Obama Will Turn Right
by Alex Castellanos
Issue 136 - July 22, 2009
 With every passing day, Barack Obama is ensuring his own reelection -- but at a bloodcurdling cost for Democrats on the ballot without him in 2010.
President Obama speaks with power and grace. He is gifted with that alchemical political material, Teflon. He exudes even-handed comfort, assuring all sides that this President understands their argument. His smile is an embrace that disarms, displaying the confidence of a young leader certain his intellect will prevail.
In policy, the Democrats may have regressed to old, industrial-age collectivism, prescribing the same federal pill for every ill. In personnel, with this charismatic President, they are enjoying a generational leap forward. This President’s self-awareness, his post-modern reflexivity, breaks down the barriers between audience and narrator. He steps down easily from the leader's pedestal to shoot hoops, enjoy date-night with his wife, and walk comfortably among everyday Americans. America loves this guy. America is this guy. Bill Clinton’s old-school charm made his performance the topic of late night talk shows. President Obama, ever-present on TV, has become the host of our national group-therapy sessions. So who needs Conan or Letterman?
More importantly, Obama is protected by our aspirations. He represents the America we all want to be, a better country, beyond racial divisions and tension. For this reason alone, we will likely hold him high in our esteem after our respect for his accomplishment dims.
Already, however, we are seeing a large discrepancy between who he is and what he does, a gulf that will mark his presidency. Other Presidents have been as popular at similar points in their service, but this President’s buoyant ratings defy the cumbersome policies he carries. Barack Obama replenishes the soul but empties the wallet. Cheering for this President is expensive.
When President Obama saw a credit crisis, Americans saw him spending. When Obama saw an economy in need of stimulus, Americans saw him spending. When Obama saw a housing bust, bankrupt auto companies, Wall-Street failures, Americans saw him spending, spending and spending. Now, when the Democrats and our President see the need to spend less on health care, Americans, with some bewilderment, see them spending more on health care. Obama has taken on so many unrelated challenges that America can only see their common denominator: Obama is always spending.
The spending spree has begun to ring political alarms. Confidence in President Obama’s ability to deal with the country’s most important issue, the economy, is eroding. This is not good news for budget director Peter Orszag and his team, nicknamed “the propeller-heads,” who keep telling the President he has to spend more money to save it.
Surveys released recently by Pew, NBC News/Wall Street Journal and The New York Times/CBS News, show a net 15 point swing in the President’s handling of the economy. Nearly 60 percent in the NBC poll see controlling the President’s growing deficit as a higher priority than speeding up economic recovery. Now more bad news: A June 22 Resurgent Republic survey reveals that 62% of Independent voters, critical to Obama’s success, believe “reforming health care is important, but it should be done without raising taxes or increasing the deficit.” Americans see Washington on fire with Democratic spending and their President pouring kerosene, not water, on the flames.
Obama won’t be on the ballot in 2010, but his spending will be. What are voters to do when they see a Democratic House, Senate, and President spending recklessly, without check or balance, pressing the accelerator to ever-increasing speed, without anyone or anything to stop them? It is likely they will send our President a message: For god’s sake, Mr. President, slow down. Have a cigarette.
Centrist Democrats who reflect their middle-of-the-road districts will find themselves the most vulnerable. Democrats running for their lives will soon find it in their interest to join a growing populist revolt against what Kevin Philips once termed the big-spending “mandarins of Establishment liberalism.” They'll either slow their drive to splurge or they will be replaced by cars which actually have brake pedals. Even so, 2010 could bring Democrats a bloodbath. Bill Clinton, with an approval rating below 50%, saw his party lose 52 seats and both houses of Congress two years after he was elected. Barack Obama, with approval of his handling of the economy now dipping near the same 50% mark, could see a comparable loss. Republican gains in the House could nearly double the usual 23 seat gain by the party out of favor.
Moderate Democrats, fearing this precipice, won't wait for election day 2010 to climb to higher ground -- though, first, their lemming-like instincts will induce them to spend another trillion on health care. Shortly after they burn through this cash, we can expect the White House and imperiled Democrats to sharply reverse field and start bill-boarding the President’s bold promise to halve the deficit before his first term ends. When the liquor cabinet is empty, the party in power will pledge sobriety. It will be too late.
After having tagged on at least $4.85 trillion in deficits in four years, the Democrats will have de-branded themselves as the party of economic responsibility and rebranded themselves as the party that cannot be trusted with the nation’s checkbook, the party for whom electoral success was an aberration named Jimmy Carter.
In the aftermath, the tenuous alliance between left-leaning Obama Democrats and centrist New Democrats will rupture, leaving Hillary Clinton to emerge as leader of the fiscally responsible. Out on the campaign trail, Democrats will have the enthusiastic support of a restored hero, the last Democratic President to balance the budget and produce a surplus. Yahoo, Bill Clinton rides to the rescue. Can politics get more entertaining? This will be Hillary’s revenge. And it will be George W. Bush’s revenge, as well.
President Obama, who has lectured Republicans about the economic irresponsibility he has inherited, will be humbled by his own fiscal indulgence. Like President Bush, he too will have wasted the opportunity to keep his party in power for the next quarter century. If only Obama faced a little more Republican opposition to shield him from his excesses. In that sense, it turns out Tuesday, November 2nd, 2010 will be Barack Obama's lucky day.
As President Obama watches the carnage of 2010, he will realize the repudiation of his spending, before he is on the ballot himself, is a blessing. Post-November, the President will contritely acknowledge he has received the message. He’ll say, “I promise you – I get it,” eliminating the need for voters to take him to the woodshed. In his January 2011 State of the Union, President Barack Obama will stand before Congress, wait for the audience to quiet -- and he will declare that the Era of Big Government is over. Again.
Fewer middle-of-the-road Democrats will be there to applaud him. Barack Obama will smile anyway and cruise confidently to reelection in 2012.
Alex Castellanos is a Republican Party media consultant and strategist.
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