Poor Barack Obama. In the space of a few short weeks, he has
gone from liberal savior with a 15 point lead over John McCain, to
a mere mortal in a dead heat in the polls. He has alienated some of
his base by flip-flopping on issues like the FISA vote,
partial-birth abortion and most importantly, stating that he will
continue to “refine” his Iraq War policy.
In addition to his change of position on issues, he’s been
slapped down by German Chancellor Angela Merkel
on his plans to conduct a photo-op at Berlin’s Brandenburg Gate,
had his call for bilingualism rejected by 83% of voters polled and been vocally
castrated by his predecessor as the so-called voice of American
blacks.
Even worse for him, just last week a CNN poll showed that support for Obama among Democrats
has dropped five points in the last month. And the number of
Clinton backers who say they will not vote for Obama has risen to
nearly one third over the same period; so much for the healing of
old wounds and repairing party unity.
HOW COULD THIS have happened in such a short time? What went wrong?
The problem for Obama is that of any far left candidate; he must
run to the center during the general election season in order to
attract blue collar Democrats and Independents. Whether or not the
candidate is actually sincere during this period is often of no
consequence; everyone expects it as a part of the electoral
process.
What’s different this time is Obama’s portrayal by the media as
a transcendent figure, one who is expected to float high above the
dirty business of common politics. The first warning signal should
have been his decision to forgo public campaign financing after
solemnly pledging that he wouldn’t. His explanation that “the
system is broken” sounded suspiciously like an old McCain campaign
slogan.
To those for whom Obama is an almost religious icon, the thought
of him soiling himself by compromising his stances and breaking his
promises, is a letdown of almost Biblical proportions. But such are
the consequences when a candidacy is based on a cult of personality
rather than practical experience or a concrete platform of
ideas.
It is indicative of the liberals’ mood of late that they can
sense that some of Obama’s “power” has gone out of him. A case in
point is the Democratic response to the cover of this week’s New Yorker magazine,
where his wife is portrayed as a black power chick with a machine
gun while he is attired in Middle Eastern garb. The cartoon — set
in the Oval Office and intended to ridicule far-right “distortions”
— also features a portrait of Osama bin Laden on the wall and an
American flag burning in the fireplace.
A few short months ago, the left would have applauded such a
grand expose of the fear and loathing tactics of the
knuckle-dragging opposition, but times have changed. And indeed,
had liberals not gone off the deep end over this, the vast majority
of Americans who never read the New Yorker would never
have seen it. But now the fear is that the Obama phenomenon is not
big enough to overtake the ignorance of the great unwashed in
Middle America who might take the images in the cartoon to heart.
Andrea Mitchell summed this up by haughtily suggesting that the cover “is too sophisticated
to actually be perceived the way it is intended.” That liberals can
dish it out but can’t take it — even from their own — is nothing
new. What is new is the way in which their base is in a great sate
of unease and grumbling, even though they have such a godlike
figure as their head.
SO CAN OBAMA get his mojo back? Is he a reliable liberal or not?
Should his backers still believe in him? Oddly, the most sensible
answer comes from his former pastor, Jeremiah Wright, who told us that “He does what politicians do….He
goes out as a politician and says what he has to say as a
politician.” If liberals can only accept that image of Obama they
might yet salvage the election; if not, their Denver convention
might just be the site of a mile-high fall from grace.
