The Mind Of The O

Psychologist Dr. Drew Westen takes a look at the President and his problems here heading into 2010.

What's costing the president and courting danger for Democrats in 2010 isn't a question of left or right, because the president has accomplished the remarkable feat of both demoralizing the base and completely turning off voters in the center. If this were an ideological issue, that would not be the case. He would be holding either the middle or the left, not losing both.

What's costing the president are three things: a laissez faire style of leadership that appears weak and removed to everyday Americans, a failure to articulate and defend any coherent ideological position on virtually anything, and a widespread perception that he cares more about special interests like bank, credit card, oil and coal, and health and pharmaceutical companies than he does about the people they are shafting.

The problem is not that his record is being distorted. It's that all three have more than a grain of truth. And I say this not as one of those pesky "leftists." I say this as someone who has spent much of the last three years studying what moves voters in the middle, the Undecideds who will hear whichever side speaks to them with moral clarity.

It's a lengthy article and worth a read, but his summary is actually something I generally agree with.  Obama tends to get things done through intermediaries and behind closed doors, and when he does take the direct approach, it doesn't work out so well for him.  He's overly pragmatic and non-confrontational, the exact opposite of Bush's seat-of-the-pants bulldogging, but there is such a thing as too extreme in the pragmatism department.

A good friend of mine once told me "Leadership is making the tough call."  Obama makes deals so that he doesn't have to make the tough call, and that approach rewards and empowers the intermediaries he uses to make those tough calls, namely Rahmbo.

But that's not what's needed right now.  "Better to ask forgiveness of the Left than to ask permission from the Right" is not a governance style that's going to help the Dems  in 2010.

Do read the entire article however, as it's pretty in-depth and Westen does a good job at explaining Obama's mentality and why it's going to bomb horribly in 2010 unless things change.