Doubling down: Obama has my vote again

Have you heard the joke going around?

“How can Obama ever get re-elected?”

“He can kill bin Laden again.”

The way I see it, the problem with the current administration isn’t with the president, it’s with us. We (and I mean the general electorate) elected an intellectual, but we don’t really want a thinker and a compromiser. We want a street fighter. Usually we get what we want and deserve, but this time we reached higher.

Barack Obama is the right president for a country that values integrity and diplomacy, but we are not that country, at least not at this moment. We do not exalt the mediator and conciliator. If we were a people who valued deliberation, patience and moderation, Obama would be a perfect fit. As a professor of constitutional law, he quite naturally seems to see both sides of an issue. Not only that, but he respects his adversaries’ points of view. I like his programs and ideas for America. I wish he were better able to muscle them through Congress.

Seemingly a decent man, a good father and husband, he is an excellent role model in addition to being intellectually gifted. He would seem to be an ideal leader for a country that has always held up its values and mores as examples to the world.

Even his political enemies seem to agree that he is a good man.

But he may lose the 2012 election because he bends when some think he should come to blows. He lacks the “nasty” factor. Seemingly naive in negotiations with intransigent, wild-eyed Tea Party members, he compromised where he might have pressed on. He has the bully pulpit but, sadly, he isn’t a bully. Apparently he can’t twist arms like LBJ or turn on the charm like Bill Clinton or send his minions to spread lies about his political enemies like George Bush.

Many progressive voters in both parties liked Obama’s programs and policies, but despaired as he let those programs get watered down or altered or defeated by extremists on the right. I think it’s just not in his DNA to get down and dirty. He can’t even seem to cash in on his successes, like the changes in health care that have improved services for the nation’s kids. And how often does he mention the single, boldest, most courageous moment of his tenure — the hunting down and killing of Osama bin Laden? Almost never. He doesn’t brag.

But nice guys have trouble finishing first, and unless Obama can augment his Harvard intellectual skills with some New Jersey brass knuckles, he’ll have a tough time getting re-elected.

What may help him is the abundance of GOP yahoos (with the exception of Mitt Romney) on the other side. From Palin to Bachman to Perry to Paul, it would be hard to imagine a weirder selection of right-wing characters. Sarah Palin, of course, is cunning like a fox but proudly anti-intellectual. Sometimes when she starts running her mouth, you just wish you could keep popping in coins to keep her going. Still, she is a take-no-prisoners street fighter, savvy about grabbing media attention and reducing complex economic issues to 10-second sound bites. She is the master of the innuendo, appealing to fear and bias rather than to our better angels.

Michelle Bachman is smart, too, skilled in drawing the spotlight. But her extreme and exclusionary views on religion, gay rights, women’s rights, global warming and evolution most probably make her unelectable. A friend of mine who’s gay says (not entirely kidding) that he’s checking out Vancouver, just in case Bachman gets elected.

Sorry, but I can’t take Rick Perry very seriously. He seems like Will Ferrell playing George Bush. He touts guns and God. He takes pride in the fact that creationism is taught in Texas schools along with evolution. In a country where most people value the separation of church and state, Perry wears his faith too boldly on his sleeve.

An interesting field (so far) facing Obama. I wish he could learn from these opponents, borrow some of Perry’s swagger, Bachman’s emotional intensity and Palin’s fighting spirit. If we could meld these qualities to Obama’s command of the issues, his sense of nuance, his courage in the moment and his overriding integrity, we would have the perfect leader.

Still, I wouldn’t trade what he’s got for what they’ve got. And knowing that no one gets everything they want, I’m betting on Obama. Neither Bachman nor Perry nor Palin can learn tolerance or acquire a progressive world view. Obama can learn to be more emotionally “present.” He can learn to use his bully pulpit more effectively.

I believe that having come through the crucible of these last years, he will be a stronger, wiser and tougher leader in his next term.

Copyright © 2011 Randi Kreiss. Randi can be reached at randik3@aol.com or (516) 569-4000 ext. 304.