When Americans Saw the Real Obama by Peggy Noonan
Why the Denver debate changed everything.
We all say Ohio, Ohio, Ohio. But it’s all still Denver, Denver, and the mystery that maybe isn’t a mystery at all.
If Cincinnati and Lake County go for Mitt Romney on Nov. 6 it will be because of what happened in Denver on Oct. 3. If Barack Obama barely scrapes through, if there’s a bloody and prolonged recount, it too will be because of Denver.
Nothing echoes out like that debate. It was the moment that allowed Mr. Romney to break through, that allowed dismay with the incumbent to coalesce, that allowed voters to consider the alternative. What the debate did to the president is what the Yankees’ 0-4 series against the Tigers did at least momentarily, to the team’s relationship with their city. “Dear Yankees, We don’t date losers. Signed, New Yorkers” read the Post’s headline.
America doesn’t date losers either.
Why was the first debate so toxic for the president? Because the one thing he couldn’t do if he was going to win the election is let all the pent-up resentment toward him erupt. Americans had gotten used to him as The President. Whatever his policy choices, whatever general direction he seemed to put in place he was The President, a man who had gotten there through natural gifts and what all politicians need, good fortune.
What he couldn’t do was present himself, when everyone was looking, as smaller than you thought. Petulant, put upon, above it all, full of himself. He couldn’t afford to make himself look less impressive than the challenger in terms of command, grasp of facts, size.
But that’s what he did.
And in some utterly new way the president was revealed, exposed. All the people whose job it is to surround and explain him, to act as his buffers and protectors—they weren’t there. It was him on the stage, alone with a competitor. He didn’t have a teleprompter, and so his failure seemed to underscore the cliché that the prompter is a kind of umbilical cord for him, something that provides nourishment, the thing he needs to sound good. He is not by any means a stupid man but he has become a boring one; he drones, he is predictable, it’s never new. The teleprompter adds substance, or at least safety.
***
A great and assumed question, the one that’s still floating out there, is what exactly happened when Mr. Obama did himself in? What led to it?
Was it the catastrophic execution of an arguably sound strategy? Perhaps the idea was to show the president was so unimpressed by his challenger that he could coolly keep him at bay by not engaging. Maybe Mr. Obama’s handlers advised: “The American people aren’t impressed by this flip-flopping, outsourcing plutocrat, and you will deepen your bond with the American people, Mr. President, by expressing in your bearing, through your manner and language, how unimpressed you are, too.” So he sat back and let Mr. Romney come forward. Mr. But Romney was poised, knowledgable, presidential. It was a mistake to let that come forward!
Was it the catastrophic execution of a truly bad strategy? Maybe they assumed the election was already pretty much in the bag, don’t sweat it, just be your glitteringly brilliant self and let Duncan the Wonder Horse go out there and turn people off. But nothing was in the bag. The sheer number of people who watched—a historic 70 million—suggests a lot of voters were still making up their minds.
Maybe the president himself didn’t think he could possibly be beaten because he’s so beloved. Presidents are always given good news, to keep their spirits up. The poll numbers he’d been seeing, the get-out-the-vote reports, the extraordinary Internet effort to connect with every lonely person in America, which is a lot of persons—maybe everything he was hearing left him thinking his position was impregnable.
But maybe these questions are all off. Maybe what happened isn’t a mystery at all.
That, anyway, is the view expressed this week by a member of the U.S. Senate who served there with Mr Obama and has met with him in the White House. People back home, he said, sometimes wonder what happened with the president in the debate. The senator said, I paraphrase: I sort of have to tell them that it wasn’t a miscalculation or a weird moment. I tell them: I know him, and that was him. That guy on the stage, that’s the real Obama.
***
Which gets us to Bob Woodward’s, “The Price of Politics,” published last month. The portrait it contains of Mr. Obama—of a president who is at once over his head, out of his depth and wholly unaware of the fact—hasn’t received the attention it deserves. Throughout the book, which is a journalistic history of the president’s key economic negotiations with Capitol Hill, Mr. Obama is portrayed as having the appearance and presentation of an academic or intellectual while being strangely clueless in his reading of political situations and dynamics. He is bad at negotiating—in fact doesn’t know how. His confidence is consistently greater than his acumen, his arrogance greater than his grasp.
