The reader writes: "I got an e-mail from my little sister who does not follow politics closely at all. She was a first time voter in 2008. She is exactly the profile of the type of voter Obama will need again in 2012. Her e-mail to me had the subject line: 'I am done.' I opened the e-mail and she had written only one line: 'I cannot support a President who seems incapable of standing up to bullies.' My sister was not focused on the policy merits of the deal. All she was paying attention to were the atmospherics. ... For someone like her, not a member of the professional left ... to have embraced the meme that this President 'caves' is a terrible thing, I think. The White House should be very worried that she has internalized this impression. It will be difficult (if not impossible) to overcome."I too have been hearing similar sentiments from "common folk." They wish Obama would emote more. They ask: Is he strong enough to cope with the GOP wolfen? And where's his Superman cape, anyway? The reader's sister reminds me of my own. In early 2008, she was leaning toward Hillary and fretted about Obama's lack of experience. She, like a lot of smart voters then, was under the spell of Hillary's famous "3 A.M. Phone Call" campaign ad. Ten months later, she literally dropped everything to join me at Obama's inauguration. She didn't vote for Hillary.
I'll tackle the Obama emoting thing in a future post (it's complicated, as they say). For now I just say this: Voters easily swayed by the "atmospherics" now will be easily swayed by them in the future. Obama didn't get rolled in the debt fight (Sullivan aptly calls it "Obama's Pyrrhic Defeat"). It just looks that way to low information voters. The Big Game, Election 2012, hasn't started yet. When it does, Mr. Obama will set the record straight, and will do so powerfully. The meme-driven optics will change accordingly. And voters like the reader's sister (or mine) won't be pulling the lever for Romney or Bachmann. Trust me.
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