins or he is just a few fries short of a happy meal.

This boob belongs in the Hoover Institution Rubber Room...:eyebrows:

Perhaps Shelby could share a bunk there with JAJA....

 

[anon1]

Whatever Steele is, he does have a way with words.

 

[WoodPeckr]

Whatever Steele is, he does have a way with words.

Yepper!
Just like his mentor Joseph Goebbels....:eyebrows:

 

[lunaspa]

he is like a movie star came out from the big screen, but without the script, he is nothing. i think the people in us they need a more tougher guy/madam, not only looked like vigorous but act in vigorous

 

[benito]

I pray every morning and night that Sarah Palin runs. I need the humor in my life.

 

[K Douglas]

I pray every morning and night that Sarah Palin runs. I need the humor in my life.

I'm the opposite. She's too polarizing a figure and will doom the Republican's chances. Much will depend on whether Bachmann runs but I think Palin is leaning to not running. I think all the personal attacks she has had to endure has gotten to her a bit.

 

[Aardvark154]

Ambassador Huntsman

 

[Scarey]

Huntsman in the front seat.I would prefer Ron Paul as VP but if Michelle Bachmann could tone down the batshit side of her personality she could bring"far right/tea party" votes to the table.I don't envy any of them having to find a candidate to run with them who can bring on these types of votes without going to the extreme right mind body and soul.

 

[blackrock13]

I'm the opposite. She's too polarizing a figure and will doom the Republican's chances. Much will depend on whether Bachmann runs but I think Palin is leaning to not running. I think all the personal attacks she has had to endure has gotten to her a bit.

Hmmmm! Others disagree, but hey.

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/05/26/us/politics/26campaign.html


WASHINGTON — Sarah Palin is fortifying her small staff of advisers, buying a house in Arizona — where associates have said she could base a national campaign — and reviving her schedule of public appearances. The moves are the most concrete signals yet that Ms. Palin, the former governor of Alaska, is seriously weighing a Republican presidential bid.
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Ed Andrieski/Associated Press

While it is by no means clear that she would be willing to give up her lucrative speaking career and her perch as an analyst on Fox News to face the scrutiny and combat that would come with her entrance into the race, she is being pressed by supporters for a decision and has acknowledged that time is running out.

Two people familiar with the details of the real estate transaction said that Ms. Palin and her husband, Todd, had bought a $1.7 million house in Scottsdale, Ariz. Like others interviewed for this article, they would speak only on the condition of anonymity so as not to anger the Palins, who have become especially protective of their privacy in the maelstrom that has followed them since 2008. The Arizona Republic reported over the weekend on speculation in Scottsdale that the Palins were the buyers of the house, reporting the purchase was through a shell company that hid their identity.

While Arizona would be a more convenient travel hub for a presidential campaign than Alaska, there are other reasons the Palins might want a house there. Their daughter Bristol recently bought a house in Maricopa, which is near Scottsdale...............


Other sources agree with the NY Times.

 

[danmand]

I pray every morning and night that Sarah Palin runs. I need the humor in my life.

So does Tina Fey.