Julian Zelizer: For Obama, Crisis May Outweigh Record
[Julian E. Zelizer is a professor of history and public affairs at Princeton University. He is the author of "Arsenal of Democracy: The Politics of National Security: From World War II to the War on Terrorism," and of a book on former President Jimmy Carter, to be published next fall by Times Books.]
...As Democrats move into the 2010 midterm elections and start thinking about 2012, the administration is struggling to deal with two difficult crises, both of which have generated concerns about the president's response and the perceptions of him as a leader.
The first is the oil leak in the Gulf, one of the greatest environmental catastrophes in American history. The second is an unemployment rate that continues to hover near 10 percent. The slow economic recovery has still failed to make a significant dent in the number of Americans who don't have jobs. American voters are frustrated and angry....
Democrats have started to compare Obama to FDR or LBJ, counteracting the more problematic comparison to the one-term President Jimmy Carter....
History shows how perceptions can become extremely damaging politically. While popular memory usually depicts Carter as incompetent and ineffective, he had many achievements.
Carter was able to secure passage of an economic stimulus bill, government reorganization, airline deregulation, energy reform and an ethics in government law. He created the Department of Education. On foreign policy, the ratification of the Panama Canal Treaties marked a significant departure in U.S. relations toward Latin America.
The Camp David Accords constituted the first major peace agreement between the Israelis and one of its Arab neighbors, Egypt. After the Soviet Union invaded Afghanistan in December 1979, Carter -- who had already pushed for a significant increase in defense spending -- announced a crucial reorientation of national security policy with a new emphasis on protecting the Persian Gulf.
None of this helped on the campaign trail. In the election of 1980, Ronald Reagan defeated Carter with 489 electoral college votes....
In his talk about the Gulf, Obama must stop complaining about the press or simply saying that he is doing everything possible.
Instead, he must genuinely convey his frustration and concern about what is happening and lay out a specific agenda about what the federal government intends to do over the next few months to help bring the environmental crisis to an end and to diminish the risks that another one occurs soon.
Read entire article at CNN.com
...As Democrats move into the 2010 midterm elections and start thinking about 2012, the administration is struggling to deal with two difficult crises, both of which have generated concerns about the president's response and the perceptions of him as a leader.
The first is the oil leak in the Gulf, one of the greatest environmental catastrophes in American history. The second is an unemployment rate that continues to hover near 10 percent. The slow economic recovery has still failed to make a significant dent in the number of Americans who don't have jobs. American voters are frustrated and angry....
Democrats have started to compare Obama to FDR or LBJ, counteracting the more problematic comparison to the one-term President Jimmy Carter....
History shows how perceptions can become extremely damaging politically. While popular memory usually depicts Carter as incompetent and ineffective, he had many achievements.
Carter was able to secure passage of an economic stimulus bill, government reorganization, airline deregulation, energy reform and an ethics in government law. He created the Department of Education. On foreign policy, the ratification of the Panama Canal Treaties marked a significant departure in U.S. relations toward Latin America.
The Camp David Accords constituted the first major peace agreement between the Israelis and one of its Arab neighbors, Egypt. After the Soviet Union invaded Afghanistan in December 1979, Carter -- who had already pushed for a significant increase in defense spending -- announced a crucial reorientation of national security policy with a new emphasis on protecting the Persian Gulf.
None of this helped on the campaign trail. In the election of 1980, Ronald Reagan defeated Carter with 489 electoral college votes....
In his talk about the Gulf, Obama must stop complaining about the press or simply saying that he is doing everything possible.
Instead, he must genuinely convey his frustration and concern about what is happening and lay out a specific agenda about what the federal government intends to do over the next few months to help bring the environmental crisis to an end and to diminish the risks that another one occurs soon.