According to E. J. Dionne, Barack Obama “is trying to recapture the magic of 2008 when he was more a preacher of hope and inspiration than the representative of a particular ideology.” Of course, 2008 was when he was just a candidate for President, instead of actually being President, and it was a lot easier then because all he had to do was to make speeches instead of actually making decisions.
Mr. Dionne continues: “Judging by reactions to Obama's [U.S.] Chamber [of Commerce] speech on Monday, there is a Rorschach quality to his rhetoric these days. People are hearing either what they want to hear or what they were inclined to hear before he even opened his mouth.” Which is the kind of speech that works for a candidate who is trying to be all things to all people – or at least most things to most people.
This kind of speech is a bit of a problem for a president, though I suppose it might work if your main goal is to get reelected, as opposed to actually running the country for the next almost two years. Certainly, then-Senator Obama didn’t’ do much in the Senate during the two years he was running for President. Based on these comments from Mr. Dionne, you wonder how much President Obama will be doing as President over the next two years while he running for re-election.
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Update (2/15/11 12:55 am): Corrected an editing error by inserting "how" before "much" in the last sentence.
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