Bogeymen lurk in every corner of the president’s rhetoric. If he’s speaking to a labor group, he raises the specter of what Republicans would do to their benefits and wages and jobs. If he’s speaking to Latinos, he suggests that the GOP is preparing to round them up illegally and engage in mass deportations. Not a speech goes by without a mention of the bad old days of George W. Bush. It is only a matter of time until the president and his surrogates tell African Americans that a Republican victory would mean a return to Jim Crow.

Oh wait, that’s already happened.

Obama soon will discover, however, that the politics of fear only take one so far. Animosity is a powerful inducement to political activity, but it cannot win over a majority of the country. The more Obama gins up his base, the more he alienates the independents and white voters who could be his undoing. It also helps when the fear in question has something to do with reality. George W. Bush warned against the dangers of Osama bin Laden and an axis of evil between rogue states and global terrorist groups. Barack Obama is warning against the purported danger of your uncle who watches Fox News Channel, criticizes Nancy Pelosi at Thanksgiving dinner, and doesn’t find 8.3 percent unemployment terribly impressive.