THUNDER BAY – Editorial – After three years in office, American President Barack Obama seems to be ignoring his record in the White House, and returning to the rhetoric that led voters to elect him President.
It is a tactic that has a chance of working, but only as long as the Republicans continue to offer limited choices for voters in next year’s Presidential election. However, in his 2012 re-election campaign, the President is taking an approach that somehow nothing that has gone wrong has had anything to do with his leadership. That is a tactic that may ‘bomb’ for Obama.
It is time for the President to step up and start doing more of the heavy lifting that Americans, and the world expected.
By shifting to a rhetoric based campaign, it is an approach that could cause the Democrats problems across the board in 2012, as it did in 2010.
In June 2008, accepting the nomination of the Democratic Party, Obama said, “The journey will be difficult. The road will be long. I face this challenge with profound humility, and knowledge of my own limitations. But I also face it with limitless faith in the capacity of the American people. Because if we are willing to work for it, and fight for it, and believe in it, then I am absolutely certain that generations from now, we will be able to look back and tell our children that this was the moment when we began to provide care for the sick and good jobs to the jobless; this was the moment when the rise of the oceans began to slow and our planet began to heal; this was the moment when we ended a war and secured our nation and restored our image as the last, best hope on Earth.
“This was the moment – this was the time – when we came together to remake this great nation so that it may always reflect our very best selves, and our highest ideals. Thank you, God Bless you, and may God Bless the United States of America”.
Today it appears that the President has fallen back to that kind of lofty comfort zone – perhaps at the expense of his chances of being elected to a second term.
With polling numbers showing his handling of the economy sinking like a stone, “The One” is proving that rhetoric alone does not a successful presidency make.
What might be the saving grace for President Obama could be that the Republicans seem to be struggling to find a real leader who will inspire Americans. The Grand Old Party, which sent Bob Dole, building links to the past up against Bill Clinton who promised “a bridge to the 21st century” and then sent aging John McCain up against Barack Obama, now appears to be heading toward sending a milquetoast Mit Romney to do political battle against the Democrats.
For Obama, it could end up that while many suspect his to be another one term wonder, it will be factors controlled by the Republicans that make that final determination.