He misread his Republican opponents from day one. If he had been large-spirited and conciliatory he would have effectively undercut them, and kept them from uniting. (If he’d been large-spirited with Mr. Romney, he’d would have undercut him, too.) Instead he was toughly partisan, he shut them out, and positions hardened. In time Republicans came to think he doesn’t really listen, doesn’t really hear. So did some Democrats. Business leaders and mighty CEOs felt patronized: After inviting them to meet with him, the president read from a teleprompter and included the press. They felt like “window dressing.” One spoke of Obama’s surface polish and essential remoteness. In negotiation he did not cajole, seduce, muscle or win sympathy. He instructed. He claimed deep understanding of his adversaries and their motives but was often incorrect. He told staffers that John Boehner, one of 11 children of a small-town bar owner, was a “country club Republican.” He was often patronizing, which in the old and accomplished is irritating but in the young and inexperienced is infuriating. “Boehner said he hated going down to the White House to listen to what amounted to presidential lectures,” Mr. Woodward writes.
Mr. Obama’s was a White House that had—and showed—no respect for Republicans trying to negotiate with Republicans. Through it all he was confident—”Eric, don’t call my bluff”—because he believed, as did his staff, that his talents would save the day.
They saved nothing. Washington became immobilized.
Mr. Woodward’s portrait of the president is not precisely new—it has been drawn in other ways in other accounts, and has been a staple of DC gossip for three years now—but it is vivid and believable. And there’s probably a direct line between that portrait and the Obama seen in the first debate. Maybe that’s what made it so indelible, and such an arc-changer.
People saw for the first time an Obama they may have heard about on radio or in a newspaper but had never seen.
They didn’t see some odd version of the president. They saw the president.
And they didn’t liked what they saw, and that would linger.
This article originally appeared in the Wall Street Journal.
Category: Election 2012, Featured
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Ancient Rome had it well identified and we know what happened to them…
“A nation can survive its fools, and even the ambitious. But it cannot survive treason from within. An enemy at the gates is less formidable, for he is known and carries his banner openly. But the traitor moves amongst those within the gate freely, his sly whispers rustling through all the alleys, heard in the very halls of government itself. For the traitor appears not a traitor; he speaks in accents familiar to his victims, and he wears their face and their arguments, he appeals to the baseness that lies deep in the hearts of all men. He rots the soul of a nation, he works secretly and unknown in the night to undermine the pillars of the city, he infects the body politic so that it can no longer resist. A murderer is less to fear. The traitor is the plague.” Quote by:Marcus Tullius Cicero (106-43 B.C.) Roman Statesman, Philosopher and Orator Source: Attributed. 58 BC, Speech in the Roman Senate
Well said. Obama also reminds me of another infamous Roman: Il Duce. Obama and Mussolini display the same megalomania that eventually was the root cause of both their downfalls. Americans despise imperious arrogance and hypocrisy, both of which Obama shows in spades. The end of an error is at hand!
To put a fine point on it, Benito Mussolini was the son of a socialist agitator and was born in Forli, Romagna (a northern Italian province). He was not Roman in the modern sense.
Exactly ‘; We are ancient Rome . Its the same scenario ‘ .
But ; it seems , not many’, are concerned with history ; but , instead ; ‘reality shows ; Oprah ‘ , Leno ‘ ; Ellen ‘; etc.
Michael —
Agreed. Machiavelli commented extensively on Livy’s writings about the ancient Roman Republic. Here is an applicable passage on the law’s and institutions of a corrupt republic…
“… in an exceedingly corrupt state, the difficulty will clearly be intensified since there will be found neither laws nor institutions which will suffice to check widespread corruption. Because, just as laws are required for the maintenance of good customs, so there is a need of good customs if laws are to be observed. Furthermore, institutions and laws made in the early days of a republic when men were good, no longer serve their purpose when men have become bad. And, if by any chance the laws of the state are changed, there will never or rarely be a change in the institutions. The result is that the new laws are ineffectual, because the institutions, which remain constant, corrupt them.”
The sad part here, fellas, is that so little of the constituency is actually aware of the shortcomings of this president. So much of the media has taken to filtering the outbound information regarding the narcissist-in-chief, that the jumbled message being sanitized for “our protection” is worthless. Nothing resonates within the body politic because it is always eroded, given “clarity”, adapted by “context” and then precisely timed so as to have the absolute minimum effect. Aa a relative newcomer to the scene of politics, I thought much of our system from reading about it in school, now that I get to see it in action- I’m disturbed by it. I can tell that the Benghazi debacle has really shaken my father, but he doesn’t explain why. I know that the issue (for him) is greater than, “just another fumble” by Obama, it seems personal. Now, we have Facebook censoring the SOS group and it bugs me. How many different, disparate actors are involved in this massive disinformation and information control program? To what ends? Do they not realize what they are doing?
Hmmm…how people will rewrite facts to suit themselves. Turns out 12 embassies were attacked under Bush’s era-more than any other president.
