Fail? Fail how?
1. Fail to make news.
2. Fail to educate/inform the public.
3. Fail to place blame on Republicans where it belongs.
4. Fail to leverage his bully pulpit
Take a look at the following from Jay carney's introductory statement in his Wednesday press briefing:
... I would say that instead of continuing to focus on creating jobs and getting the American people back to work, tomorrow the House of Representatives is scheduled to turn its attention to a divisive, politically motivated piece of legislation that unnecessarily restricts the private insurance choices that women and their families have today, and it is legislation that will not create a single job, when job creation and economic growth is the American people's highest priority.
The House has also been focused on measures that would either eliminate or severely constrict our ability to keep our air and water clean. Again, these kinds of measures have no job-creating potential, certainly not in the near term, setting aside their merits. The priorities that the American people have right now are the economy and jobs, and that's the priorities that this President is focused on, as you know.
See the problem? He blames the House of Representatives for not dealing with jobs for the American people instead of blaming Republicans who are in fact is responsible.
I know Obama wants to run against Congress because its approval ratings are even less than Democrats and Republicans in general. But how does this help anyone but him instead of Democrats running down ticket and how does it help to rally the country to apply pressure on Republicans to get something done. It would be one thing if he had to lie to put the onus on Republicans, but here all he has to do is tell the truth about them like FDR and Truman did. Why can't Obama just call it like it is and do what every first year marketing student learns: make your message simple and keep repeating it every chance you get. Or maybe he doesn't want "Republican" to have just as bad an association as the Republicans have created for "liberal."