The Fall of Obama

[Warrior-Mentor]

January 15, 2010
The Fall of Obama
By Charles Krauthammer

WASHINGTON -- What went wrong? A year ago, he was king of the world. Now President Obama's approval rating, according to CBS, has dropped to 46 percent -- and his disapproval rating is the highest ever recorded by Gallup at the beginning of an (elected) president's second year.

A year ago, he was leader of a liberal ascendancy that would last 40 years (James Carville). A year ago, conservatism was dead (Sam Tanenhaus). Now the race to fill Ted Kennedy's Senate seat in bluest of blue Massachusetts is surprisingly close, with a virtually unknown state senator bursting on the scene by turning the election into a mini-referendum on Obama and his agenda, most particularly health care reform.

A year ago, Obama was the most charismatic politician on earth. Today the thrill is gone, the doubts growing -- even among erstwhile believers.

Liberals try to attribute Obama's political decline to matters of style. He's too cool, detached, uninvolved. He's not tough, angry or aggressive enough with opponents. He's contracted out too much of his agenda to Congress.

These stylistic and tactical complaints may be true, but they miss the major point: The reason for today's vast discontent, presaged by spontaneous national Tea Party opposition, is not that Obama is too cool or compliant but that he's too left.

It's not about style; it's about substance.

About which Obama has been admirably candid. This out-of-nowhere, least-known of presidents dropped the veil most dramatically in the single most important political event of 2009, his Feb. 24 first address to Congress. With remarkable political honesty and courage, Obama unveiled the most radical (in American terms) ideological agenda since the New Deal: the fundamental restructuring of three pillars of American society -- health care, education and energy.

Then began the descent -- when, more amazingly still, Obama devoted himself to turning these statist visions into legislative reality. First energy, with cap-and-trade, an unprecedented federal intrusion into American industry and commerce. It got through the House, with its Democratic majority and Supreme Soviet-style rules. But it will never get out of the Senate.

Then, the keystone: a health care revolution in which the federal government will regulate in crushing detail one-sixth of the U.S. economy. By essentially abolishing medical underwriting (actuarially based risk assessment) and replacing it with government fiat, Obamacare turns the health insurance companies into utilities, their every significant move dictated by government regulators. The public option was a sideshow. As many on the right have long been arguing, and as the more astute on the left (such as The New Yorker's James Surowiecki) understand, Obamacare is government health care by proxy, single-payer through a facade of nominally "private" insurers.

At first, health care reform was sustained politically by Obama's own popularity. But then gravity took hold, and Obamacare's profound unpopularity dragged him down with it. After 29 speeches and a fortune in squandered political capital, it still will not sell.

The health care drive is the most important reason Obama has sunk to 46 percent. But this reflects something larger. In the end, what matters is not the persona but the agenda. In a country where politics is fought between the 40-yard lines, Obama has insisted on pushing hard for the 30. And the American people -- disorganized and unled but nonetheless agitated and mobilized -- have put up a stout defense somewhere just left of midfield.

Ideas matter. Legislative proposals matter. Slick campaigns and dazzling speeches can work for a while, but the magic always wears off.

It's inherently risky for any charismatic politician to legislate. To act is to choose and to choose is to disappoint the expectations of many who had poured their hopes into the empty vessel -- of which candidate Obama was the greatest representative in recent American political history.

Obama did not just act, however. He acted ideologically. To his credit, Obama didn't just come to Washington to be someone. Like Reagan, he came to Washington to do something -- to introduce a powerful social democratic stream into America's deeply and historically individualist polity.

Perhaps Obama thought he'd been sent to the White House to do just that. If so, he vastly over-read his mandate. His own electoral success -- twinned with handy victories and large majorities in both houses of Congress -- was a referendum on his predecessor's governance and the post-Lehman financial collapse. It was not an endorsement of European-style social democracy.

Hence the resistance. Hence the fall. The system may not always work, but it does take its revenge.

letters@charleskrauthammer.com

SOURCE:
http://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2010/01/15/one_year_out_the_fall_99907.html

[HowardCohodas]

Charles Krauthammer is one of my favorite analysts. He is brilliant and articulate with training as a psychiatrist to give him understanding of human nature.

But...

<rant on>
I believe that more profound than the "empty vessel activist" thesis he presents is the realization that Obama is the most anti-American President in my memory. He has no idea what makes Americans tick. Americans are proud of their country and it's accomplishments. Americans are cognizant of their mistakes, correct them and move on. Excessive public self-examination and self-criticism are the basic tenants of a Communist. If you did not grow up in that era, look it up.

