Ron Fournier
Ron Fournier
Ron Fournieris an American national political journalist currently of the National Journal. Fournier had previously served as Washington bureau chief at the Associated Pressuntil leaving in June 2010...
NationalityAmerican
ProfessionJournalist
CountryUnited States of America
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Perhaps we should wait until his second term begins before carving Barack Obama's face in Mount Rushmore. Is that asking too much?
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Don't kid yourself. President Obama's decision to withdraw 33,000 troops from Afghanistan before he stands for reelection is not driven by the United States' 'position of strength' in the war zone as much as it is by grim economic and political realities at home.
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To be fair, my analysis failed to spell out Obama's first-term accomplishments, although I did acknowledge his 'enormous skills' and tried to focus readers on the distinction between good and great presidencies.
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Voters don't have to love him, Romney advisers say, but they will respect him.
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One side of the American psyche wants smaller government, lower taxes, and more choices for individuals, even if those choices increase risk. The other wants a strong social safety net to protect the weakest among us, even if it costs more to minimize risk.
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The problem, gentlemen, is that Obama is right: The promise of upward mobility is dying in America, and no amount of political demagoguery will fix it.
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The question is whether voters, particularly independents, believe that Obama truly values personal liberty and responsibility as much as the government-bought safety net.
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Barack Obama may have found the answer to his biggest rhetorical challenge: When millions of voters are unemployed or underemployed, how does a president simultaneously sound realistic and optimistic?
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A sagging economy, a soaring national debt, and an increasingly restive Congress pushed Obama to order troop reductions that are both deeper and faster than recommended by his military commanders.
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Hollywood has a history of raising expectations beyond Washington's reach, of appealing to the very American desire to mythologize political leaders, particularly the president.
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Part of the problem is voters know relatively little about Romney. And some of what they know about him complicates his task: Romney has a history of flip-flopping on issues, he's extraordinarily wealthy, and he can be tone-deaf about what moves voters. He just doesn't seem comfortable in his skin.
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Close elections tend to break toward the challenger because undecided voters - having held out so long against the incumbent - are by nature looking for change.
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Christie led the way - with a bulldozer. The governor is blunt, brash, and self-consciously authentic, the antithesis to what turns off today's voters: flip-flopping politicians who speak in poll-tested platitudes. Yes, he's the anti-Romney.
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In the time it takes to heat a TV dinner, Clinton had convinced me that he was the smartest person in the room and that I was the center of his attention. In the next 25 years, I would see countless others fall just as quickly to the Clinton Touch.