Earl Ofari Hutchinson
In an interview on NBC's Today Show two weeks after he was sworn in President Obama was blunt. He said that if he didn't deliver he'd be "a one term proposition." Put this in the category of what did he know and when did he know it. The it is that he was under the white hot glare of the public to deliver the goods, or be quickly dumped in the presidential has been bin. Polls back up this hard political reality about Obama. A mid August Washington Post-ABC News survey found that his approval ratings continue to plunge. Part of that can be chalked up to inevitability.
New presidents always ride into office on the crest of both voter hopes and euphoria about the prospect of change and disgust at and voter fatigue with the former seat warmer in the White House. And new presidents just as quickly see their approval ratings dip or freefall. It’s easy to see why. They try to do too much to soon, promise not to do political business in the old ways, try to make too drastic legislative changes, or quickly reverse the bad old policies of their predecessor. It’s the fabled man on the white horse coming to the rescue. This is, of course, just that fable. Real politics and an impatient public knock that storybook notion for a loop.
In Obama’s case, he gambled that his presidency would be a crowning success if he could beat back the fine tuned, well-oiled, and well-endowed health care industry juggernaut and get health care reform, that’s real health care reform, through Congress and into law. Only one president has been able to do and that was Lyndon Johnson. He arm twisted, browbeat, and out smarted Congress and the health care industry to get Medicare. Johnson had won a landslide election victory in 1964, had fine tuned, hard nosed political skills, had the reform spirit of the civil rights movement and a solid Democratic party behind him. And he had the well spring of public sympathy after JFK’s murder. Obama is not LBJ, politically. And he has neither the times or Johnson’s massive mandate for change going for him.
Above everything else, the voters put Obama in the White House to make the economy right, reign in the Wall Street greed merchants, save jobs and homes, and get the credit pipeline to businesses open. That hasn’t happened. Instead they’ve gotten a raucous, and contentious health care reform fight that’s given a badly fractured and reeling, GOP, the butt of scorn and jokes, something that it never dreamed in its wildest dreams in mid November could happen. That’s the weapon to get back in the political hunt. If anyone had dared say a month ago that the percent of voters who blame Obama for making a mess of health care reform was in striking distance of the number of voters who blame the GOP for the mess, they’d have been measured for a straightjacket. A mid-August Pew Research survey found just that.
Obama eventually will get a health care bill to sign. But it will be a bill that will satisfy few. Progressives will scream even louder that the bill sans a public option, and deal laden with big Pharma giveaways, is smoke and mirrors, a sham reform, and another infuriating betrayal of his campaign pledge of hope and change. The Fox Network, Limbaugh, and the GOP attack hounds will scream even louder that the bill and Obama are taking the country down a sink hole. The bill will leave the majority of voters confused, perplexed, and even more uneasy about what Obama is really up to, and his seeming inability to be the tough, decisive leader that millions took a chance on and backed.
The conventional wisdom is that Obama has plenty of time to get things right. Here’s the problem. Health care and the economy are signature markers for a successful Obama first term, and the justification for a second one. Doubts, unease, or his real or perceived failure will be hard to unhinge from voter thinking. Blacks, Hispanics, young and progressive voters will still back him. But will they crusade for him as they did in 2008? That means again turning out in big and impassioned numbers. This won’t happen if they feel Obama waffled or reneged on his key promises. Meanwhile, the GOP will sow more fear, pound away on the doubts, unease and perceived failures of Obama. It will dump its bizarre Palin fascinaton, will have a fat campaign chest, and will groom a fresh new GOP face, (just like the Dems did with Obama).
Worse, Obama won’t have the gargantuan trump card he had in 2012. That was the Bush bogeyman to scare, shock, and rev up voters. This doesn’t spell defeat in 2012. It does spell an Obama nightmare about a one term presidency.
Earl Ofari Hutchinson is an author and political analyst. His weekly radio show, “The Hutchinson Report” can be heard weekly in Los Angeles at 9:30 AM Fridays on KTYM Radio 1460 AM and live streamed nationally on ktym.com
11 comments:
John Millan, Galena Alaska Police Chief, made the following comments
In reference to the arrest of prominent scholar Henry Gates Jr.
and the resulting beer summit
"I would have the class not to dis the POTUS publicly and tell him privately if he apologizes, I would be there, otherwise, I would simply say I had pressing other engagements. I would be damned if I would drink a beer with that POS Gates!".
And
"Gates now says he will "produce" people in "due time" who will say they were mistreated by this SGT in the past too. Well, that is how he will piecemeal drag this out for years, as his "defining moment" in American racism that forver transformed him haha! then he will write a book and speak ad nauseum on the Sunday morning news shows and write in lefty columns and speak at anti-American forums with Farrakahn, Sharpton and Jackson.
