No More Grey Area For Obama

I can hear the words echo as if they were uttered just yesterday..."There is no grey area. You have to stay true to who you are and those that have always been there for you. You can't be all things to all people." These wise words were spoken by my philosophy professor in undergrad after a spirited class discussion around the meaning and wisdom behind the Philosopher Polonius' classic line "To thine own self be true."

After all of the politics and polished tricks put on display during this Election Season, there is one definitive message sent by the American voters who showed up at the polls yesterday: During these turbulent times, as President Obama and moderates painfully discovered last night, there is no more grey area in the American politics of the past, I mean moment.

Yes, the Democrats and President Obama over-intepreted their mandate coming out of the 2008 Presidential Election and made strategic blunders by focusing on health care rather than job creation and education to help prepare our young people to compete in the 21st Century. Furthermore, as Senator Evan Bayh (D) pointed out, "a public unhappy about the direction of the Economy will always take it out on the party in power, even if the problems began under previous management."

Conversely, though, with the exception of a few rising stars like the newly elected Cuban-American Senator Marco Rubio from Florida, the Republicans face a serious deficit of ideas while the American people are begging for solutions. Instead, the Republican agenda boils down to obstruction, fear ("take our country back...from who???), investigations soon to come and extending the Bush tax-cuts which has been cited by some smart people and economists who are pretty good with numbers as the single, largest cause of America' structual deficit.

How about that for some bold thinking.

So what is President Obama to do now? While the Democrats have new ideas, some argue it's clearly time for a new approach that trumpets Democratic principles and revives the middle class with a populist agenda that will ignite the base. Moreover, the purists say, the President won't be able to do this from the once solid grey area that has dissapeared from around him over the past 20 months. He will be left to take a stand (no pun intended).

At worse, they contend, it will only make him more unpopular with those he is currently unpopular with and likely never to trust him. This line of thinking didn't seem to bother his predecessor at all by the way.

Others, like Senator Bayh argue that the President needs to take moderate steps on tax reform, deficit reduction and energy security, while betting that the Republicans re-enact the polictical drama "1984."

In it, John Boehner assumes the role of Newt Gingrich and, ultimately, shuts the government down as he and others appeal to the Tea Party and other elements of the newly empowered right wing and have their hidden agenda exposed to the majority of well-intentioned but mis-informed Americans who got duped or simply stayed on the sidelines and out of the voting booth in 2010. All of this setting the stage for a historic achievement and Democratic resurgence in 2012 spawned by an economic recovery and sealed by President Obama's re-election.

As Bayh states, "the extremes of both parties will be dissapointed. But the vast center yearning for progress will applaud, and the country will benefit." While sound in theory, it will really depend on how much of the grey area around himself President Obama is able to erase in the minds of these voters in the so-called middle. If their perceptions haven't already fully shifted to a different reality.

In fact, if you actually look at his policies and how President Obama has governed overall, he did establish a liberal agenda but also took some calculated risks along the way to find middle ground. He lost his footing, though, as his thin frame was met with fierce opposition coming from the far right and more distance from some of his colleagues on the far left. In a cruel twist of political fate, he was successfully typecast in the role of left-wing elitist when nothing could be further from the truth.

In fact, some like Thomas Friedman of the New York Times have said he didn't go far enough with the stimulus as it stopped the economy from a Great Depression-like hemorrhage, but not enough of the bleeding. And not even close to healing the pain.

Hence, the lines in the center were blurred by justified voter anger and discontent, and not so justified fear, apathy and race baiting (on both sides). Swing voters apparently got enough of a boost from conservative talk radio, Fox News and a Tea Party movement that encouraged them to make a child like jump all the way to the right, believing the ever so cool (perhaps, too cool for the times) and balanced President Obama was a radical dude.

As Maureen Dowd of the New York Times wrote in her column today: "They were able to persuade a lot of Americans that the couple in the White House was not American enough, not quite "normal," too Communist, too radical, too Great Society. All that Ivy League schooling had made them think they knew better than average American folks, not to mention the founding fathers."

Indeed, when the going gets tough around here, the tough get going...back to the familiar. All of which makes it tougher for us as a nation to get going because selfish interests prevail and the fault lines in our history go pretty wide and deep. As a result, its one step forward and two steps back. Meanwhile, the rest of the world is making a series of two-step moves forward toward new industrial economies, propelled by innovation and stronger education.

Change, our government and political leadership in Washington obviously don't believe in.

In the end, the Democrats (once again) assumed that those that believe in them do so in perpetuity and took their most ardent and zealous supporters for granted. While Republicans effectively rallied their base, the Democrats left theirs open to apathy. No sense of urgency. No grass roots movement, no concerted effort to reach young voters, no vote or die, no investment of resources and media to get out the vote among those most likely to vote and support Democrats. Has anyone seen DNC chair Tim Kaine??? Would love to hear more about that election strategy of his.

The First Lady made eloquent, last-minute appeals to reason and Joe Biden hit the urban radio circuit for some "real talk" to put a little more spine that the country and, African-Americans in particular, want to see in President Obama's swagger.

It was all too little and too late.

Of the many lessons President Obama can take from this election is the advice that the wise Philospher Polonius imparted upon is son Laertes, who is in a hurry to get on the next boat to Paris, where he'll be safe from his father's speeches:

"This above all: to thine own self be true,
And it must follow, as the night the day,
Thou canst not then be false to any man."

In reality, the President (or any human being for that matter) can never be all things to all people. What he can be is true to himself and those that truly believe in him. For, unlike love, loyalty is not blind. In fact it can be pretty fleeting these days.