Few celebrities have fallen harder or faster than the once-savior of our country, Barack Obama. Just a year ago, he was the prophet of a gigantic movement that promised to “change” America; today he is merely an embattled U.S. president, long since stripped of his divine aura, powerless to make America a better place, despite his personal popularity.
The thousands of ecstatic worshippers that won several historically “red” states for Obama only a year ago were nowhere to be seen in the recent special elections, when fellow Democrats Jon Corzine and Creigh Deeds desperately needed them. As a result, Republican candidates won the governors’ seats in both New Jersey and Virginia, with energized Republican voters turning out in much higher proportions than Democrats.
Even as polls showed Obama’s support in both states remaining the same, Obama’s campaigning for Deeds and Corzine failed, as his supporters simply didn’t listen to their prophet’s call for help.
It’s true that Deeds and Corzine weren’t particularly popular and that local issues may have been more important factors in their defeats than national ones. However, the Democrats are rightly worried about the vanishing of what was once Obama’s source of power — his devoted fan base.
So where have all the Obamamaniacs gone?
It is certainly true that Obama himself has failed to live up to the impossible expectations from the time of his election, but his worshippers should have known better. If so many millions of young voters are only now discovering the wonders of checks and balances, then America’s education system has failed and may well merit more urgent attention than health care reform.
But recent events point to something more ominous: Too many of Obama’s voters, young and old alike, may truly not agree with Obama’s policies and probably did not know just what they were voting for on that exciting night last November.
While recent polls show a majority of Americans favoring health care reform, for example, that figure is deceptive, because each voter thinks of something different when given the term “reform.” Even though more than 50 percent of Americans favor a generic “reform,” there is no one specific health care bill that can possibly receive the same level of support. This is why congressional opposition has been so intense to each proposed bill.
The voters — or, more accurately, different groups of them, who command different congressional representatives — demand “change” but immediately shoot any proposal down the moment it becomes specific enough to actually do something tangible.
The Democratic leaders thought they had a mandate just because Obama won a popularity contest. Unfortunately for them, as the euphoria wore off and the situation called for hard choices, the voters discovered that Obama stands not just for hopeful and meaningless “change,” but also for specific policies which made those hard choices.
A year ago, voters were only voting for the candidate, not for his policies. Now, they are voting against his policies, but not yet against Obama himself.
This disconnect cannot last forever. Sooner or later, voters turn against the party in power when they don’t get their free lunch. For Democrats, that’s bad news.
Reach Kenneth at kenneth.lan@asu.edu.
