The midterms, however, slapped the president upside the head—and shattered his sense of complacency. “It is hard to describe how personally upset he was at some of the members we lost, how terribly he felt, especially about the ones that were in the tough districts who’d voted with him down the line,” says someone who knows Obama well. “It was a really tough time for him.”(New York Mag)
The truth, simply, is that Americans are not that knowledgeable about most things, and empty minds are subject to whatever idea you can drop into them. Rather than fully and rationally debating Obama's policies in front of the voter, Republicans opted to dispense with having to argue the details on specific policies when possible. Why battle on the policy, when you can challenge the man himself, thus invalidating every deed. If it's possible to deface the identity and personhood of your opponent, then the quality of his subsequent actions is moot. If the devil arrived and offered to help you live comfortably, would you accept? Of course not, for he is the devil, and his appearance of good is tricky, masking evil intent.
Having performed this reckless mind job on largely open minds (the independent voters), it matters little what Obama proposes. His bad policies and mistakes are a sign of his evil and ineptitude, and still, his good policies remain a sign of his cunning, and obvious, evil.
Obama's advisors come up with technical and convoluted counter theorizations like this:
But Axelrod admits that many of the wounds were self-inflicted. “No. 1, we overloaded the message circuit board,” he says. “No. 2, so much of it was tied to Congress; I think we were too Hill-centric. A lot of that by necessity, but nonetheless, we came here basically saying that the answers to America’s problems were not all in Washington but out in the country, and that we wanted to do things differently. I think the optics did not speak to that to the degree they should have. No. 3, I think we overused him.(N.Y. Mag)
In reality these points don't begin to express the reality of what is going on. In fact we find them somewhat contradictory in that almost all policy initiatives are going to be the president as bully mightily pushing policy forward, or congressional proxies carrying the baton. You can't be less tied to Congress AND use the president less, and expect policies to make it to the finish line. And it's largely a platitude of ethereal proportions to suggest that solutions are "out there" somewhere: as if President Obama and Axelrod were to walk down Smith Street to surprise pop in on Thom Paine and his wife and 2.5 kids, that the "answer" would be found.
The Obama team has to address the mental fog of the voter, by telling the truth. That truth can be found in actual legislation passed. The running theme of any campaign should be "Truth for the American middle class". So when some Republican politician hems and haws about the legality of the president's citizenship, thus insulting the half of America that voted for the man, you fight back with the truth of your policies. Let the Hispanic or female voters know that you increased their representation on the Supreme Court. You tell those clamoring for lower taxes that you are on record of having cut taxes several times. You stand behind the stimulus and point out how it helped veterans and teachers and states. You introduce your achievements as the personification of truth. His State of the Union should sound like this:
"We watched in 2008 as unemployment jumped two whole points. When I came into office it was almost 7.5% and the momentum was already established before I had passed one policy. That is the truth. We implemented a bunch of initiatives targeted at the middle class to stop that rise in unemployment and we did. That is the truth. Our goal has always been to provide a set of policies both short and long term that bring relief to the middle class and clarity to business, while providing new economic opportunities for American entrepreneurs. That, is the truth. When we came into office we were concerned about whether there would be banks around to provide loans to small businesses. Without a solid financial banking system, there is no capitalism. We saved the financial system. It was not pretty, or perfect, but it worked.That, is the truth. If the economy were a person, fallen and on its back, waiting for the ambulance, you don't ask it to balance its checkbook before you try to resuscitate. You get help and get it stabilized. We did that via tax cuts for Americans and aid to states and small business. That is the truth. And when millions of Americans were thrown out of work and forced to struggle to maintain a minimum level of support for their spouses and children, we Americans helped each other via extensions on unemployment benefits. That is the truth. Now some of my critics might be focused on whether I was born in Tonga or the moon or Panama. Some of my critics might have trouble accepting all the citizens of Hawaii as natural born. Some of my critics might even think that reforming mortgage laws, naming women to the Supreme Court, signing nuclear arms control agreements with Russia and providing benefits for 911 responders are all insignificant events. They want to focus on my name, or re-defining who can and can't be considered a real American. But that's okay. Because we remain focused on the truth, and making your daily reality better, initiative by initiative, reform by reform, policy by policy. And that, is the truth."Policies are not the problem, no matter how much the Republicans have managed to institutionalize that view among the political class. The American voter in the course of two years did not suddenly realize that they didn't like Obama's policies, or that healthcare reform was a ridiculous waste of effort. What has happened is that opponents have obscured the truth with lies and lacking a stabilizing voice in turbulent times, people grab onto anything for support.
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