Furthermore, Americans respect commitments and promises. I'm not talking about silly promises made in a campaign. I'm talking about promises make in contracts. He has consistently remade American contract law, from the repositioning of bond holders in the remake of Chrysler and GM, but the ignoring of employment contracts made by individuals on how they were to be compensated based on performance.

There is more, but I hope I've made my point.

Americans are being reawakened to what it means to be an American. That's a good thing. Those who serve and sacrifice do not need to be reminded, but the rest do.

<rant off>

[kgoerz]

All those undecided and Liberal voters who voted for him. Are starting to realize just how much money they earn, they won't get to keep!
Sucks having 38% of your pay check taken out so some Fat, Pregnant, No Dad in sight, Frito's eating Individual can get a new Knee Brace for free......

[Richard]

It looks as if it isn't just Obama...:confused:

And so it goes...

Richard's $.02 :munchin

'Tea Party' More Popular Than Republican Party

A new Rasmussen poll finds that the tea party movement's popularity is growing, so much so that it garners more support than the Republican party on a generic Congressional ballot. The poll hints that the burgeoning discontent among conservatives within the GOP threatens to splinter the party at a time when the popularity of President Obama and the Democratic-controlled Congress are waning as we head into an election year.

http://www.ketknbc.com/news/new-poll-shows-tea-party-more-popular-republican-party

In Power Push, Movement Sees Base In G.O.P.

The Tea Party movement ignited a year ago, fueled by anti-establishment anger. Now, Tea Party activists are trying to take over the establishment, ground up.

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/01/15/us/politics/15party.html?hpw

[nmap]

Along the same line....

LINK (http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704281204575003433828439728.html#p rintMode)

Slug the Obama Story 'Disconnect'
Obama and the public are on different pages, if not different in books.
By PEGGY NOONAN

The first thing I learned in journalism is that every story has a name. At WEEI News Radio in Boston, the editor would label each story with one word, called a "slug," and assign a writer to write it for air. This week's devastating earthquake would be slugged "Haiti." A story about a gruesome murder might be "Nightmare."

We're at the first anniversary of the inauguration of President Barack Obama, and the slug, the word that captures its essence, is "Disconnect."

This is, still, a surprising word to use about the canny operatives who so perfectly judged the public mood in 2008. But they haven't connected since.

There is a disconnect, a detachment, a distance between the president's preoccupations and the concerns of the people. There's a disconnect between his policy proposals and the people's sense, as expressed in polls, of what the immediate problems are.

I'm not referring to what is being called the president's rhetorical disconnect. In this criticism, he is not emotional enough when he speaks, he doesn't wear his heart on his sleeve, he is aloof, like a lab technician observing the movements within a petri dish called America. It may be true that this doesn't help him, but so what? In a successful presidency, his cool demeanor would be called an interesting facet, not a problem. And we don't really need presidents to move us, when you think about it. We need them to lead, and in the right direction.

Nor am I referring to an iconic disconnect. In this criticism, the president refuses to or is unable to act as a paternal figure. "A president is a father," say these critics. "He must comfort us." But, actually, your father is your father. Voters didn't hire Mr. Obama to play the old dad in the MGM movie. In any case he always seemed like the bright older brother, not the father. At the end of the day you, being a grown-up, don't need him to be your daddy, do you?

You want a competent chief executive with a deep and shrewd sense of the people. Americans want him to be on the same page as they are. But he's on a different page, and he may in fact be reading a different book. Thus the latest Quinnipiac poll, which puts his approval/disapproval at a descending 45% to 45%. Pure hunch: The approval number is probably slightly high because people don't want to disapprove of their new president—the stakes are so high!—and don't like telling pollsters they disapprove of him.

The real story is that his rhetorical and iconic detachment are harped on because they reflect a deeper disconnect, the truly problematic one, and that is over policy. It doesn't really matter how he sounds. It matters, in a time of crisis, what he does. That's where the lack of connection comes in.

The people are here, and he is there. The popularity of his health-care plan is very low, at 35% support. Someone on television the other day noted it is as low as George Bush's popularity ratings in 2008.

Yet—and this is the key part—the president does not seem to see or hear. He does not respond. He is not supple, able to hear reservations and see opposition and change tack. He has a grim determination to bull this thing through. He negotiates each day with Congress, not with the people. But the people hate Congress! Has he not noticed?

