From a Canadian perspective, U.S. President Barack Obama has had a busy and productive first year in office. He has improved America's image in the world, stabilized an economy in crisis, refocused the Afghan and Iraq wars, banned torture, and pushed for affordable health care for 30 million more people.
Whether this adds up to the "action, bold and swift" that he pledged in his inaugural address a year ago today is for American voters to judge. And Canadians have reason to grouse about Buy American rules and excessive border security. But Obama is a welcome change from the George W. Bush era of market irresponsibility, unjustified war, lack of regard for allies, and disrespect for international law.
Still, Americans are in a sour mood. Obama's approval rating has slumped from 70 per cent to 50 per cent. Significantly, voters no longer trust the Democrats as they once did on such key issues as the deficit, taxes and terrorism. That's a problem.
Tuesday night it cost the Democrats the iconic Massachusetts Senate seat held by Ted Kennedy for nearly a half-century, plus their Senate supermajority,thereby putting a question mark over health reform.
As Democrats glumly survey this political wreckage, they blame the economy, mostly. Some 15 million Americans (10 per cent) are jobless. Washington is saddled with a record budget deficit and debt. Taxes are a worry. And the economy is weak. Anxious voters are venting.
Over the past year re-energized Republicans have surfed this frustration, tarring the Democrats as the party of big government, big spending and big deficits. That's rich, after the Bush years. But Obama, a cerebral conciliator, has been slow to call out his critics, refute the Republican narrative and rally weak-knee Democrats in Congress behind robust, affordable health reform and meaningful stimulus.
That reluctance to confront foes and failure to inspire allies is costly.
Obama's State of the Union address a week from today is an opportunity to reboot. But only if Obama proves true to his inaugural maxim that "greatness is never a given . . . it must be earned." As the first African-American president and a Nobel laureate, Obama has a shot at greatness. But he will have to work at it.
What Americans want is near-term growth and jobs, a credible plan to deal with the $12 trillion national debt over time, and reassurance that health reform and stimulus are affordable. If the Democrats deliver, Tea Party conservatives will have a harder time demonizing government, even in America's poisonously partisan climate.
But Obama also needs to refute his critics on the stump and to rebrand his Democrats as progressive populists, unless he wants to risk the Republicans cutting down his party in the Senate and recapturing the House in this year's midterm elections.
He needs to point out, with more passion than he has, that Republicans got America into trouble with their tax breaks for the affluent, negligent market oversight, ruinous wars and corporate boondoggles. They have no credibility raging at Democrats for investing in people: health care, schooling, community infrastructure, social welfare.
The Democrats, for all their flaws, have a good story to tell. But Obama and his allies have to start telling it, forcefully.
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