The Rise and Fall of Barak Obama: Who is to Blame, and Why it Doesn't Matter

He arrived on the scene somewhat unexpectedly, with a speech at the Democratic Convention that moved and inspired not only the attendees, but an entire generation.  One speech alone does not make a candidate viable.  It, in and of itself, does not win elections.  But the speech put the candidate, Barak Obama, on the map.  Obama took it from there, creating an image and a campaign the summoned the best of Lincoln, FDR, and JFK.  In short, this man was as much a movement as he was a candidate. 

His critics have told you that he was more style than substance.  They will tell you that race decided the election, or that back door dealings with ACORN brought him to the White House.  These same critics espoused that Obama was not a U.S. citizen, that he doesn’t “love America”, that he rubs elbows with terrorists, and plans to replace Capitalism with Socialism.  Aside from their extreme and obviously absurd accusations, the critics just weren’t paying attention.  Obama won nearly every demographic category in the 2008 election. His candidacy brought in a record voter turnout of 133 million.  He won 45% or more of the vote in all but 7 states.  He carried both the male and female vote.  He carried unprecedented numbers for voters 18-29, and for voters with a bachelor’s degree or higher.  In fact, the only demographic that Obama didn’t carry in the 2008 election was overwhelmingly white, southern, catholic males over 65.  To be fair, Obama didn’t win due to race statements or political folly.  He won because America loved him.

We loved him for his brain.  Obama graduated from Columbia University and Harvard Law School.  His approach on issues was calm, rational, and logical.  He reasoned through the tough problems and came to logical solutions.  We wanted a President who thought about things with intelligence rather than politics.  We loved him for his morals.  In a time where politicians are exposed almost daily for their indiscretions, and our past several Presidents had more than a few question marks on their moral fiber, Obama shined.  He had left behind a profitable law career to help those who couldn’t help themselves.  The Obama’s were the quintessential American family.  His relationship with his mother and grandmother touched the hearts of this nation.  In fact, the only perceived chink in Obama’s moral armor was that he was a smoker.  But most of all, we loved him for his idealism.  Obama told us we could change things.  He told us to have hope.  He showed us that the country and the world were changing, and we could change too.  Issues like race, gender, sexual orientation, religion, and citizenship were no longer issues.  Our perception in the global community could be improved.  Obama made the country believe that all things were possible. 

Today, the honeymoon is over.  Obama has been in office for 3 years.  On the day he took office, 41% of American’s “strongly approved” of Obama’s capabilities as our President.  Today that number is just 20%.  What went wrong?  How did this rock star candidate fall to these depths after riding so high just 36 months before?  Who is to blame?  We have a few ideas.

High Expectations - The biggest contributor to the shortcomings of Obama are the expectations with which he entered the office in the first place.  For all of the reasons shown above, Obama entered the White House with popularity never seen before.  The problem is, by and large, American voters are not rational people.  That is part of the reason Obama was able to harness the voters to record results—the ideas Obama proposed to the voters were accepted and fanaticized from the get go.  America didn’t just think Obama was a smart guy and a good leader, they saw him as the savior of a nation headed in the wrong direction.  In the minds of the voters, Obama could have this thing turned around in a matter of months, if not weeks.  The voters expected Obama to fix health care, discrimination, global reputation, and a derailed economy swiftly, and with few roadblocks or dissenters.  He never had a chance.

Voters like stump speeches, broad ideas, and a moving premise.  Unfortunately, they don’t care much about dealing in facts.  The economic situation Obama found himself in was not one that could be fixed in days or months.  In fact, if you really examined the problem, you would know that it wasn’t something that could even be fixed in years.  This was the biggest economic crisis since the Great Depression, and had the makings to actually surpass the depression if we allowed it to.  People wanted Obama to fix and stabilize a stock market that is, by definition, volatile.  They wanted unemployment to return to levels that probably won’t exist again for this country.  As of late, they have wanted the government to fix all of the problems facing the country, but to do so without generating revenue or spending existing funds.  In his first two years on the job, Obama passed more legislation than any other administration.  Unemployment was improving and GDP growth was restored, albeit slowly.  Health care reform was put into place through the largest health care reform package ever passed.  Obama was delivering on his promises, but things still didn’t look like they did 5 years ago, and voters have short memories.  In their minds, something had to change—again.

The Voters – As stated previously, voters have short memories and it was time for another round of voting on candidates for our House of Representatives.  Disgruntled and discouraged without really understanding why, the voters lashed out at Obama’s failure to meet unrealistic expectations, and elected a House of Representatives who were highly conservative and vowing to stall Obama’s administration.  In their typical irrational form, the voters put in place a political structure that was sure to get nothing done.  The Tea Party came to power in much the same fashion as Barak Obama did—a movement of voters high on energy and motivation and short on knowledge and understanding.  They were extreme conservatives with a plan to hold Congress hostage.  Any legislation that came to pass would be voted down by the new conservative majority in the House.  Attempts at compromise were also rejected by the Tea Party controlled legislature, in a move to make the Obama administration appear ineffective.  Since the change in representation in the House of Representatives, virtually nothing has passed, and the economy has stalled again.  This move was likely by design of the Republican House, as a political move to gain control of the 2012 election, where the voters will once again have an opportunity to show their true ineffectiveness.

