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The Obama Mistake

The Obama Mystique was The Obama Mistake [1].

Future politicians should take note, and Obama himself should change.

The nation needs leadership based on realistic principles.

Years ago, when Barack Obama [2] was developing that tone of his, when he was polishing his lustrous image, some wise political mentor should have sat him down and warned him to switch strategies. (And if that did happen, Obama should have listened.)

This wise mentor should have made it clear to the promising young star that the realities of governing would ultimately tarnish an image built on promises no one can possibly keep.

Unless you truly can cast miracles, promising to change the world will always catch up with you.

If John McCain [3] ever landed a glove on Obama during the campaign, it was when he launched “The One” video that lampooned Obama’s European exploits.

The video’s mocking portrayal of Obama as a savior figure was viciously effective.

Prior to that, Hillary Clinton [4]’s best knock on Obama was that though you campaign in poetry, you govern in prose. She also mocked the savior image and rightly asked where was there any evidence that Obama had the chops to govern?

During the Republican National Convention, speakers thrilled the party faithful by mocking Obama’s many “present” votes during his time in the Illinois statehouse.

The complaint against Clinton and McCain was that they were divisive figures. The argument for the less-experienced Obama was that his inexperience wouldn’t matter; the quality of his mind would allow him to transcend.

The reality is that either of Obama’s rivals would’ve been able to govern without falling into the trap that Obama’s in now.

Because it turns out that the nation under Obama is as divisive as ever and Obama has shone little interest in cooling the outrage with attempts to build consensus.

The problem for Obama now is that he is doing exactly what he ought to be doing and in doing it he is destroying the image of himself he so carefully crafted on the campaign trail.

His rushing through the so-called Stimulus Act, his trying to rush through cap-and-trade and health care reform, showed that he really wasn’t that motivated in uniting the populace.

Instead, we see a man bent on wielding power while he has it.

Which is what he should be doing. That’s governing.

He should use his prodigious political capital to pass legislation that most reflects his core principles.

But when he tried to do those things, he lost the middle that helped put him over the top on Election Day.

His polls numbers among Independent voters have cratered. They wonder where The Uniter went. They no longer believe in him.

Obama should change.

He ought to change his tone and talk more directly to us. He ought to present himself as someone engaged in governing and speak frankly about the difficulties of the give-and-take nature of creating transformational legislation.

He ought to drop the constant road-show approach of the eternal campaign; it’s eroding his stature and he’s risking Obama fatigue only seven months into his presidency.

Meanwhile, his “Organizing for America” movement is creating a strangely ominous atmosphere that fosters division instead of consensus. It’s increasingly an us-against-them gambit that’s hardly different than the rough-and-tumble days of the Bush administration.

Obama has some reasonable goals for a president. Finding ways to improve the environment and making health care more affordable and available are worthy things to be doing.

It’s hard to imagine Obama wouldn’t have also been effective on the campaign trail by sticking to those themes and leaving the larger world-shaking rhetoric in the journals he kept as a student practicing before the mirror.

Because The Obama Mistake means it’s going to be awfully tricky for the president going forward.