Jim Geraghty
National Review Online
3/14/2011
The Wall Street Journal informs us:
President Barack Obama’s advisors are telling potential donors that he is in a weaker position heading into the 2012 election than he was in 2008 and are detailing potential vulnerabilities of likely opponents, according to people who have seen their presentation.
Is this surprising? The Obama of 2008 ran on promises. The Obama of 2012 will have to run on a record [emphasis CAJ], and a record that is significantly less appealing than the gauzy hope-and-change vision of his promises. It was one thing to be the blank slate and to be simultaneously be the preferred candidate of Markos Moulitsas and Colin Powell, of Barbara Streisand and Warren Buffett. But the slate is not so blank, and after taking a leap of faith during the tumult of the 2008 financial meltdown, a significant number of independents are recoiling from their decision…
The article continues at NRO.
H/T Gay Patriot
Jay Cost:
Nobody in the United States is as intent on reminding his fellow citizens just how awesome he is than Barack Obama. That’s what the “Age of Obama” is all about. But that seems to be about it. The sense of awe he has cultivated has not been used for any great purpose — not to forge a bipartisan compromise on the stimulus, not to push through an intelliglble health care plan, not to handle the deficit, not to lead on any of the various foreign policy flareups. This is more a clerkship presidency, with a commander in chief either unwilling or unable to take the lead on the most challenging issues of the day.
So the Republicans just have to come up with a winning candidate, and we’re not sure we see that person on the horizon now that Mike Pence has declined… ~CAJ
Update: Charles Krauthammer and Bill O’Reilly discuss the Republican field in video at Freedom’s Lighthouse.