Representative Democracy – Although nobody wants to acknowledge it, the system is broken and inefficient.  It has served us well over time, but the flaws outweigh the benefits in the current state.  We elect individuals to represent our collective positions.  We elect them, to the best of our ability, based largely on our personal situations and needs.  Our candidates prey on that and get elected by appealing to as much of our individual positions as possible.  Once they take office, their primary objectives are now their individual needs, many of which are rooted in re-election strategies and back door dealings w lobbyists.  Once we send our representatives to office, we don’t get a say in the issues that develop.  Our representatives deliver speeches on what the people want without giving us a chance to confirm or deny those assertions.

As if that weren’t bad enough, we have political parties to complicate matters further.  George Washington appropriately warned us of political parties in his farewell address to our nation:

“The common and continual mischief’s of the spirit of party are sufficient to make it the interest of a wise people to discourage and restrain it. It serves always to distract the public counsels and enfeeble the public administration. It agitates the community with ill founded jealousies and false alarms; kindles the animosity of one part against another, foments occasional riot and insurrection. It opens the door to foreign influence and corruption, which find a facilitated access to the government itself through the channels of party passions”

“However [political parties] may now and then answer popular ends, they are likely in the course of time and things, to become potent engines, by which cunning, ambitious, and unprincipled men will be enabled to subvert the power of the people and to usurp for themselves the reins of government, destroying afterwards the very engines which have lifted them to unjust dominion”

What our parties are doing now in Washington should be of no surprise.  George Washington predicted it over 200 years ago. 

Barak Obama – We can’t have an educated discussion on what has gone wrong w/ Obama’s presidency without laying at least some of the blame at his feet.  So what could he have done to avoid this?  In my opinion, not much—it was largely out of his hands for all of the reasons mentioned above.  But Obama did manage to make it worse by alienating some of his most avid supporters.  He moved on positions he shouldn’t have moved on in an effort to try to appease the Tea Party takeover.  He renewed the Patriot Act, gave in on the debt debate, and halted new environmental requirements supported by the EPA.  All of these moves were made in an effort to appease and engage conservatives, focus on the real problems at hand, and help move America forward.  It should have produced a result showing Obama as a reasonable man, willing to compromise, and not tied to strictly leftist positions.  It didn’t work.  Conservatives, while they likely applaud the legislation on its own, give Obama none of the credit and still place him among the most liberal of President’s ever to grace this nation.  Liberals, for what its worth, didn’t like it either, feeling betrayed by the President they elected to represent these issues and failing to see the bigger picture at hand.  Had Obama stuck to his guns on these issues, the overall result would not be much different, but the nucleus of his support would still be in tact. 

It remains clear that Obama does not enjoy the support he once had, and his star has lost some of its luster.  But what does it mean?  What will the fallout be?   To start, Barak Obama still has time (one year) to try to turn the tides and his track record shows he has the ability to do just that.  He is a master campaigner and organizer, and has yet to start doing so.  His numbers are sure to improve as he hits the campaign trail.  The focus is solely on jobs from here on out, and Obama will address the nation in a matter of days to lay out his jobs plan (more on this in our next post).  If this is a success, this article becomes irrelevant and Obama will have improved his position to a realistic level.  But this will not come without difficulty.  Obama will have to be honest with the nation—things can improve, but don’t expect it to turn overnight, and don’t expect it to improve all the way.  There is a new normal that we will need to get used to.  The voters will have to accept this over the unrealistic promises being made by the candidates jockeying for position to oppose the President next year. 

Speaking of the Republican primaries, this sheds more light on why Obama’s popularity slip may not matter.  We are now one year out from the Presidential election and not only do the Republicans not have a clear front runner—they haven’t shaved the candidate field down whatsoever.  In fact, there are additional candidates thinking of jumping in on the primary races because they see the weakness in their candidate field.  If the Republicans felt confident that they had a candidate to defeat Obama in the next election, you wouldn’t see new entrants in the field.  Instead, you would see many more drop out of the race than already have.  Despite the President’s lowest approval rating since taking office, it is clear that Republican’s still don’t feel confident that they can defeat him in the election.

Finally, don’t discount the Ron Paul factor.  Ron Paul is enjoying more popularity than he ever has.  Currently he is the choice of more than 10% of the Republican Party (amongst 9 candidates), and that number continues to improve.  Paul will never receive the nomination from the party because his positions are inconsistent with those of the party, but it has given him a stage to build support.  Without the Republican nomination, Paul will find himself on Presidential ballots as a third party candidate, stealing much needed votes from the yet-to-be-named Republican candidate.  In short, the Republican Party remains divided and largely undefined, even at a time where the incumbent Democrat seems vulnerable. 

Obama has found himself in the position that all politicians and President’s do.  He is on a rollercoaster ride of popularity, and the voters will determine his fate.  History will determine his legacy, and our system will render it all pointless.  In the end, the rise and fall of Barak Obama isn’t new or unique, nor is it depressing or disastrous.  Barak Obama will have 4 more years to figure it all out.