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- iHaveNet.com: Politics
by Kenneth T. Walsh
The war and jobs could have a greater impact on the president's long-term success
President Obama spent last week focusing on the massive BP oil leak, but two other big issues are creeping up on him -- Afghanistan and unemployment. Each one could easily have a greater impact on his long-term success or failure than the gusher in the Gulf of Mexico.
By most accounts, the war in Afghanistan isn't going well. American and Afghan casualties are on the rise this spring, and the U.S. effort to subdue insurgents in the key region around Kandahar has run into severe difficulty. American military officials now say their original timetable for a relatively quick offensive there was too optimistic, and it will be a long, tough slog. The problem is the same one that critics of U.S. escalation have always cited: Afghanistan is known as the graveyard of empires. Suspicion of outsiders runs deep and the United States is widely seen as an occupying power, like Russia and Great Britain in the past. Each was eventually forced to withdraw.
The Afghan war is particularly unpopular among Democratic liberals who thought Obama was going to be a dovish president when they backed him in the 2008 primaries. Many liberals are so upset with Obama and majority Democrats in
Even the optics are heading in the wrong direction. That was clear when Gen. David Petraeus fainted, apparently from dehydration, during testimony before a
Unlike other problems he is facing, Afghanistan is a situation of Obama's own making. It was the new president, after all, who said Afghanistan was a central front in the war on terrorism, and it was Obama who decided to escalate by approving a "surge" of 30,000 troops. Now, it is Obama who must bear the criticism for the deepening problems.
Unemployment is an even more pressing concern for millions of U.S. households, and if nothing improves by the fall, joblessness could be the Democrats' downfall in the midterm elections. Obama and his aides predicted that the much-ballyhooed "stimulus" bill, which passed last year, would keep unemployment at around 8 percent. But it has remained stubbornly high at around 10 percent. Pollsters say there is no issue as important to most people, and no problem that causes more anxiety. And voters, according to the polls, believe that Obama's record is weak.
Overall, there is a growing critique of Obama as too much of a lawyer, always arguing the nuances of his case, and not enough of a problem solver. "He thinks in legalisms and liabilities instead of practical solutions," says Frank Donatelli, former
But, as President Kennedy used to say, "Life isn't fair," and Americans tend to blame the president when things go wrong whether he deserves it or not. That's what's happening to Obama.
There is another problem, at least in the view of conservatives.
"He has a reflexive antipathy to business -- the banks, the insurance companies, now the oil companies," argues Donatelli, who says this attitude is holding back the economy.
Adds a veteran Democratic strategist: "The challenge of the presidency is to take control. Ronald Reagan did it. Bill Clinton did it. Today, Obama has got to figure out how to take control of things that seem out of control, not cast blame."
Al From, founder of the centrist
Available at Amazon.com:
The Disappearing Center: Engaged Citizens, Polarization, and American Democracy
The Virtues of Mendacity: On Lying in Politics
Bush on the Home Front: Domestic Policy Triumphs and Setbacks
The Political Fix: Changing the Game of American Democracy, from the Grassroots to the White House
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2010 Elections: Obama's Big Problems: Oil Spill, Afghanistan and Unemployment | Politics
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