The people have come alive on the issue of spending—it's too high, it threatens us! He spends more. Everywhere I go, I hear talk of "hidden taxes" and a certainty that state and federal levies will go up, putting a squeeze on a middle and upper middle classes that have been squeezed like oranges and are beginning to see themselves as tired old rinds. Mr. Obama seems at best disconnected from this anxiety.

The disconnect harms him politically, but more important it suggests a deepening gulf between the people and their government, which only adds to growling, chafing national discontent. It also put the president in the position, only one year in, only 12 months into a brand-new glistening presidency, of seeming like the same old same old. There's something tired in all this disconnect, something old-fashioned, something sclerotic and 1970's about it.

And of course the public is reacting. All politicians are canaries in coal mines, they're always the first to feel the political atmosphere. It was significant when the Democrats lost the governorships of Virginia and New Jersey two months ago. It is significant that a handful of House and Senate Democrats have decided not to run this year. And it is deeply significant that a Republican state senator in Massachusetts, Scott Brown, may topple the Democratic nominee to fill Ted Kennedy's former seat, Martha Coakley. In a way, the Republicans have already won—it's a real race, it's close, and in "Don't blame me, I'm from Massachusetts"!

Mr. Brown's whole story right now is not about disconnect but connect. Massachusetts has an 8.8% unemployment rate, and graduates of the commonwealth's great universities can't find work. An old Boston Republican hand said of the race, "It's 100% about policies—health care, taxes, what's the plan on the economy?" Mr. Brown charges that Ms. Coakley's support for cap and trade and health care will amount to $2 trillion in taxes in the next five years.

Ms. Coakley has the advantage—Massachusetts is the heart of blue-state America—but in a way her advantage is her curse. Because she is the candidate of a party that for 40 years has been used to winning, reigning and winning again, she looks like the same old same old, a standard old-line liberal, the frontwoman for a machine, a yes woman for the Obama-Pelosi era.

It is interesting that Ms. Coakley, too, has been told by pundits the past week that her problem is that she's not emotional enough. She should show passion and fire! She should cry like Hillary!

This comes not only from pundits but normal people, and if you contemplate the meaning it is, weirdly: You're not good enough at manipulating us! We want more theatrics!

Both national parties are trying to pour in money and resources, but the most obnoxious intrusion must have been the fund-raising letter this week from New York's Sen. Charles Schumer, who tried to rouse the troops by calling Mr. Brown a "far-right teabagger." Does that kind of thing even work anymore? Doesn't name calling put off anyone not already predisposed to agree with it?

In a time when the people of Massachusetts have real concerns about their ability to make a living, stuff like the Schumer letter is just more evidence of a party's disconnect.

Politics is about policy. It's not about who's emotional and who cries or makes you cry. It's not about big political parties and the victories they need in order to rule. It's not about going on some ideological toot, which is what the health-care bill is, hoping the people will someday see and appreciate your higher wisdom.

In a way, Mr. Obama's disconnection is a sign of the times. We are living in the age of breakup, with so many of the ties that held us together loosening and fraying. If the president wants to lead toward something better, he should try listening. If you can't connect through the words you speak, at least you can do it through your ability to hear.

[lindy]

All those undecided and Liberal voters who voted for him. Are starting to realize just how much money they earn, they won't get to keep!
Sucks having 38% of your pay check taken out so some Fat, Pregnant, No Dad in sight, Frito's eating Individual can get a new Knee Brace for free......

Exactly!

Baltimore (http://www.urbanitebaltimore.com/sub.cfm?issueID=39&sectionID=4&articleID=461) looks more and more like DC everyday.

[Sigaba]

While the incumbent has lost control of the political narrative of his presidency, I think we should be mindful that both President Reagan and President Clinton also experienced significant declines in their popularity and still managed to win convincingly their bids for re-election.

Just because the current president is down in the polls now doesn't mean he's going to be out of a job in 2012. Then, as in 2008, he can trot out the dead horse he rode to Washington by running against his predecessor's record rather than the merits of his own achievements. (Nothing testified to the sense of dissatisfaction many Americans had towards Bush the Younger in 2008 than the fact that so many voters thought that this guy would be an improvement.)

[GratefulCitizen]

I think we should be mindful that <snip> President Clinton also experienced significant declines in their popularity and still managed to win convincingly their bids for re-election.


