What has happened to democratic nomination candidate Obama?
Where has the audacity to challenge his opposition gone?
The Obama presidency over the past year has begun to mirror the mistakes of both Thomas Dewey's campaign for the Presidency as well as his opposition, Harry Truman's re-election bid. Timid, unwilling to be combative, unresponsive, and with a tendency to lean on assumptions about the public rather than try to shape public perception.
Americans will always choose an incumbent President who is engaged and decisive, much like good ol' Harry Truman was. Barack Obama is seen as neither.
Obama's repeated dives to the center is polarizing Dem party, opening up the possibility for primary opposition in 2012.
Why his consistently tepid attempts to combat Republicans and the anti-establishment sentiment may fall far too short.
Throughout the course of the Obama presidency, there has been many different articles trying to link an earlier historic presidency to Obama's racially historic election, but what has been often left out is comparisons to candidates who have lost.
Of course, there's the lack of necessity argument to be made against comparing an election winner and a loser, but my perception is that Obama seems to have more in common with the likes of Thomas Dewey than he does with say Teddy Roosevelt or John F Kennedy.
Obama has commanded the respect of the right and the left alike for his incredible campaigning skills and his ability to take advantage of virtually every opportunity that presented itself during the campaign season to boost his credentials and tear down his opponent's.
This incredible skill that took an almost impossible chance at the American Presidency into a reality has faded, and it has been replaced by a timidity and ambiguity that is threatening not just him and his party, but is threatening the future of this country and the world.
Obama's ace in the bag was the ability to wield counter-attacks and offensives in a way that made it look like he wasn't actually mud-slinging. Realistically, none of his attacks on Clinton or even John McCain could be considered mud-slinging at all-Obama simply took McCain's and Clinton's record to town and ran over them with a semi.
While this coupled with the 'anyone but Bush' mentality worked particularly well for the 2008 election season, the environment is wholly different, and nothing similar to Obama's tactics in 2008 will work in 2010 and may be completely ineffective for re-election in 2012.
Hell, in one year of being in office, Obama has managed to just about equal or best Truman's record of being the most unpopular (winning) incumbent in American history.
His base is upset over his dives to the center, what seems like the White House scoffs at Obama's job as the party's leader, and his unwillingness to step up when the opposition blocks key legislation by still pushing for and making his priorities happen.
Indeed, the President has many more weapons in his arsenal that he has refused to use.
Why is that?
Is he afraid that he's going to be looked upon as too proactive? As being someone who actually gets things done? Does he really believe Americans want a President who accepts defeat and retreats when the opposing party wins an election or when the polling has turned against his favor? Does he believe that Americans want him to disappear for days at a time and allow Gibbs, Burton, and Axelrod to do the talking for him?
Obama seems to lack confidence in the policies he's pursuing and trying to get passed by not being forceful and clear about what it is he wants. This in turn has caused democrat's confidence in health care reform and other initiatives to plummet, and it has given the opposition the opening they need to turn the tide in their favor.
As a result, democratic progressives are becoming increasingly hostile towards moderates and pushing harder for more liberal policy initiatives that are impassable through a centrist congress, meanwhile moderate democrats are no longer just sitting down and taking these attacks from further left. They very happily killed the public option in the House and the Senate and are publicly disparaging each other. No one knows where they stand or where they want to stand. The party leader keeps deferring to a congress who defers to the party leader to know what direction that will be taken. This is why Democratic lawmakers have begun to drop like flies.
Does this sound familiar..in more than one way?
The republicans went through these motions last year with their tea party wing and it continues today.
In 1948, the progressives established their own Progressive Party in defiance of an unpopular democratic President who seemed all too likely to lose. Dixiecrats also responded by establishing their own party and nominee.
There's of course no TRUE comparison to the situation in 1948 and today, but the similarities are striking.
Obama is sinking his ship by taking pages from the Thomas Dewey playbook. America doesn't want a President who is unsure of himself and his policies. They've clearly rejected a conciliatory attitude that bears no fruit, particularly when the attitude comes form a lack of confidence in his policies and the people in Congress in charge of making those things happen.
Over time, it has been made clear that Americans will always choose an incumbent President who is engaged and decisive, much like good ol' Harry Truman. Barack Obama is seen as neither, particularly faulted for being horribly indecisive. Obama is banking on Americans 'seeing the light' on their own and on small bi-monthly policy speeches that he thinks will speak for themselves. The President simply could not be more wrong.
The danger democrats find themselves in tends to be overstated from the right but equally understated from the left. The only comparisons we keep drawing is to 1994, while 2010 is shaping up to be anything but.
Harry Truman defied the odds of a splintered party and the overwhelming sentiment that he would lose. Thomas Dewey found out the hard way that being on the offensive, even using mudslinging is much more effective and much more defining than sitting back and trying to portray yourself as being better than the other candidate.
Obama finds himself in an environment very similar to 1948, but in order to pull a Harry Truman, Obama needs to stop being like Thomas Dewey and let go of the expectation that the image of being above the fray and above petty politics will bring him victory. He needs to pacify the two sides of his party who keep behaving more and more like two separate entities. If he doesn't, whether or not he wins re-election, any hope for the democratic agenda once again becoming America's agenda can be tossed right in the garbage.