Does Barack Obama want to be re-elected in 2012?

[GG]

Few Americans consider themselves bigger than the presidency but Obama might be one of them. The man in the Oval Office, argues Toby Harnden, may already be preparing for a role as a post-president in a post-American world.

When David Plouffe, President Barack Obama's 2008 campaign manager, wrote recently that his former boss was "not concerned with his re-election", there was predictable scepticism.

After all, it has long been a truism that every politician wants to cling to power and a reality that presidential campaigns are planned years in advance. Pronouncements about not looking at polls and concentrating on getting things done are, moreover, standard fare from poll-driven, election-obsessed politicians and their apparatchiks.

In this case, however, Plouffe may inadvertently be onto something. Almost everything Obama does these days suggests that he doesn't care much about being re-elected. Strange as it might seem, perhaps he wants to be a one-term president.

Obama was elected in 2008 at an extraordinary moment in American politics. Suddenly, this charismatic figure, elected to the Senate without serious opposition in 2004 and without any executive experience, was catapulted into the White House.

His presidential bid had been based on the power of his life story and his ability with the spoken word. Doubtless he was as surprised as anyone else that he pulled it off. Governing has been altogether more difficult for him and there are signs he is already tiring of it.

Obama's intervention on the so-called "Ground Zero mosque" issue is a case in point. There was no need for him to get involved - the Islamic community centre two blocks from the 9/11 site is unlikely to get built and there was no political advantage in his making a statement.

What he said about religious freedom was typically Obama - high-minded, principled and legalistic. He is, after all, a former constitutional law professor. What his words lacked were any real empathy with what Americans felt and practical considerations about resolving the issue - never mind the political downside for him.

Doubtless he has been advised to prove he is "connected" to ordinary Americans by doing things like be seen attending church and taking "regular" holidays. But Obama seems happy to act as a European-style secularist, vacation in Martha's Vineyard and send his daughters to one of America's most exclusive private schools.

Obama does not suffer for self doubt. He has long seemed so convinced of his own virtue that to question his motives is illogical. Increasingly, his pronouncements carry the tone of one who believes those who disagree are stupid or bigoted.

Before departing for Martha's Vineyard last week, Obama spent three days on the campaign trail raising money and support for Democratic mid-term election candidates. Don't give in to fear," he said in Milwaukee. "Let's reach for hope."

It was a message that worked once but is unlikely to appeal this time, with America in the grip of a recession, unemployment still stubbornly close to 10 percent and blame-it-on-Bush rhetoric wearing very thin.

Obama is, however, at his best in these settings. He has the crowd hanging on his every word and he is not dealing with grubby political realities or objectionable opponents. Perhaps they are a reminder for him of simpler times.

They might also be a glimpse of the future. For Obama, the crowning moment of his presidency have been speeches abroad - the statement in Strasbourg that America had been "dismissive and arrogant", the address to the Muslim world from Cairo, the acceptance in Oslo of the Nobel Peace Prize.

In Berlin in 2008, Obama cast himself as a "citizen of the world". He has dismissed the bedrock notion of American exceptionalism by describing it, also in Strasbourg, as little more than narrow patriotism. Elite opinion among liberal Ivy League types - of which Obama is the embodiment - holds that we are already living in a post-American world.

There are few Americans who see themselves as bigger than the presidency but Obama could well be one of them. In 2008, Obama showed little appetite for the down-and-dirty aspects of political campaigning.

When things got tough against Hillary Clinton, he all but conceded the final Democratic primaries and let the clock run out. Against John McCain, he developed a campaign plan and refused to deviate from it. McCain was level in the polls when the US economy imploded, handing Obama a relatively comfortable victory.

Obama is the first black American president, an established author, multi-millionaire and acclaimed figure beyond American shores.

It seems highly unlikely that Obama will decide not to run in 2012. But he might well be calculating that a embarking post-presidential role as the leading global thinker in the post-American world as a Republican successor enters office is more attractive than being sullied by the political compromises and manoeuvrings necessary to win.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/northamerica/usa/barackobama/7958031/Does-Barack-Obama-want-to-be-re-elected-in-2012.html

[GG]

That explains the arrogance.   

[Hoss]

That explains the arrogance.   

Nah, couldn't be...not coming from the 'ToryGraph'.

[Ed W]

If the teabaggers drag the Republicans ever farther to the right, and they put up another dream team like that cranky old guy and Miss Frozen Tundra, well, there's a good chance that I could be our next president!

[joiei]

Nothing proves anything better than quoting a newspaper article published by a British publishing company owned by Rupert Murdock's News Corporation.  Ya got nothing from an American source?  Nothing from Australia for instance?  After all that is where Murdock holds his citizenship. 