Yes but no one was killed and Bush did not make up some story of why they were attacked either like Obama did who blamed some innocent mans video. Obama was more worried about going to Vegas. This president is doing nothing but destroying the country. We are not better off today then that of four years ago!
Turn out the lights, the party’s over. This is not 2008, when Obama had no record. Given the enormity of evidence against him -Fast and Furious, Obamacare, Crippling Debt, Record Unemployment, Benghazigate- I am confident that there will be an uprising unlike any we’ve seen in decades. On November 6, the American people are going to rise up and take this presidential charlatan out of office. The Obama Deception is OVER.
Amen to that!
http://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=oil+spill+we+need+help+down+here&oq=oil&gs_l=youtube.1.0.35i39j0l9.10538.11301.0.15263.3.3.0.0.0.0.98.198.3.3.0…0.0…1ac.1.2f1i0EVp42k what about this one no one even remembers the oil spill…
americans need to remember the mess bush left with 800000 jobs lost a month,two wars on credit card and medicare drug plan without funding removing all regulations for home loans and winning the election in 2000 by supressing the minority voters in florida by the governor jeb bush and state machinary,using lawyers with support of the election supervisor to win the presidency.we can’t expect to clear a free falling economy to messed up for 8 yrs in 4 yrs while mitch mcconnel and other republicans want to make obama a one term president.only in america u can do such things and be a used car salesman Romney can hope to become president of this great generous country.u want a salesman who is buying faulty voting machines in ohio,colarado,nevada thro Bain capital or a intellectual to be the president of this great nation.it your choice.edward
Not too sure why we let Obama get away with blaming Bush for everything. During his first six years he had inherited a surplus but at the expense of a reduced military and an intelligence agency that had been sorely compromised. Could 9/11 have been prevented?
Bush’s economic policies set a record of 52 months of continuous growth. Unemployment was only 4.6% in January 2007. Then things took a turn for the worse. It was January 2007 when Reid took over the Senate and Pelosi the Congress. Frank and Dodd unleashed Fannie & Freddie against Bush’s warnings and better judgement. And, yes, Obama was also part of the Senate (although he did very little other than campaign) For his last two years, Bush was pretty much a lame duck.
The truth is, the Obama who showed up for the first debate was the real Obama. But so was the Obama who showed up for the 2nd and 3rd debates. The real Romney was the one who made disparaging comments about 47% of the population. The etch-a-sketch flip-flopper who is willing to lie and distort on every significant issue is also the real Romney.
The question is, who do you want leading our beloved country. Someone who unwilling to divulge the details of his economic plan and deceives us by changing his positions every few months or the person who has fought for the middle class, gender equality, restored our standing internationally, and repealed DADT?
The main thrust of the Republican argument is, “Obama didn’t clean up the mess we created fast enough.” The real problem with Washington is the Republican Party has been hijacked. The true men of character with Rs after their names, like Bob Gates, Colin Powell, David Petraeus, and Chuck Hagel, men who have served their nation and understand that patriots exist on both sides of the aisle have litte to no say in the new GOP. Moderate Republicans need to reclaim their party and work with President Obama the next 4 years.
Noonan should write an article about who the REAL Mitt Romney is, because most of us have no clue.
Totally agree. Are Americans smoking grass or something that they need to be convinced that the guy Mitt Romney is a total charlatan – who would say whatever he wants to suit the expediency of the moment. Go head, Americans! Elect Romney! But then don’t whimper like you did after 8 years of the Bush Republican disaster! It’s amazing that a substantial portion of the white middle class and lower class still supports Romney – when they will be clear losers if Romney comes to power.
At the end of the day, a country gets the kind of government it deserves! So, republicans and the other detractors of President Obama, cry yourself hoarse, but the real loser if Romney wins will be USA and the millions of middle class and lower middle class and poor americans, not Obama! One term or 2 terms, Obama has already made history by becoming President. Think of where you all will be if Romney becomes President with his vacuous promises, but no specifics at all. Like President Obama said,”Americans, you should no buy into such a sketchy deal!” The rest is up to you.
Noonan is a fantasists like the rest of you republicans. Pseudo intellectual musing about ancient Rome does little to support the failed policies of GW Bush and Reagan years that Mitt wants to retry. The notion that cutting taxes will magically create jobs is disproved by the facts. 2001 and 2003 Bush tax cuts have lead to feeble job growth under Bush and the lingering effects continue under Obama. My large company will not hire 1 new employee if they cut our personal income taxes by 20% and we will not fire anyone if they raise our taxes 4-5% like the President wants.
Finally,the poll of Nov 6 will settle these arguments and we will see if Ms Noonan is right or if the majority of Americans don’t want to return to Bush’s policies.