Victor Davis Hanson shares with National Review Online readers his take on President Obama’s approach to re-election.
Barack Obama’s favorability in the polls fell when he acted like himself — overexposed, hard-left in his press conferences, and boastful about legislative achievements like Obamacare and a stimulus of more than $1 trillion.
Then a strange thing happened. Obama largely went quiet. Often he was out of sight, vacationing in Hawaii or golfing. It was almost as if he had learned that the less he was seen or heard, the more Americans liked the idea of Obama as president rather than the reality of his constant “Make no mistake about it” and “Let me be perfectly clear” sermonizing. …
… Obama now rarely talks about his supposed signature achievements, whether the huge “pump-priming” deficits or the unpopular Obamacare. Republicans have controlled the House of Representatives only for the past year, yet Obama now blasts them for stopping what he wanted to do as president. In contrast, he hardly praises the Democrats who controlled both houses of Congress for twice that time and enacted all that he wished. How strange to keep silent about successes, only to broadcast failed what-ifs.
President Obama now campaigns on events that happened despite, not because of, him. His administration has cut federal oil leases by 40 percent, subsidized money-losing and now bankrupt green companies, and openly wished that gas and electricity prices would skyrocket to make alternative energy cost-competitive. But recently he bragged that we are pumping more oil than ever. Natural gas is suddenly no longer an earth-warming pollutant but welcomed in vast abundance.
Left unmentioned is the cause of this unexpected energy bounty: The economic stagnation between 2009 and 2012 has curbed energy demand, while private entrepreneurs have used new fracking and horizontal-drilling technology on largely private lands to revolutionize the production of fossil fuels. Again, Obama seems to take credit for things that occurred over his opposition — as if to say, “I knew you’d be glad I didn’t get my way.” In the fine tradition of American politics, the successes of others are Obama’s; Obama’s failures are the failures of others.
