As President Obama falters in the polls, Republicans and Democrats have wondered if his presidency could follow the path of former Democratic President Jimmy Carter to a re-election defeat. Obama demonstrated that he can talk the Carter talk even as he might walk the walk to a one-term presidency.
President Obama offered a surprisingly bleak characterization of the American people at a fundraiser, of all events, for the Democratic National Committee, in remarks that could appropriately bear the title “crisis of confidence”:
Obama’s belief that Americans have such a negative “innate sense” about society recalls President Carter’s famous “crisis of confidence” speech, or “malaise” speech, as it came to be known. Carter famously described the country in terms that haunted the rest of his term and legacy:
It might be a disservice to Carter to liken his remarks to Obama’s, because Obama seems to embrace certain problems that Carter criticized – but Obama makes a virtue of them. For instance, Obama portrays Americans as complaining about the long work hours and crying “life’s not fair” and so offers himself as someone to ride to the rescue. Carter, at least in theory, derided the “tend[ency] to worship self-indulgence and consumption” while upholding the virtues of “hard work, strong families, close-knit communities, and our faith in God.” Carter hoped that Americans would not “close the door on our past,” while Obama aspired to be a transformational president.
Perhaps these analogies should not be over-pursued. Carter, after all, spoke in his capacity as president. Obama, on the other hand, spoke at a fundraising event. Indeed, he carefully distinguished the campaign from the presidency:
Obama regards the presidency as his “day job” alongside campaigning, while 9.1% of Americans don’t have a day job – a contrast that might prove very relevant on Election Day 2012.