[GG]

Nothing proves anything better than quoting a newspaper article published by a British publishing company owned by Rupert Murdock's News Corporation.  Ya got nothing from an American source?  Nothing from Australia for instance?  After all that is where Murdock holds his citizenship.  

If you don't like the source of the opinion then "just ignore it".  

I just thought it was interesting to read and may explain some of his actions.  

After all, it is just an opinion nothing more.   

Is that your tactic, if you don't like what is said, you attack the source, instead of what was actually said in the opinion?   

[nathanm]

Is that your tactic, if you don't like what is said, you attack the source, instead of what was actually said in the opinion?    

If you don't consider the source, you end up considering unreliable sources.

Like the one that donated a million bucks to the Republican Governor's Association.

Not that I consider anything in that piece to be a bad thing. I wish more politicians were interested in doing what they saw as the right thing rather than getting reelected.

[GG]

If you don't consider the source, you end up considering unreliable sources.

Like the one that donated a million bucks to the Republican Governor's Association.

Not that I consider anything in that piece to be a bad thing. I wish more politicians were interested in doing what they saw as the right thing rather than getting reelected.

You do make a valid point, more politicians should be interested in doing what they see as the right thing to do rather than what will get them elected.   And if President Obama is playing that strategy, I may not agree with what he is doing, but I can respect the man for doing it that way.

[Red Arrow]

If the teabaggers drag the Republicans ever farther to the right, and they put up another dream team like that cranky old guy and Miss Frozen Tundra, well, there's a good chance that I could be our next president!

Are you running?

[Ed W]

Are you running?

Why not?  I hereby declare my candidacy for the office of President of these United States!  First thing, though, is I'm taking us back to a monarchy - and I'm gonna be the king!  It's good to be king!

[Red Arrow]

Why not?  I hereby declare my candidacy for the office of President of these United States!  First thing, though, is I'm taking us back to a monarchy - and I'm gonna be the king!  It's good to be king!

As disturbing as it is to think about it, you would probably get some votes.

[JeffM]

The Daily Torygraph strikes again.... 

[Conan71]

You do make a valid point, more politicians should be interested in doing what they see as the right thing to do rather than what will get them elected.   And if President Obama is playing that strategy, I may not agree with what he is doing, but I can respect the man for doing it that way.

Which was pretty much the style of the two Bushes, they didn't seem to take much of a populist approach to the way they ran things much to the chagrin of a lot of Republicans.

As far as your source, when the London dailies were all over President Bush they were valid sources for these guys, now that the Brits are being critical of "their guy" they are no longer good sources and quoting foreign sources is out of bounds. 

[we vs us]

I don't care so much about the source as much as I do the argument, and this one is sadly lacking.  The whole argument is based on existing right wing memes -- Obama is elitist, out of touch, too professorial, more Euro/Muslim/Indonesian/black than American -- none of which will resonate with anyone who doesn't already believe the existing right wing memes. 

It's an argument, essentially, that exists under glass.  In isolation, and to the right ears, it makes perfect sense. 

All of which just goes to prove that we're a country divided less by ideology than by what facts we believe.

[Conan71]

I don't care so much about the source as much as I do the argument, and this one is sadly lacking.  The whole argument is based on existing right wing memes -- Obama is elitist, out of touch, too professorial, more Euro/Muslim/Indonesian/black than American -- none of which will resonate with anyone who doesn't already believe the existing right wing memes. 

It's an argument, essentially, that exists under glass.  In isolation, and to the right ears, it makes perfect sense. 

All of which just goes to prove that we're a country divided less by ideology than by what facts we believe.

You are thinking that all of President Obama's supporters are still intact and fully approve of the job he is doing?  It's starting to resonate amongst people who supported him in the '08 election.  His approval rating keeps dropping.  I fully understand that many if not all President's approval ratings are lower after 18 months in office than they are three or six months in.  However, people from all walks are starting to see an idealogue oddly detached from the most pressing issues of the day while he consumes himself with his populist agenda items.  People existing on a $400 per week unemployment check (or whose benefits have played out) don't identify well with a President who vacations with the rich and famous while the job picture isn't getting better. 

I say this all the time: the image is more important than the reality.  The President could be doing a better job inspiring the economy by showing some confidence in it and having more to say about it other than he inherited a huge mess from his predecessor.  He alone cannot create jobs, but he's played up the idea that his his predecessor took away jobs and I'm sure he will have no problem taking credit for job growth if that happens under his watch.  When everyone else is having to make do with less, I think a better public image would be scaling back the trips or at least not going to wealthy playgrounds for vacations.

The slipping poll numbers seem to indicate it's more than just people who were predisposed to dislike him who are beginning to feel this way.