In its fourth year, the Republican campaign against President Barack Obama has still not identified its target.
Spectacularly disappointing in their personal qualifications, this election's candidates have failed to make a good case for replacing Obama, much less for replacing him with one of themselves.
That failure, in large part, comes out of laziness. Obama has somehow become the target of more concentrated and unthinking vehemence than his belittled predecessor. With such a large block of their party set against Obama on some emotional, unthinking level, Republican voters haven’t needed to spend much time explaining him.
But with the thoughtful voter, Obama’s opponents will soon run into the same problem the “impeach-Bush” crowd had for many years, and they may have even more trouble surmounting it. While the idiot/mastermind Bush hydra had only two heads, the socialist/snob/weakling/dictator Obama grows two new necks at every Republican campaign stop.
The middle line has always been that he’s a nice guy without real experience — a community activist who’s unequipped to lead, living in some sort of youthful and idealistic ignorance. Every time Obama does something new, it redefines him. And at this point, he is attributed with having philosophical viewpoints on everything from the stimulus to trade schools.
Even before he came to office, the know-nothing strategy seemed like a bad fit for Obama, a Harvard-educated professor at the University of Chicago. Indecision fit as a distortion of his rhetorical commitment to bipartisanship, but that too has become inconsistent with the equally pervasive theme of oppressively left-wing heavy-handedness.
The misbranding has become particularly dangerous – for candidates politically and for all of us physically – in the debate over Iran. Republicans have been tripping over each other in their eagerness to sound tough on bomb strikes, somehow expecting to distinguish themselves from the do-nothing “Apologizer in Chief.”
But like The New York Times, Obama looks very different outside of America, and his “Global Edition” is the least liberal, bipartisan, indecisive and arguably, the least idealistic.
In this month’s issue of Foreign Policy magazine, David Rohde describes the “Obama doctrine” as one that has caught many by surprise, diverging so sharply from what seemed to be a campaign promise of peace.
As Rohde points out, few predicted Obama’s anti-terror aggressiveness and even now the American public seems to be catching on slowly. After at least 239 covert drone strikes since he took office — compared to 44 under George W. Bush — Obama’s policy has become very clear to residents of Pakistan, Afghanistan and Yemen. He’s been consistently broadminded when considering military force to protect allies, interests and ideals.
Obama’s record overseas is controversial and should make for a great policy debate. However, Republicans have sidelined the issue and committed themselves to the weakest approach: attacking his leadership ability.
To be effective, Republicans must confront the fact that Obama is a capable executive. He’s not a “feckless” bumbler, he’s not poorly equipped and he’s certainly no glassy-eyed idealist.
He has policies that deserve thoughtful challenges. A responsible opposition should be focusing on those.
Reach the columnist at john.a.gaylord@asu.edu
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