Obama's Presidency is at Risk

Since taking office Barak Obama has positioned his presidency on the premise that a much more active and robust federal government is the answer to the difficult problems we face. One of his first actions was passing a trillion dollar stimulus package built on the assumption that the federal government could spend us out of the recession. He outsourced the details to Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid. Congress was more than happy drawing up a trillion dollar spending list. It looked so easy. He was not concerned with the details; Congress could take care of them. He was above the petty squabbles of legislators. This was our first indication on how President Obama would govern as an executive.

Next up was the healthcare debate. The President chose to take advantage of the crisis. Based on the relative ease of his stimulus legislation, Obama decided to bet his presidency on reforming healthcare. After all, he and the federal government knew what the people needed. After a tiring and exhaustive battle, he finally passed Obamacare. He did so despite a lack of support from the electorate. This was not their issue. President Obama knew best and crammed the reform down the electorate’s throat.

President Obama never defined his plan for healthcare. He gave a general outline and left it to Congress to do the heavy lifting. Again, he was detached from the specific s and he stayed above the fray.

We see this detachment play out again in his administration, when the Secretary of Homeland Security and the Attorney General fail to read the Arizona illegal immigrant law. They were quick to denounce the law but they never took the time to read it. Yet again, we see an almost surreal detachment from the details. The President’s management style is pervasive throughout his administration.

Now President Obama faces the biggest crisis of his presidency, the BP Oil Spill. He was slow to realize the enormity of this disaster. Even to this day, he seems strangely detached from the calamity. He is trying to change this perception by making another trip, this time a two-day trip, to the gulf coast to show that he cares. He will follow it up with his answer to everything, a speech. This won’t work. This time he cannot turn to Congress to deal with the issue. The issue requires the skills of an experienced executive; someone who can access the situation, assemble a team and hold the team responsible.

During the campaign, candidate Obama was calm, cool and collected. He appeared above the fray of the mere mortals electing him. He was transcendent. He was the one we have been waiting for.

A year and a half later these very traits are kicking the president in the proverbial rear end. Rather than looking for someone else’s backside to kick, the traits that made him a great candidate, are exposing his weaknesses as a leader.
Peggy Noonan summed it up this way. From the very beginning of the oil spill, President Obama “tried to distance himself from the gusher and his presidency.” - just like he tried to do with the stimulus package and healthcare. “He wanted the people to associate the disaster with BP and not him.”

We are seeing President Obama in a new light, one in which he has little experience. We are seeing him face severe adversity. Every president faces these times. Most have faced significant adversity and even failures numerous times, prior to ascending to the presidency. This is new territory for this president.
These difficult days will stress test the president’s most basic, almost primal, instinct; the federal government can fix our problems. This assumption is running smack-dab into a freight train of public opinion which is heading in the opposite direction. The public has seen the promise of an all knowing and effective federal government fail when they needed it the most. Katrina was the first example. When the people of New Orleans needed it, the federal government proved incompetent. But that was easily dismissed as a failure of George W Bush. Surely the surreal, new president would do better.

The public then became jaded when the trillion dollar stimulus package failed to keep unemployment under 8% as the President promised. We now see 10% unemployment extending for years. We then saw the raw power of the federal government when it enacted a healthcare bill without the public’s support. We now get word that the costs associated the reform will be much higher than originally forecast, just a few months ago.

Now we have a single oil leak on the bottom of Gulf. In the grand scheme of things this seems infinitely more solvable that the economic collapse and healthcare reform and a flooded city. Yet, here again, the Federal government is unable to fix the problem.

President Obama is on the cusp of losing the public. His core belief is no longer accepted by the public. He is losing the trust and the patience of the American people. Without a Clintonian change in political philosophy, a turn to the center, he is headed to a profound, failed, one-term presidency.