The latest polls trickling out of Washington DC suggest that President Barack Obama is in fairly good shape politically, with his approval ratings stabilized around 50%.<\/p>\n
The latest poll from Pew suggests that 47% of Americans want Obama to serve a second term, compared with just 33% who want a Republican in the post.<\/p>\n
Obama is also buoyed by the fact that Republicans have a troubled slate of top-tier candidates, ranging from the social complications of Newt Gingrich, to the Southern entanglements of Haley Barbour, to the polarizing Sarah Palin.<\/p>\n
Even Mitt Romney, the ostensible Republican everyman, has a couple of huge deficits, including his Mormonism (which is a tough sell for many evangelical conservatives).<\/p>\n
He also created a healthcare system in Massachusetts, while governor of that state, that looks very similar to the Democratic health plan which conservatives now revile.<\/p>\n
So what could go wrong for Obama?<\/p>\n
The president’s chief worry as we stumble toward 2012 is the growing perception that this White House doesn’t have a plan, or a vision.<\/p>\n
It’s remarkable that at this stage in the game, a person like myself — a politics and news junky — can’t articulate a single Big Idea that Obama stands for.<\/p>\n
I can’t even think of a respectable Middle Sized Idea.\u00a0 In fact, after the president’s over-exposed first eighteen months, I feel like I’m just not seeing him very often any more.\u00a0 Or maybe it’s just that he’s not making an impression?<\/p>\n
It’s true that Bill Clinton won a second term based on a laundry list of micro-management initiatives and feel-good projects; and he also triangulated to the center and gobbled up a lot of Republican ideas.<\/p>\n
But that was when the economy was strong, the Cold War was over, Federal budgets were in balance, the two parties weren’t so severely polarized, and people were more or less content with their lot in life.<\/p>\n
That world is over, done, ancient history.\u00a0 From the terror attacks on 9\/11 to the Great Recession, to the increasingly dangerous Federal deficits, we Americans don’t particularly like what they’re seeing on their television screens.<\/p>\n
We really do want change, for the better, and fairly fast.<\/p>\n
During his first two years, Obama delivered on a very specific vision.\u00a0 He used Big Government to shore up a down-spiraling economy.<\/p>\n
He pushed through a historic healthcare bill, hoping to use government to improve the lives of tens of millions of Americans who were uninsured.<\/p>\n
You can hate his ideas, but you can’t argue that Obama didn’t have a philosophy or a specific program to implement it.<\/p>\n
Fast-forward to 2011 and it’s very hard to find any remnant of Obama’s world-view, or any program that would carry such a philosophy forward.<\/p>\n
The man who insisted that he would reduce our military obligations overseas, and improve what he described as our country’s tattered moral standing, has failed to close Guantanamo Bay and has now involved us in a new war in Libya.<\/p>\n
When George Bush went to war, by contrast, he offered a clear set of ideas explaining why. We were searching for WMDs, hoping to disrupt terrorist support networks, and also attempting to spread democracy in the Middle East.<\/p>\n
It turns out a lot of those ideas were deeply misguided, but at least Bush was making an argument that Americans could mull over.<\/p>\n
But Obama’s logic for involving us in Libya doesn’t appear to be part of any doctrine or philosophy.\u00a0 Indeed, he himself seemed distinctly reluctant, and had to be dragged into the conflict.<\/p>\n
So why this particular fight, Mr. President?\u00a0 Why now?\u00a0 What’s the end-game?<\/p>\n
At present, we just don’t know.<\/p>\n
The same goes for Obama’s current handling of the economy.\u00a0 One of the biggest national trends right now is the rapid downsizing of education programs.<\/p>\n
Since 2009, this White House has presided over the largest mass-firing of teachers in American history, as cash-strapped schools\u00a0 slashed their teaching staffs.<\/p>\n
At first, Obama used Federal aid to stop the tsunami of dismissals, but all such efforts have stopped, and the president no longer talks about it.<\/p>\n
Has he changed his mind?\u00a0 Does he no longer think it’s a problem?<\/p>\n
Again, we know what Republicans think.\u00a0 The GOP believes that shrinking government is good, that these painful cuts will lead us toward a more efficient, stable prosperity.<\/p>\n
They think Big Government is deeply suspect, even when it is educating our children.<\/p>\n
Has Obama come around to their way of thinking?\u00a0 Does he think this is the best way for us to prepare our next generation of entrepreneurs and scientists and engineers?<\/p>\n
Is he convinced now that we can we make these cuts without crippling our future?\u00a0 We don’t know.<\/p>\n
One obvious change, of course, is the election in 2010 of a Republican House. Pushing an ambitious program in this political climate would be brutally difficult.<\/p>\n
But other presidents have squeezed far-reaching legislation through Congress at times when their parties were out of power.<\/p>\n
And even when they failed to pass their bills, those presidents used big political fights to articulate a clear vision, popularizing doctrines that they believed would carry the country forward.<\/p>\n
Now it may be — and this is pure speculation — that Obama believes that it is enough to simply manage the country well, to push for leaner, more efficient, and more effective Federal programs.<\/p>\n
Normally, I am drawn to that kind of technocratic, fiddle-the-knobs professionalism in politicians.\u00a0 But not now.\u00a0 Not at this point in American history.\u00a0 We can’t wait two years to solve some of these problems.<\/p>\n
Before the klieg-lights of the 2012 campaign fire up, Mr. Obama needs to rediscover his vision thing.\u00a0 How about a massive Marshall Plan designed to wean American off of foreign oil using new and renewable energy technologies?<\/p>\n
Or how about a big shake-up of our economy-stifling, morally reprehensible immigration policies?<\/p>\n
Or maybe the next Great Push Forward should be a creative and expansive effort at debt reduction, one that involves a mix of tax increases and belt-tightening?<\/p>\n
Whatever the idea is, the White House should explain to America how it will move us forward again, away from this hardscrabble moment in history where we don’t want to linger.<\/p>\n
Then President Obama should start fighting for whatever it is that he believes in.\u00a0\u00a0 And he should trust the voters to decide whether his path is one the nation wants to follow.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
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