Respectfully disagree with this assessment.
How much of the popular vote was carried in the '96 reelection?
(or the '92 election, for that matter...)

[Sigaba]

Respectfully disagree with this assessment.
How much of the popular vote was carried in the '96 reelection?
(or the '92 election, for that matter...)GC!

Regarding the first part of your question (1996), the spread was almost ten percent. Source is here (http://www.presidentelect.org/e1996.html).

William Jefferson Clinton*
Albert Arnold Gore, Jr.
Party: DEMOCRATIC
Home State: Clinton - AR ; Gore - TN
Electoral Votes: 379
Popular Votes: 47,402,357 (49.2%)

* Clinton was born William Jefferson Blythe III; he adopted his stepfather's name at fourteen.

Robert Joseph Dole
Jack French Kemp
Party: REPUBLICAN
Home State: Dole - KS ; KEMP - NY
Electoral Votes: 159
Popular Votes: 39,198,755 (40.7%)

Henry Ross Perot
Patrick Jeffrey Choate**
Party: Reform
Home State: Perot - TX ; Choate - DC
Electoral Votes: 0
Popular Votes: 8,085,402 (8.4%)

** In thirteen states James Campbell (CA) was listed on the ballot as Perot's vice presidential running mate.

Other Candidates

Party: Green, Libertarian, U.S. Taxpayers, et al.
Electoral Votes: 0
Popular Votes: 1,591,120 (1.7%)
Total electoral votes - 538 (from 50 states and D.C.)
Majority needed to win - 270

Total popular vote: 96,277,634
Percentage of eligible population voting: 49.0%IIRC, based upon an interview I saw of a member of the Carter administration, a margin of more than 5% of the popular vote is considered a decisive victory in a presidential election. (That portion of the interview centered around the Carter administration's growing realization shortly before the general election that they were going to get crushed.:D)

Also, a point Al Gore made (somewhat reluctantly) in the aftermath of the 2000 election, because presidential elections are determined by the electoral vote and not the popular vote, campaigns are run differently than they would be if the popular vote were the determining factor.

(And also, I'm of the view that your question might actually help prove my point. [Which is the advantages of incumbency.] Clinton is on the ropes in the opinion polls, people are looking at Perot, and he still manages to run away and hide in the general election. Another topic of conversation to have over a basket of wings.:cool:)

Oh, speaking of the blame Bush the Younger game. Bill Moyers rode that horse during his introductory comments to this week's edition of his Journal on PBS.:rolleyes:

[Sigaba]

A slightly different take on the president's current disposition. Source is here (http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/01/09/AR2010010902198_pf.html).For Obama, a tough year to get the message out

By Dan Balz
Washington Post Staff Writer
Sunday, January 10, 2010; A01

In winning the White House, Barack Obama's team earned a reputation for skill and discipline in dominating the communications wars with opponents. In office, virtually the same team has struggled, spending much of the past year defending the administration's actions on the two biggest domestic issues -- the economy and health care.

The White House has sought to sell health-care reform as a way to make coverage affordable and accessible to middle-class families. But it was also presented at various times as a cost-containment measure, a restraint on greedy insurance companies, a moral imperative to cover the uninsured and, to Democratic lawmakers, as a "can't fail" enterprise. The president and his aides sent mixed signals on the "public option" as well, voicing support for a government-run plan while signaling their willingness to see it die to get a bill passed.

On the economy, administration officials put themselves at a disadvantage with faulty projections of the jobless rate and an overly rosy prediction of how many jobs the stimulus package would create or save. Once they had put in place policies to deal with the worst of the crises Obama inherited, they moved on to health care and later to Afghanistan. The result was a perceived loss of focus in addressing public unrest about unemployment that has prompted a shift back to the economy recently.

It is an axiom of political communication that the president wields the world's biggest megaphone and is therefore capable of setting an agenda and dominating a debate. Obama has used his rhetorical skills repeatedly to good effect, but officials acknowledge that there are limits.

"There is real power there," White House senior adviser David Axelrod said of the president's platform. "But it's not a magic wand. The bully pulpit does not put people to work."

Obama's advisers have learned what previous White House teams came to realize when they arrived in Washington, which is the vast difference between campaigning and governing. Asked what happened to the Obama team, Mark McKinnon, who was a media adviser to President George W. Bush, said, "They're human. They've walked into the propellers of the federal government."

