Barack Obama is fired up. Again. Seriously.
He returns to town today, hoping that some people will remember what it was like — back when he could electrify a crowd, back when he could draw tens of thousands, way back in the day.
It may work. There are, in fact, second acts in America. Obama’s fall from grace — or at least his fall from the good side of 50 percent approval ratings — is a lesson not so much inhumility, but of the modern age.
Obama hasn’t led us to the post-partisan world he promised. You can blame it on Obama’s leadership skills. You can blame it on truculent Republicans. You can blame it on an economy that just won’t respond.
Or it just may be that Obama has become the latest example of how insecure we are about believing in almost anything.
I give you, ladies and gentlemen, the Republican presidential campaign as a case in point.
Was it really just a month ago when Rick Perry seemed unbeatable, not only the anti-Obama but also the anti-Romney, the post-Bush, the Texas governor who would, this time, get it right?
Was it only this past weekend when he made the worst debate appearance since Admiral Stockdale and was punished for his crimes against linguistics in the Florida straw poll by voters who picked — get this — Herman Cain instead? Yes, the same Herman Cain whose inexplicable 9-9-9 economic plan is definitely an improvement on his 5-5-5 poll ratings.
So Perry has imploded, like Newtie before him (although Newtie never had a chance) and Trump before him (although the short-fingered vulgarian never had a chance), like Bachmann before them (although she didn’t mean to say vaccines make you “retarded,” but Bachmann couldn’t really help herself).
And Republicans find themselves with Perry clinging to the lead over Romney in the latest polls while no one else is even in sight.
If there’s anything I thought I understood about this presidential primary, it was that Mitt Romney couldn’t win, meaning someone else had to.
Romney wants to be the anti- Obama. He’s trained for it for the last three years. He likes to talk about Obama in the Harvard faculty lounge, but it’s Romney who has two Harvard degrees while his five sons have three among them. It’s Romney who calls himself “middle class” as he fixes up his California middle- class beach house for the middle- class grandkids to visit.
But however much he wants the title, Romney is not the anti-Obama. He’s the Romneycare-imposing Ivy Leaguer who says he’s not a career politician, but that’s only because he keeps losing races.
Still, Romney has a strategy. He avoids straw polls in states he didn’t live in. He won’t really play in Iowa. He’s hoping to give people as few chances as possible to reject him.
When Perry entered the race, the polls showed that most Republicans were finally satisfied with the field. The Republican establishment, however, was never in that group. The Rovians were afraid that Perry was unelectable. It made sense. I mean, can you really say Social Security is an unconstitutional Ponzi scheme and win the presidency? Maybe. Of course, maybe you really can shoot a coyote while you’re jogging. It’s a matter of belief.
I think Perry can come back. So does Obama, who took a shot at Perry on the campaign trail for ignoring climate science while his state of Texas is burning.
Perry obviously needs to do a little homework. For example, he needs to be able to answer a question about Pakistan that’s actually about Pakistan. He needs to avoid debates and spend his time giving speeches about Texas and jobs. He should write on his hand that he shouldn’t remind heartless anti-immigrant types that they actually are heartless.
Some Republicans are still hoping Chris Christie will still join the field. Liberal columnists hope Sarah Palin will run. But the odds are that the field is probably set.
Meanwhile, it’s only natural for everyone to focus on how Perry somehow managed to lose the Florida straw poll despite spending so much money there and coming in as a seemingly prohibitive favorite. But it’s fair to note that the Florida voters may have been unhappy with him, but they weren’t so unhappy that they could bring themselves to vote for Romney, who finished a poor third.
No wonder Obama is fired up again.
E-mail Mike Littwin at mlittwin@denverpost.com.
