Can Obama hear himself?

He can still raise celebrity money for his party but his rhetoric is downright pathetic:

Flying thousands of miles to reap millions of dollars, President Barack Obama is dashing across the country to help his party retain power, essentially offering one familiar argument: Republicans don’t solve problems.

“Don’t give in to fear,” Obama said Monday in his latest ominous vision of a country led by the opposition party. “Let’s reach for hope.”

Obama has settled on his message for the pivotal midterm elections, which means what he said Monday in Milwaukee will sound like what he says Tuesday in Seattle and Wednesday in Miami. He is covering more than 8,000 freewheeling miles in three days, the kind of personal attention that gets donors to the door.

I guess you can't blame the guy; it worked so well the first time. But perhaps he hasn't noticed that it's been a while since anyone has called for the smelling salts. And his, er, let's call it confidence, prevents him from seeing the bitter irony his recycled slogans have taken on. Hope and change indeed.

Eighty-one percent (81%) of American adults know someone who is out of work and looking for a new job. Only 14% now believe the labor market is stronger than a year ago. One-out-of six American workers (16%) consider themselves to be among the working poor.

Most voters say that President Obama is more liberal than they are. The president's numbers are virtually identical to those of the Democratic Congress. A plurality view Republicans in Congress as more conservative than they are.

Sixty-seven percent (67%) of the Political Class believes the nation is heading in the right direction. Eighty-four percent (84%) of Mainstream voters disagree and say the nation has gotten off on the wrong track.

Those are some seriously lopsided numbers. The emperor (and empress) are revealing more and more skin with each passing day. And the president either has abysmal advisors or he refuses to listen to them; his Ground Zero mosque statement, followed by his lame "clarification," was an unforced error. Jennifer Rubin quotes Larry Sabato:

A lot of endangered congressional Democrats must be wondering why President Obama waded into this hot controversy when it was both politically foolish and unnecessary. … The political damage is done and now all Democrats will have to take a stand on this “local issue” that Obama has nationalized.

The consolation for Democrats is that voters have resisted a long list of other distractions (the BP oil spill, immigration, gay marriage) to focus heavily on the rotten economy. Come to think of it, that isn’t much of a consolation.

J-Ru adds:

No, it’s not. But there is a whole lot of political karma for a president and party who have spent a year and a half ignoring and ridiculing voters.

Pete Wehner:

Approval ratings in the 30s may now be within Obama’s grasp before the midterm elections.

To quote his eloquent mentor, Obama's chickens are coming home to roost.

This just in: Total destruction: GOP out to biggest generic ballot leads in history in both Gallup and Rasmussen:

The most amazing thing about this? When Democrats tell people that voters hate the GOP as much as they hate them, they’re not blowing smoke. That’s basically true. In fact, in many polls, the Republican Party’s favorables are still lower than the Democrats’. And even so: Biggest generic ballot lead … in history. That’s how popular Hopenchange is. [. . .]

Meanwhile, because he’s clearly a political genius, Obama’s still whining about Republican opposition to an agenda that’s so unpopular that it’s carrying them to unprecedented leads in major polls

Read the rest. America is waking up.


(PS to readers: I won't really be back for another week or so. Family emergency. Many thanks to my awesome guest bloggers. -Jill)

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