Quotes of the day

“President Obama’s re-election campaign, smarting from days of doom-saying, sent out a memo from Mr. Axelrod Friday morning, saying prognosticators busy burying any chance of an Obama Second Term don’t understand what’s really going on in the nation’s body politic. Sure, the president’s approval ratings are in dangerously low territory 14 months before the 2012 election. But Americans like his plan to create jobs and boost the economy. They trust Mr. Obama and like him.”

“Dismal new poll numbers for President Obama in Virginia and North Carolina underscore a growing danger to his 2012 re-election hopes — his job-approval ratings have dropped below 50 percent in all of the key states that he ‘flipped’ from the Republicans in 2008.”

“His numbers are nowhere near where they once were, and yet Obama still behaves as if it is still the winter of 2009 – as if the only people who are skeptical of him are the so-called radicals in the ‘Limbaugh wing’ of the Republican party. This last week has been a great case in point. He’s basically done the same thing that he did in January 2009: produce a stimulus that largely favors Democratic client groups, accuse the opposition of acting in bad faith, and tour the country encouraging his followers to call, write, or (of course) tweet their support of the president to congressional Republicans, who are so eager to place politics above the national interest…

“Either he and his team don’t realize that the bottom has dropped out, so they don’t know that they need to change strategies, or they do realize it but haven’t come up with any alternatives.

“My money is on the former – he and his team haven’t figured it out yet. Truman went hyper-partisan against the Republicans in 1948 because he believed that, deep down, the country was still way more Democratic than Republican (and he was right about that). Obama is behaving this way because he believes that, deep down, there are still way more Obama supporters than opponents.”

“With frustration and disappointment mounting from stinging defeats in Tuesday’s two special elections and over Obama’s jobs plan, the media is filled on Thursday with Democrats on the record publicly questioning and doubting the president and some of his policies, and a few even unleashing biting criticism…

“Democrats also predicted more trouble for Obama if he offers up changes to Medicare or Social Security in his new deficit-reduction proposal on Monday, according to the Wall Street Journal…

“A few members of Obama’s party even want a primary challenge to the president, The Hill reported.”

“‘It’s like he’s morphed into another person,’ says one veteran entertainment executive, a passionate Democrat, who asked not to be identified because the person is thinking of sitting out this election. ‘He’s not the idealistic guy we thought he would be. Everyone I talk to is disappointed.’

“Disenchanted Hollywood’s list of the president’s shortcomings seems to grow monthly: Environmentalism, gay rights, the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and Obama’s handling of the unemployment crisis are a few of the persistent gripes. It might be a town filled with Bentleys and designer handbags, but high-level Hollywood is populated with self-made successes, and their sense of identification with the working and middle classes remains a powerful force when it comes to politics.

“‘He favors Wall Street instead of the everyman,’ says the veteran entertainment executive. ‘All he’s doing is taking our money, and he’s not doing anything we want him to do.’”

“‘Summers walked in, slightly late, but not impolitely so, and met Orszag at the table. And then it was the two of them. Orszag hoped that this time the White House would be less fraught with strife than the last go-round during the 1990s. Summers said it kind of came with the territory. This talk of their shared history seemed to thaw things out. They both grabbed for the plate of flatbreads … and tore corners at the discus-sized breads. ‘You know, Peter, we’re really home alone.’ Over the past few months, Summers had said this, in a stage whisper, to Orszag and others as they left the morning economic briefings in the Oval Office. … ‘I mean it,’ Summers stressed. ‘We’re home alone. There’s no adult in charge. Clinton would never have made these mistakes.’”

“Given all that, it’s no surprise that many Democrats are running away from Obama. But here’s the problem: He did what Democrats wanted him to do. Health care, stimulus, taxes, you name it — Obama did what his party wanted. Not what the public at large wanted, but what many Democrats wanted. And now, as the negative electoral consequences of their own priorities stare them in the face, those Democrats are blaming the president…

“‘It’s ingratitude,’ says a Democratic strategist who asked to remain anonymous. ‘People are saying to [Obama], ‘You didn’t do everything you told me you were going to do.’ If you’re a member of a union, you didn’t get everything you wanted. If you’re an environmentalist, you didn’t get everything you wanted. But the left wants to go beyond what’s possible.’…

“This is a serious question: If you’re a Democrat, what’s not to like? What kind of unreasonable standard would make a Democrat unhappy with a president who accomplished those things? And yet many Democrats are beside themselves with frustration and anxiety.”

“There’s a strange thing happening in the media which is, I think, liberalism has sort of concluded that Obama is kind of a turkey, and they’re sort of trying to distance themselves from him.”

Blowback