Why Is Barack Obama Struggling? The Muddled Middle

President Obama this week delivered once again on a campaign promise, by getting a huge (2000 plus pages) financial regulatory reform bill passed.  Add that to his healthcare reform and the stimulus bill, and you have by one measure--the passage of sweeping legislation--a hugely successful presidency.  So why do Barack Obama's numbers continue to plummet?

I think there are two reasons.  The first is persistent unemployment, something others on this blog have been trying to hammer into my skull (Colonel Dan once referred to "McGrathium" as the most impenetrable substance known to man).  The second is the shallowness of a huge part of the political spectrum.

Unemployment is the actual, tangible outcome of market forces--be they capital, labor, fiscal or regulatory.  The broad interaction of these variables generally accounts for unemployment.  These forces are currently "out of balance" and the unemployment rate seems doggedly affixed at the near 10% level.  This is bad enough on its own, but the fact that this 10% represents (again, as others have been driving home here) unemployment across the wage, education, race and gender scale (although male unemployment is dramatically higher than female--come to think of it, is anyone really complaining about this disparity?  Didn't think so) has a much broader swath of Americans nervous about the future.  This nervousness is translating into some portion of the lack of support for the President.

The second reason the President is struggling is a function of the popular election of Presidents--which is to me, the best way to anoint a leader, though not without its foibles.  Barack Obama is doing exactly what he told us he would do.  He is doing so aided and abetted by a Democratic Congress.  Foreseeing this, Republicans and Conservatives were not fooled by the rhetoric, the flash, the cool and the vibe.  Republicans and Conservatives naturally voted for the candidate (John McCain) who more closely reflected their policy preferences.  On the other end of the spectrum--Democrats and Liberals voted for Barack Obama in droves, because they hoped he would do exactly what he said he was going to do--aided and abetted by a Democratic Congress.  Democrats and Liberals saw all the stars aligning for a fundamental redistribution of income, power and authority from the private sector to the public sector.  Barack Obama has delivered this re-alignment very successfully, and he remains popular with Democrats and Liberals (though not quite as popular).

Who has deserted Mr. Obama?  The middle, or as I like to call it, "The Muddled Middle".  The Muddled Middle views elections as social contests rather than political.  The Muddled Middle looked at the crotchety old man the Republicans ran and contrasted him with the young Hepcat the Dems put forward.  The Muddled Middle listened to the soaring rhetoric of the One and contrasted it to the sometimes acerbic and cynical patois of the Other.  In a triumph of style over substance, the Muddled Middle--with their gas-guzzling SUV's sporting "Hope and Change" stickers--drove to their polling places and pulled the lever for their man, their New Man--propelling him into the White House, where he and his colleagues in the Congress commenced to doing--as both those on the Left and the Right knew he would--exactly what he said he would.

The problem is that the Muddled Middle didn't really listen all that hard to what He was saying--just how He said it.  They didn't listen to the incipient statism being advocated--numbed as they were by be-columned stages set amidst stadia of Roman splendor.  They didn't listen--and they delivered unto the country a President who is honorably and effectively carrying out the exact program he said he would.

But now the Muddled Middle is expressing a bit of buyer's remorse.  The Muddled Middle is not particularly politically sophisticated; it is not however, dumb.  The Muddled Middle--because of its lack of ideological mooring--is a uniquely sensitive gauge for watching the mood of the country.  The MMG (Muddled Middle Gauge) moves more precisely as the result of policy implementation than the VRWCG (Vast Right-Wing Conspiracy Gauge) or the BHLG (Bleeding Heart Liberal Gauge).  What is it that the MMG is responding to? 

The Muddled Middle is registering its angst at what it "feels" (because that's the way the Muddled Middle generally processes) is the movement of the country in a direction with which it is uncomfortable.  The fundamental and systemic shift in the relationship between the governed and the government is most reliably read on the MMG--as the VRWCG is over-sensitive to creeping statism and the BHLG is oversensitive to heartless capitalism.  The Muddled Middle is concerned about long-term debt, and it wonders why Mr. Obama and his supporters seem to believe the answers lie in more revenue (taxes) rather than less spending.  The Muddled Middle was concerned at how much money it was paying on a monthly basis for its healthcare, and is slowly waking up to the reality of a massive healthcare bill that will do nothing to control their costs while it raises debt.  The Muddled Middle generally believed that the state of emergency in our economy meant the the "government had to do something", yet it wonders why so much of the $800B stimulus has not been spent yet.  And that wonder has them thinking that maybe--just maybe--not all $800B was wisely planned. 

On foreign policy, the Muddled Middle bought into the meme that the reputation of the US had declined in the world--but when they thought of the world, they thought of our friends and allies--UK, Japan, France, Germany.  They didn't spend a lot of time worrying about the US reputation in the Islamic world, and they now wonder why it is the President spends so much time and effort on relations with nations and peoples who despise us while he devalues relations with long-time friends and allies.  In the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, The Muddled Middle supported the President both in his desire to wrap things up in Iraq and to concentrate our efforts in Afghanistan--but they are unsure how giving adversaries a copy of the pull-out timetable aids in the attainment of war aims in either place.

The Muddled Middle is where elections are won and lost.  Barack Obama is increasingly losing The Muddled Middle, and Republicans are slowly, slowly making gains.  But Republicans must be wary--most of that support is simply being "the other".  Americans are not flocking to Republican and Conservative ideas so much as they are running from Democratic and Liberal ideas.  They will flock right back if Republicans ignore them or take them for granted.