Sunday, September 04, 2011

'Obama Has Ruined the Democratic Party'

I've been wondering when Democrats would realize they're going down hard with Obama at the head of the ticket next year. Looks like panic is setting in.
From the debt ceiling fiasco to the recent rescheduling of a jobs speech at the behest of Speaker Boehner, it has not been a good summer for President Obama. Like Chinese water torture, Gallup's daily tracking poll has shown a steady and unrelenting drip of bad news. He has been in and out of the high 30s for his approval, and in the low to mid-50s for his disapproval.

George W. Bush's approval rating didn't drop this low until Katrina hit. And on the economy, 71 percent of Americans disapprove of how Obama is doing his job. Even among reliably Democratic groups -- union households, women and young people -- he's now unpopular.

No one, not even the president's defenders, expect his coming jobs speech to mean anything. When the president spoke during a recent market swoon, the market dropped another 100 points. Democrats may soon have to confront an uncomfortable truth, and ask whether Obama is a suitable choice at the top of the ticket in 2012. They may then have to ask themselves if there's any way they can push him off the top of the ticket.

That these questions have not yet been asked in any serious way shows how weak the Democratic Party is as a political organization. Yet this political weakness is not inevitable, it can be changed through courage and collective action by a few party insiders smart and principled enough to understand the value of a public debate, and by activists who are courageous enough to face the real legacy of the Obama years.

Obama has ruined the Democratic Party. The 2010 wipeout was an electoral catastrophe so bad you'd have to go back to 1894 to find comparable losses. From 2008 to 2010, according to Gallup, the fastest growing demographic party label was former Democrat. Obama took over the party in 2008 with 36 percent of Americans considering themselves Democrats. Within just two years, that number had dropped to 31 percent, which tied a 22-year low.
Of course one would think saving the Democratic Party would entail things like fiscal sanity, but this genius instead laments the fact Obama has "ignored luminaries like Paul Krugman" so in essence what he'll looking for is someone more liberal than Obama. Good luck with that.

10 comments:

laZrtx said...

Obama only brought out the real smell of dead fish.

rich b said...

The dems have been ruined for many years Jammie - now they have a face to tie to the ruin. For years it was Jimmy Carter. Now Omama can rightfully take his place as the face of democrapic stupidity and progressive failure. How can these miserable failures blame Bush now? It's Omama's shit to own, lock stock and barrel.

MoS said...

Oh yeah, that Dem party is loaded with geniuses other than Obama. 

Nope, sorry, as bad as Obama is, he's surrounded by a group of fools.  I'm not a great lover of the current crop of Establishment Republicans, but there is no comparison:  Reid, Pelosi, John Kerrey, Barney Frank, Al Franken, Durbin in Illinois, Maxine Waters, and on and on.  Howard Dean and Debbie Wasserman-Schultz.  One more execrable than the next. 

I was trying to think of a single Dem I could like or even just tolerate...well, Lieberman, who I guess is now an independent, technically, but is a Dem/liberal on most votes.  Yet at least he has some security cred, kind of like Scoop Jackson back in the day, when the Dems weren't mainly of the Far Left as they seem to be now. 

There may be someone else, I certainly don't know every House Rep, but of the major Dem players otherwise, I can't think of one I'd leave in charge of my parakeet if I left town for a day.  They are seriously deranged, and Obama is merely the Crazed Captain on this Ship of Fools. 

Mike Florey said...

This president is in what pilots call an inverted flat spin. He has two chances of recovering: slim and none.

Bohemian Conservative said...

Well, obviously, the folks at Salon are racists!!!! :-P

Blue Collar Todd said...

If the Democrats try and dump Obama then we can accuse them of being racist.

Rose said...

Obama didn't RUIN the DIM Party - HE JUST ILLUMINATED IT AND SHOWED IT FOR WHAT IT HAS ALWAYS EVER BEEN!

Rose said...

AMEN! As they were born, so they are! O:-)

rich b said...

And the scary thing is we may get four more years of these idiots. Yes, there are enough fools to put the same trash back in office in 2012. I know - I live in the Peoples Republik of Kalifornia and look what the wankers here on the left coast did in 2010. They gave Moonbeam Brown another tour of duty as governor and sent Nazi Pelousy back to office. Amazingly stupid!

Ken Moore said...

Race card backfires - Now Democrats are stuck with Obama.  I hope he refuses to bow out.