The new year will be a time for President Obama to focus on the activity at which he’s been most effective: campaigning. As president, he’s been, well, he’s tried really hard, but pretty much everyone agrees he’s an expert campaigner. In 2008, he easily cruised to election on his theme of Hope & Change. Perhaps his campaign was so effective that even today people are filled with hope and a desire for change. If so, he needs to put an end to that immediately.
Obama will have to run pretty much the opposite campaign from what he did in 2008, as “hope and change” are now his enemies.
It’s easy to see why “change” is a bad thing for people to fixate on now that Obama’s the incumbent. “Know what would be a big change for this country? A new president.” It also works against his policy ideas. His “stimulus” consisted of lots of spending. And his “jobs bills” were . . . more spending. The last thing he’ll need is for people to ask, “Should we try something different — you know, a change?” To which he’ll have to respond, “No, that’s crazy. Where did you get this ‘change’ idea from? That doesn’t sound like something I’d say; it sounds more like something from one of those Koch brothers.”
Hope is even worse for Obama. Obama recognizes this, as he recently told 60 Minutes that it will probably take more than one more term and more than one president to fix the economy. Basically his message is: “Things are going to be miserable no matter who you elect, so stick with what you know.”
Because crushing hope is the only economic strategy that’s worked for him so far. It turns out that Obama and his experts understand how jobs are created at about the same level that a four-year-old understands where babies come from, so causing despair is a lot easier and perhaps even more effective in the short term than trying to create jobs. When unemployed people give up hope, they stop even looking for jobs and thus no longer count in the unemployment statistics. Boom! Unemployment drops — thanks to the abandonment of hope!
Also, the only way for Obama to survive a challenger is to eliminate all hope that any of his competitors would be a better president. Obama’s strategy will be to paint the GOP candidate as a stupid, right-wing crazy who hates poor people, but that’s still a far cry from saying the Republican will do a worse job as president than Obama. Because when people are hopeful, they’ll bypass all their reservations about a new candidate (that’s how Obama got elected).
A potato could run against Obama, and people would say, “Well, a potato won’t increase spending or raise taxes. In fact, a potato could be the next Calvin Coolidge!” That’s why Obama has to crush all hope and make people believe that, as bad as things are, this is as good as it gets no matter who is president. Plus, a potato is a racist.
One thing Obama can salvage from his 2008 campaign is his slogan “Yes We Can!” because it’s vague enough to be used for almost anything (campaign slogan, high-school prom theme, tagline for a detergent, etc.). However, people might now respond to “Yes We Can!” with “But you didn’t.” So it will be best for Obama to now emphasize the future tense. “Yes We Can . . . But Not Necessarily Anytime Soon.” See, he just has to tailor it a bit for his new “Despair & More of the Same” theme.
Because if Obama can look out over the American people and see nothing but crushed spirits and those who fear any change, he can pop the champagne corks now; he’ll have the election in the bag.
Political satirist Frank J. Fleming’s e-book, “Obama: The Greatest President in the History of Everything,” is out from HarperCollins.