Topic: Decline of the West
In a recent interview with Oprah Winfrey, New Jersey Governor Chris Christie had a warning for Republicans: Don’t underestimate President Obama, who is a consummate politician. Everybody nodded.
But this got me to thinking: Is Christie right? What actual evidence do we have that Barack Obama is such a skilful politician? Sure there’s the 2008 election. But in that instance, the stars in their courses fell into alignment for the Democrats. The economic meltdown, the ineptitude of the Republican candidate and, not least, the worshipful treatment he received at the hands of the media greased the skids for Obama. It took but a modicum of common sense to take advantage of these extraordinarily fortunate circumstances.
That aside, the striking thing about Barack Obama as politician is his political tone deafness, e.g. the promise to close down the terrorist detention center at Guantanamo Bay and relocate the world’s most dangerous terrorists to prisons on US soil, his intemperate promises regarding the economy, the green jobs fiasco, etc. These were political as well as policy failures. And his reelection strategy? Class warfare leavened by petulant complaints about a supposedly do-nothing Congress. Hardly the stuff of Machiavelli!
Obama looks formidable now because he’s the incumbent, with all of the advantages thereunto appertaining, while on the GOP side, a hard fight for the nomination gives the appearance of chaos. A couple of months from now, things may look rather different.
