BY Thomas M. Defrank
DAILY NEWS WASHINGTON BUREAU
Read more: http://www.nydailynews.com/news/pol...against_obamas_ways.html?r=news#ixzz14EEdsTXL
WASHINGTON - White House loyalists can't spin this one away - Tuesday's incumbents-be-damned returns are a stinging rebuke to President Obama.
A presidency that began with such pride and hope is now diminished, discredited and momentarily adrift.
"He has lost the country," one of the GOP's savviest fund-raisers told the Daily News, less in exultation than amazement at Obama's swift political reversal.
Consider the irony: the electorate has now restored to power in the House the same crowd they repudiated only two years ago - and whose policies, by any honest reckoning, wrecked the economy.
But the statute of limitations on blaming George W. Bush expired months ago. Midterms are a referendum on the incumbent. Millions of Americans - especially independents who largely elected him - are dismayed by Obama's stewardship.
He's even boosted Sarah Palin's credibility. Who could argue with Palin's Sunday talk-show jab that "the last two years have not been good for our country." Even Obama Democrats concede that much.
The economic misery launched by Bush has metastasized on Obama's watch - and, amazingly, he's proven woefully ineffective at persuading the country that his stimulus program kept the country from the abyss of a second Great Depression.
Three fundamental miscues compounded the damage:
- Obama thought he had license to move a right-of-center nation briskly to the left. In fact, his mandate was narrower: just don't be Bush and Cheney.
- He passed the health care reform bill but lost control of the debate. Voters focused on what they didn't like (bogus death panels) instead of Obama's genuine populist reforms. He's still paying the price for a bill history will credit far more than yesterday's voters.
- As he's already acknowledged, he paid too much attention to policy instead of politics. The country didn't want to hear his esoteric argument that health care reform is all about the economy because it reduces deficits somewhere down the road. It wanted to hear how Obama was riveted on creating jobs now - and concluded he wasn't when unemployment rose to double-digits.
"He didn't give people any assurance he was making the freefall better," a top Democratic consultant moaned. "He was just too theoretical."
Still, overnight is a lifetime in politics. As yesterday reminds, things change - often swiftly. Based on recent history, emboldened Republicans can be expected to overreach.
A surprising number of GOP elders, in fact, believe Obama will win reelection.
The gut question is whether a prideful, professorial President can absorb the lessons of this thumping and make the necessary political pivots. Aides say the tenor of his press conference today will demonstrate that he gets his new political reality.
"He's badly wounded," says GOP guru Stu Spencer, who's been managing and wargaming elections since Ronald Reagan's first governor's race, "but I would never count him out."
DAILY NEWS WASHINGTON BUREAU
Read more: http://www.nydailynews.com/news/pol...against_obamas_ways.html?r=news#ixzz14EEdsTXL
WASHINGTON - White House loyalists can't spin this one away - Tuesday's incumbents-be-damned returns are a stinging rebuke to President Obama.
A presidency that began with such pride and hope is now diminished, discredited and momentarily adrift.
"He has lost the country," one of the GOP's savviest fund-raisers told the Daily News, less in exultation than amazement at Obama's swift political reversal.
Consider the irony: the electorate has now restored to power in the House the same crowd they repudiated only two years ago - and whose policies, by any honest reckoning, wrecked the economy.
But the statute of limitations on blaming George W. Bush expired months ago. Midterms are a referendum on the incumbent. Millions of Americans - especially independents who largely elected him - are dismayed by Obama's stewardship.
He's even boosted Sarah Palin's credibility. Who could argue with Palin's Sunday talk-show jab that "the last two years have not been good for our country." Even Obama Democrats concede that much.
The economic misery launched by Bush has metastasized on Obama's watch - and, amazingly, he's proven woefully ineffective at persuading the country that his stimulus program kept the country from the abyss of a second Great Depression.
Three fundamental miscues compounded the damage:
- Obama thought he had license to move a right-of-center nation briskly to the left. In fact, his mandate was narrower: just don't be Bush and Cheney.
- He passed the health care reform bill but lost control of the debate. Voters focused on what they didn't like (bogus death panels) instead of Obama's genuine populist reforms. He's still paying the price for a bill history will credit far more than yesterday's voters.
- As he's already acknowledged, he paid too much attention to policy instead of politics. The country didn't want to hear his esoteric argument that health care reform is all about the economy because it reduces deficits somewhere down the road. It wanted to hear how Obama was riveted on creating jobs now - and concluded he wasn't when unemployment rose to double-digits.
"He didn't give people any assurance he was making the freefall better," a top Democratic consultant moaned. "He was just too theoretical."
Still, overnight is a lifetime in politics. As yesterday reminds, things change - often swiftly. Based on recent history, emboldened Republicans can be expected to overreach.
A surprising number of GOP elders, in fact, believe Obama will win reelection.
The gut question is whether a prideful, professorial President can absorb the lessons of this thumping and make the necessary political pivots. Aides say the tenor of his press conference today will demonstrate that he gets his new political reality.
"He's badly wounded," says GOP guru Stu Spencer, who's been managing and wargaming elections since Ronald Reagan's first governor's race, "but I would never count him out."
