America elected Barack Obama in 2008 with a mandate to repair its broken economy and restore its international standing. Obama won that election by a comfortable margin. The enthusiasm for his candidacy was infectious. But a lackluster John McCain and a questionably capable Sarah Palin contributed handily to his victory.
Four years later, the enthusiasm has dried up. But Obama remains the comfortable choice for just enough voters to make it matter.
Under Obama’s presidency, we have been treated to ramped-up drone warfare, legislation by executive fiat, a gun-running fiasco swept under the rug, two-faced drug policy, cynical support for gay rights, a lumbering and unpopular healthcare bill and most saliently, a stubborn economic recovery hampered by business-unfriendly policies.
Why is this man still in office?
Because Mitt Romney was the Republican John Kerry. When America was at a domestic and international crossroads in a new century, the challenger was stiff, unexciting and most importantly unconvincing.
As a candidate willing to label 47 percent of Americans losers to persuade wealthy campaign donors – who apparently “isn’t concerned with the very poor” – he was not exactly the best guy to run in this economy.
With an inability to propose specific ideas for closing tax loopholes and cutting spending, Romney didn’t convince Americans that his brand of capitalism would be of the truly free market sort that helps the middle class rather than the crony sort that helps a select few.
Romney’s promise to reverse defense cuts to an already-bloated military and adopt a bolder posture on the world stage rang tone deaf with an American people tired of a decade of fruitless war and nation-building.
The Obama campaign divided voters into categories – young people, Latinos, women – and offered them government dependency while explaining why a Romney-Ryan administration would hurt them. Romney should have offered those voters civil liberties and immigration reform without a taxpayer price tag. But he offered them silence.
The GOP had an opportunity to unseat a truly bad president and it didn’t take it.
Now we’re left to discover the answer to questions about a President who hasn’t proposed a radical course change from his last four years.
Will the President make good on his promise to eliminate the Bush tax cuts and raise other taxes as well? If so, the prospect of a tax-happy and fiercely regulatory administration will surely stymie consumer spending, private investment and corporate hiring.
Will the President develop a coherent foreign policy? The President’s foreign policy has to date been a half-baked patchwork marred by a record of deferring to international bodies, bypassing congressional will, violating other countries’ sovereignty and taking a hesitant approach in supporting fledgling democracies.
And as Obama campaigned on more of the same, it’s safe to say we should expect more trepidation from employers, more directionless foreign policy and more undemocratic federal mandates to skirt a Republican House. That’s not a winning platform. America rejected Mitt Romney. But it did not reelect Barack Obama.
— danoconn@indiana.edu
