Byron York has a piece up about Mark Halperin of Time wishing for a catastrophe to help boost Obama’s popularity:
What Obama really needs, Halperin says, is a stroke of good luck. “Busy as he’s been, he has not yet experienced a single major moment that has benefited him politically,” Halperin writes. Events like the Gulf oil spill have been harmful, rather than helpful. So what would brighten Obama’s political prospects? Here’s Halperin:
“No one wants the country to suffer another catastrophe. But when a struggling Bill Clinton was faced with the Oklahoma City bombing and a floundering George W. Bush was confronted by 9/11, they found their voices and a route to political revival.”
Of course, the Oklahoma City attack killed 168 people, and September 11 nearly 3,000. So Halperin quickly adds: “Perhaps Obama’s crucible can be positive — the capture of Osama bin Laden, the fall of the Iranian regime, a dramatic technological innovation that revitalizes American manufacturing — something to reintroduce him to the American people and show the strengths he demonstrated as a presidential candidate.”
Maybe a bin Laden capture or Iranian revolution would help, although it seems highly unlikely that a dramatic technological innovation would revitalize American manufacturing in time for Obama to be re-elected in 2012. But the fact is, presidents have often shown their true mettle in the face of tragic circumstances. And Obama’s partisans appear to be coming very close to hoping for a tragedy to revive the president’s political fortunes.
I think Halperin has it wrong. Clinton and Bush gained the support of the people because they were the kind of men who could really connect with the American people after a tragedy, in an emotional way. Say what you will about Bill Clinton, he did have that capability, in spades.
However, Obama is definitely cut from a different cloth… even his supporters admit that his demeanor is more cool and detached.
The way Obama connects to people is the opposite of a Clinton, a Bush, or a Ronald Reagan. Those presidents were all relaters. They bonded with people based on common feelings, experiences, and interests. Reagan did this best through the medium of television. Bush did it best in person and not so well through television. Clinton could do it blindfolded and hanging upside down. But for all three, connecting emotionally was part and parcel of their political skill. As a result, people tended to love them or hate them, sometimes in succession, but without much neutral ground in between.
Obama’s coolness and detachment put him in a different category of president that includes Lincoln (on the positive side) and Jimmy Carter (on the negative). His relationship with the world is primarily rational and analytical rather than intuitive or emotional. As he acknowledged in his interview with George Stephanopoulos the day after Scott Brown’s victory, his tendency to focus on substance can make him seem remote and technocratic. So while many people continue to deeply admire him, few come away from any encounter feeling closer to him. He is not warm, he is not loyal, he is not deeply involved with others. His most fervent enthusiasts tend to express love for the ideas he embodies and represents—America transcending its racial history, a fairer and more unified society, rationality, wise decision-making, and so forth—as opposed to for the man himself.
Most of us over a certain age can remember Carter’s “catastrophe,” and the aftermath thereof… Americans held hostage in Iran for 444 days (that’s over a year for the mathematically challenged). Carter’s response to it, specifically “Operation Eagle Claw” which led to the loss of two American aircraft, eight American servicemen, and one Iranian civilian, is not quite so memorable, but undoubtedly was remembered when people went to the polls about 7 months later in November, 1980. It’s quite possible that had Carter handled the hostage crisis better, he might have fared better against Reagan and been granted a second term. As it was, however, it certainly seems that the failures that led to the hostage crisis and the inability to pull off a rescue helped doom Carter’s reelection bid.
So, Halperin’s error is in focusing on the catastrophe, and not the response to it. Both Clinton and Bush approached the problems in a presidential manner, and yes, they received a political benefit to it, as crass as that sounds. Obama, however, faced with a catastrophe, would probably react much more in the Carter mold, and therefore wouldn’t necessarily gain any benefit, and might even hurt his standing.
Mr. Halperin should be very careful what he wishes for.