Axelrod said the challenge of managing and controlling messages in a campaign and in the White House is "the difference between tick-tack-toe and three-dimensional tick-tack-toe. It's vastly more complicated."

One factor is the times in which Obama is governing. Double-digit unemployment colors public opinion, and wars in Afghanistan and Iraq and the continuing threat of terrorism frame the challenging foreign policy environment. But other factors also affect the White House's message management.

Governing lacks the singular focus of a campaign. A White House must manage multiple issues on any given day, can rarely pick and choose its battles, and must speak to many audiences at the same time. Successful campaigns maintain control of their message most of the time. Even the best of White House operations struggle to maintain a semblance of control in the face of competition from allies on Capitol Hill, the bureaucracy and the opposition party.

Those who see problems in the Obama White House message operation say they are not the result of an effective opposition.

"I don't think the Republicans have mounted this great, disciplined message operation," said Matthew Dowd, who was a top campaign adviser to Bush in 2000 and 2004 and is now an independent analyst for ABC News. "It's a lack of prioritizing by the administration and being disciplined by what those [priorities] are."

Dan Pfeiffer, the White House communications director, challenged critics who contend that the health-care message has been inconsistent.

He said that "you can draw a straight line substantively and rhetorically" through all of Obama's major speeches on health care, but he added that, because of the complexity of the issue, "there have been a number of fronts" in the message war that have required the administration's engagement. Still, public support for the overall initiative declined through the year.

On the economic debate, former White House communications director Anita Dunn said the administration has always seen health-care reform as a central part of its economic message. "Our lack of success at doing that . . . is one of the reasons that people feel there wasn't the focus" on the economy, she said. Another White House official asserted that on the economy, "We've got a better story to tell than we've told."

Meeting expectations

The campaign performance set high expectations for the Obama team. A Democratic strategist, who requested anonymity in order to speak candidly, said the Obama team rarely lost control of its campaign message but "hasn't won a single message battle" this year. Phil Singer, who battled the Obama team as part of Hillary Rodham Clinton's communications operation in the Democratic primaries, offered a counter view.

"They've done a pretty good job," he said. "The challenges they face are under-appreciated, given the success they had during the campaign."

Pfeiffer said the Obama team suffers from distorted impressions of the campaign's successes. Through much of 2007, he said, stories about Obama's campaign emphasized not the team's skill but "how we were getting our clock cleaned" by the Clinton campaign. In early September 2008, he added, critics were saying Obama's advisers were being outflanked by John McCain, Sarah Palin and the GOP message operation.

"What got us through those tough periods, both in the campaign and what I think is now, is that we were not particularly worried about the short-term impact of the quote-unquote message blips," Pfeiffer said.

Not everyone agrees this White House has maintained that long-term focus. Still, White House officials also question whether anyone else could have delivered a more effective message about the administration's economic policies, given the steps they decided were necessary to combat the deepest recession since the Depression.

"Believe me, no one sat around in December [2008] and said, 'I think it would be a great political strategy to start out with a $787 billion recovery package and then move on to a bill to support banks and the auto companies,' " Axelrod said. "That's not exactly a winning political strategy." Added Pfeiffer: "There is no salesman, living or dead, who could make that popular."

White House officials also contend that, in the end, the health-care measure will prove more popular in practice than it has been through the long legislative debate.

"There's a long history and cynicism about such efforts because there are so many carcasses in the road," Pfeiffer said. He added that the only way to overcome skepticism that government can oversee major changes to the health-care system "is to pass it and prove you can do it."

Controlling the message

A campaign team has near-total control over its message. A White House does not. "When it's either legislative strategy or regulatory strategy, you have to cede a considerable amount of control to people who don't share your interest, even if they're in your party," said Dan Bartlett, communications director in Bush's White House.

White House officials also cannot ignore events, as campaigns often do. "You can pick and choose what you want to discuss and what you don't want to discuss," Axelrod said. "When you're president of the United States, you have a responsibility to deal with the problems as they come."

Pfeiffer added: "In the White House, you have the myriad of challenges on any given day and are generally being forced to communicate a number of complex subjects at the same time."

Obama's campaign skillfully exploited technology and new media to communicate its message and organize in states. In the White House, officials have discovered those techniques' limits, though they still experiment with them.

The communications office has used the White House blog to rebut Republican opponents or push stories they see as inaccurate. Still, in the age of Twitter, opponents often have an easier time picking apart pieces of a health-care bill than the White House has in explaining a bill's complexities.