Guess what Gates, if the people didn't complain back then, it is old news now. Just a pathetic attempt to keep the fire of hatered and racism burning and it is already burned out. Your 15 minutes of fame came and went and now you're just a bitter, angry little man, standing alone, shaking his fist at humanity out in the rain, as the rest of the human race passes you by, sadly shaking their heads. You have been was exposed as a fraud and you can't admit the truth. Crawl back into the shadows, you're not even a tee-shirt anymore and your scam has already failed. Good prevailed over evil."
http://www.policelink.com/news/articles/114107-policelink-mentioned-in-national-discussion?comment_page=2
http://www.policelink.com/news/articles/115685-official-white-house-beer-set-for-thursday?comment_page=2
and still no reports on black helicopters, street sines with barcodes for un troops in the midwest for garding US Americeans in concentration camps over biospheres taking away us soverintey, was 9-11 investigated(?) AIDS in CIA laborratoreies, national police force to break possy comitatis with delta forces, raceism at all levels of goverenmint, nation of isllam, all resulteng in cryes of reversed raceism, so that the people who know wont ever be asked under owth in US Senitt and conriss. Why no congrissenal hereings on raceism and ONLY targeting Acorns for voteing frawd?? this is pure and simple raceism for all to know...and the police dont care my freinds, sad but true words or wisdim becaue they even say lynden luh-roosh is uneder the hole conspearasie.
Wow this posting board sure attracts the intellectual eilte! How about spelling and grammar? How about prozac, Klonopin, Thorazine and other anti-psychotic drugs for some of the posting people in here? This should be followed by a class on the first amendment and freedom of speech that liberal fascists so dearly love to hate. It sound like the truth on Gates to me......
I think we should all agree that the first amendment does in fact protect our speech. This applies to all including public police officials. While this police chief has the right to state his opinion publicly, no matter how blistering and hateful it may sound to some, detractors also have that same 1st amendment right to voice their opinions contrary to the chief's. Although I don't know this police official's reasons for making the comments in the first place, maybe he has good reason. We will never know his intentions. As an educated person of color I personally feel that given the history of our country, his statements make questionable references that we do not want to visit. But that is my opinion.
However I stress that it is speech that is protected by the laws of our great nation.
This person has the freedom to say what he feels. Is it hate speech? That is debateable, I suppose, by the people who hear or read it. By the same token Farrakhan, Sharpton, Jackson, Gates and any other person of color in a role of leadership or public view have the right to their views as well.
Ha Ha, In the 3rd post someone is trying just a little too hard to sound psycho and illiterate. Then in the very next post they overzealously point it out. You are the same person dude, nice try.
How do you keep a people down? You 'never' let them 'know' their history.
The 7th Cavalry got their butts in a sling again after the Little Big Horn incident, fourteen years later, the day after the Wounded Knee Massacre. If it wasn't for the 9th Cavalry Buffalo Soldiers, there would of been a second massacre of the 7th Cavalry. Read, and visit site/history, rescueatpineridge.com
Galena Alaska, Galena Alaska must be very proud of their Police Chief. You should be ashamed of youself for making such hateful comments
If you browse through the forums and comment sections throughout the policelink website, you will see that this Chief Millan is not the only member that posts hateful and venemous comments. The site is full of this type of hate speech. I personally know officers that will have nothing to do with this site because of the hate speech found there.
Chief John Millan is no longer the police Chief at Galena. He is now the Chief at Hoonah Alaska.
Hello,
I do agree with you that many in the left (like me) unrealistically expected Mr. Obama to go after the policies we like (ending all wars involving the Us, a radical crackdown on banks, strong labor/union rights laws, single-payer healthcare, solving the Guantanamo Bay issue, strong economic measures to stimulate the economy, and more aid to the poor and deprived, etc.), but I still think he and the major leaders of his party have failed both their supporters in Congress and their constituents simply because they now cannot electorally compete on their legislative achievements and probably will lose big in November. I think, as political operators, they have failed to deliver on two things that should have been clear to them when they came to office: 1) more millions of people would be jobless and homeless in the few following years (owing to the severity of the crisis, it was clear to most competent observers then that recovery would take a long time; 2) the voice of the Democratic left pretty much was suffering a black out for a while now in a media world dominated by the right and always able to effectively stifle any discourses it does not like. So given such a situation, if they played the political game right instead of worrying about pleasing real or potential corporate supporters, they would have revived New Deal era federal employment programs (CCC, WPA, IRA, etc.) which could have employed millions and effectively tie the economic security of millions of Americans (likely voters with the stakes being so high for them now) to their own political fortunes in November and afterward; while passing legislations that could have radically open up/diversify the media, so as to give at least a fighting chance to their ideas. Thank you.
Yes this John Millan is a loser and a POS. The people in Avery county need to know this guys history. They need to ask him why he left Galena Alaska where he was chief for such a short period of time. They need to ask him about his hateful comments he posted on the policelink.com website for months. If he starts the "my account got hacked" claim, then he should be asked to take a polygraph test. In my opinion he does not make rational decisisions. As a police chief at Hoonah he allowed a deaf person to work the streets as a police officer. This goes against every tenet of police officer safety. And lo and behold this poor officer was in fact killed in the line of duty while millan was chief. In my opinion Avery County taxpayers should avoid this guy like the plague. Just my opinion.
Post a Comment