Referendum on Obama

By John Rapley

Americans turned out in unusually large numbers to make history, electing their first black president. Tomorrow, they will deliver their verdict on the man who promised hope and change.

It mightn't be too much of a stretch to say that the primary issue in the 2012 election will be the same as that in the 2008 election: Barack Obama. However, the similarities end there.

Four years ago, Americans seemed to feel they had a date with history, and the junior senator from Illinois was to be the man who completed their destiny. Today, they're wondering where the love went, and trying to decide if it's worth standing by him at all.

Barack Obama promised to restore civility to American politics, to mend historic wounds, and to transform America with a bold new vision. The night of his election, the pundits went silent when his victory was announced: choked up at the profundity of what Americans had just done, they were all, from one end of the political spectrum to another, at a loss for words. That glow carried into the weeks which followed, as friend and foe sought the company of the new president.

Sadly, the honeymoon was all too brief. America quickly reverted to its disputatious ways. Whether any president could have breached the ideological divide that had come to separate Republicans from Democrats, President Obama could not. Historians will debate who deserves the blame for that. Democrats insist that the Republicans were plotting to defeat an Obama presidency from day one. Republicans contend that Mr Obama took the high road, and reverted to the partisan ways of the past.

But if this is so, Mr Obama must have been quite inept. If he was trying to just please his base, he failed. Four years ago, core Democratic constituencies - African Americans, Hispanics, women - were joined en masse by first-time voters, young Americans who fell in love with Obama like a smitten sophomore on a first date. Four years on, the marriage consummated, they're more like a bored spouse annoyed by their mate's mannerisms.

thrill turns to chill

What killed the thrill? In part, so many expectations were heaped on Mr Obama that he was bound to disappoint. After all, one man cannot, overnight. repair several centuries of historical misdeeds. November 2012 will give the US a new administration, not a catharsis.

In part, the Obama presidency was forced to back-pedal because of the exigencies of governing, as any president is. Grand ambitions run into bureaucratic inertia or unexpected opposition, which no president can control. After all, while the American president is a very powerful man, he is not omnipotent.

Finally, perhaps most damagingly, Mr Obama made some early, ill-judged decisions which would prove difficult to later reverse. At a moment of economic crisis but historic opportunity, his delivery of the nation's economic policy into the same band of Wall Street culprits who caused the financial crisis put paid to any hopes of transformational leadership. Having promised hope and change, Mr Obama delivered more of the same.

If I had to put any money down, I'd bet that on Wednesday morning, we will still wake up to an Obama presidency and a split Congress. Nonetheless, this election has confounded the pundits, and I wouldn't be surprised if there are some late surprises- such as an unexpectedly strong showing by one candidate or the other. It will all come down to ground games. With little to separate them in the polls, whichever candidate turns out his supporters will get the nod.

Regardless of whether Mr Obama or Mitt Romney wins, though, unlike in 2008, there will be little of a honeymoon this time around. America is going through a difficult time. As Lawrence Powell wrote in yesterday's Gleaner, the social divisions tearing America apart rival those of Civil War times. Americans might not be about to take up arms. But you don't need to take up arms to be at war.

Whoever wins tomorrow night, I wish him well. He will need all the luck he can get if he is to succeed in governing the US at a time of such discord and discontent.

John Rapley is a foreign affairs analyst. Email feedback to columns@gleanerjm.com and rapley.john@gmail.com.