Critics of the administration say Obama has taken on so much that his message lacks a singular focus. "They've lost the narrative," Bartlett said. McKinnon added: "The umbrella under which everything sits seemed pretty clearly defined in the campaign and not so clearly defined now."

White House officials acknowledge that internal assessments have led them to conclude they have been too reactive and too tactical. This year will offer a chance to correct that problem by developing more strategic communications plans, particularly on the economy and to sell health-care reforms, assuming they are enacted into law.

But Axelrod said the best antidote to all the criticisms aimed at the White House and to declining poll numbers will be a genuine turnaround in the economy.

"People are unsettled and unhappy about that, and they should be," he said. "The politics will follow the progress, and as we climb out of this terrible hole that we've been in, the politics will respond."

[HowardCohodas]

A slightly different take on the president's current disposition. Source is here (http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/01/09/AR2010010902198_pf.html).

I'm so impressed. :rolleyes:

[dadof18x'er]

While the incumbent has lost control of the political narrative of his presidency, I think we should be mindful that both President Reagan and President Clinton also experienced significant declines in their popularity and still managed to win convincingly their bids for re-election.

Just because the current president is down in the polls now doesn't mean he's going to be out of a job in 2012. Then, as in 2008, he can trot out the dead horse he rode to Washington by running against his predecessor's record rather than the merits of his own achievements. (Nothing testified to the sense of dissatisfaction many Americans had towards Bush the Younger in 2008 than the fact that so many voters thought that this guy would be an improvement.)

with respect I think the voter anger/backlash/tea party/rage etc. is more significant than "declines in their popularity ". IMHO

[Warrior-Mentor]

Here's one way to take the temperature...the more recent the poll, the more favorable for the Republican...
(link goes back to when Coakley had a 31 point lead)

http://www.realclearpolitics.com/epolls/2010/senate/ma/massachusetts_senate_special_election-1144.html

Poll Date Sample Brown (R) Coakley (D) Spread

ARG 1/12 - 1/14 600 LV 48 45 Brown +3

PJM/CrossTarget (R) 1/14 - 1/14 946 LV 54 39 Brown +15

Blue Mass Group/R2000 (D) 1/12 - 1/13 500 LV 41 49 Coakley +8

Suffolk/7News 1/11 - 1/13 500 LV 50 46 Brown +4

[GratefulCitizen]

GC!

Regarding the first part of your question (1996), the spread was almost ten percent. Source is here (http://www.presidentelect.org/e1996.html).


I didn't ask what the spread was.
I asked how much of the popular vote was carried.

Just don't see the comparison between the '96 election and the '84 election.

The '96 election was affected by a dramatic about-face subsequent to the '94 mid-terms.
The question remains open as to what will happen after this year's mid-terms.

[Sigaba]

I'm so impressed. :rolleyes:Your attempt at sarcasm is noted. Unfortunately, neither the 2010 midterms nor the 2012 elections are going to be won by the president's opponents preaching to the choir alone.

The article's utility stems from two factors. First, Mr. Balz is sympathetic to what passes today for progressivism. Second, it offers a fly on the wall analysis of the current administration's assessment of its own problems.with respect I think the voter anger/backlash/tea party/rage etc. is more significant than "declines in their popularity ". IMHOYour point is well made. Personally, I am skeptical about the long-term sustainability of populism in today's political climate. Yes, left of center populism was a huge factor in getting the current president elected and right of center populism may result in a course correction--perhaps as early as this Tuesday.

However, populists are the quintessential "outsiders" in American politics. Yet, Washington D.C. belongs to "insiders". Remember that Carter, Reagan, Clinton, and Bush the Younger all struggled as "outsiders" with this collision of sensibilities. How does one square the circle of the evocative power of populist rhetoric with the day to day realities of governing, especially since previous iterations of American populism have proven to be especially fragile coalitions? Just don't see the comparison between the '96 election and the '84 election.
The similarities are that in both cases the incumbent president's political party took drubbings in the previous mid-term elections and had suffered declines in public opinion polls.

An article that provides interesting analysis of the impact on unemployment and midterm elections is available here (http://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2009/11/25/how_unemployment_affects_midterm_elections_99261.h tml). Like Mr. Balz's piece, this article seeks to downplay concerns within the Democratic party over unemployment. Are Democrats just whistling in the wind or are they piecing together a viable plan that will help maintain their current dominance in Washington, D.C.?:munchin