When I asked Obama’s top lieutenants about his image problem—how he manages to get caricatured as both a crypto-Marxist radical and an unprincipled, professorial pushover, all at the same time—they responded, almost reflexively, with the usual excuses: we inherited a terrible economy, and, anyway, we really have passed a lot of legislation. But while that analysis is basically accurate, as Beltway scorekeeping goes, it’s hardly the kind of rallying cry required to remobilize millennials and independents, key constituencies among whom Obama’s support has plummeted more than a dozen percentage points since 2008. And so Chicago is crafting a new, more combative message. “I speak as one who has responsibilities in this regard, so I take a good deal of the blame,” David Axelrod, Obama’s chief political strategist, confessed. “We took a guy who speaks about vision and values in as compelling a way as anyone of this generation, and we made him into a narrator of the day-to-day decision making of government.”