Obama, If you’ve lost Peggy Noonan…

posted at 10:40 am on July 24, 2009 by Slublog

In today’s Wall St. Journal, Peggy Noonan pronounces ObamaCare ‘mostly dead:’

This is big, what’s happening. President Obama appears to have misstepped on a major initiative and defining issue. He has misjudged the nation’s mood, which itself is news: He rose from nothing to everything with the help of his fine-tuned antennae. Resistance to the Democratic health-care plans is in the air, showing up more now on YouTube than in the polls, but it will be in the polls soon enough. The president, in short, may be facing a real loss. This will be interesting in a number of ways and for a number of reasons, among them that we’ve never seen him publicly defeated before, because he hasn’t been. So we may be entering new territory, with new struggles shaped by new dynamics.

His news conference the other night was bad. He was filibustery and spinny and gave long and largely unfollowable answers that seemed aimed at limiting the number of questions asked and running out the clock. You don’t do that when you’re fully confident. Far more seriously, he didn’t seem to be telling the truth. We need to create a new national health-care program in order to cut down on government spending? Who would believe that? Would anybody?

Noonan’s theory is that it is not the Republicans or the moderate Democrats who are killing ObamaCare, but American common sense; the growing realization that we’re carrying unprecedented levels of debt and the only possible repayment plan is higher taxes on all taxpayers. That realization is leading to uncertainty and anger, and some Democrat politicians are finally beginning to see just how angry some of their constituents are. The same politicians who dismissed the tea parties as a bunch of racist, right-wing ‘teabaggers’ are now being openly mocked when they try to flack for the president’s policies.

It’s not just conservatives who are angry. Judging by Obama’s falling ratings, independents are starting to turn against the president’s policies as well. I think the main reason for the anger is that they feel deceived. The voters were promised a moderate and they got a hard leftist. And when those already-angry voters see their own Democrat Congressperson passing 1000+ page, budget-busting bills without reading them, they see an outlet for that frustration.

I disagree with Noonan’s assertion that Obama misread the national mood. I think Obama is smart enough to know there was some growing opposition to his bill. The simple fact that he held a press conference and schedule a number of interviews was evidence of that. Obama’s problem was not a lack of insight, but an overabundance of hubris. Obama wrongly assumed he could counter the opposition by going on television. He overestimated the power of his charisma, and that miscalculation is taking its toll.

It will be interesting to see how this affects the White House political strategy. Two paths are before the president. Which one will he take?

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