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The Uncool President
Townhall.com ^ | November 1, 2012 | Victor Davis Hanson

Posted on 11/01/2012 10:50:22 AM PDT by Kaslin

In 2008, Barack "No Drama" Obama was the coolest presidential candidate America had ever seen -- young, hip, Ivy League, mellifluous and black, with a melodic and exotic name. Rock stars vied to perform at his massive rallies, where Obama often began his hope-and-change sermons by reminding the teary-eyed audience what to do in case of mass fainting.

Money, like manna from heaven, seemed to drop spontaneously into his $1 billion campaign coffers. Ecstatic Hollywood stars were rendered near speechless at the thought of Obama's promised Big Rock Candy Mountain to come -- peace, harmony, prosperity and "5 million new jobs" in renewable energy alone.

Even the cynical Europeans went crazy over his anti-George W. Bush candidacy, one gussied up with faux-Greek columns and Latin presidential mottoes. Huge rainbow-colored Obama signs sprouted like weeds on America's upscale suburban lawns, and hip-hoppers rapped out Obama themes. All of America, it seemed, wanted to believe in this largely unknown newcomer.

The giddy media declared Obama a "sort of god," and "the smartest man with the highest IQ" ever to assume the presidency. Somehow, even legs got into the hero worship, as pundits praised the sight of Obama's "perfectly creased pant," and one commentator felt "this thrill going up my leg" when Obama spoke.

And why not, when the soft-spoken, adaptable African-American candidate preached civility and visions of a postracial America -- changing his speech from a white suburban patois to Southern black evangelical cadences as needed to woo widely diverse audiences.

Obama, the most partisan member of the U.S. Senate, promised a new post-political nonpartisanship. Almost by fiat, he declared an end to big debts, corruption, lobbyists, wars, unpopular American foreign policies and unlawful antiterrorism protocols -- almost everything that had predated the presidency of Barack Hussein Obama.

Four years of governance later, the huge crowds have mostly melted away. Those still left do not faint. The columns are in storage. The Latinate "Vero Possumus" is not even voiced in English.

Instead of "no red states or blue states" healing rhetoric, Obama has sown all sorts of needless divisions in hopes of cobbling together a thin us-versus-them coalition, as independents flee. The 99 percent claim oppression by the 1 percent. Young single female professionals are supposedly at war with Republican Neanderthals. Beleaguered gays apparently must fight the bigotry of the homophobic right wing. Greens should go on the offensive against conservative polluters who are OK with dirty air and water. Latinos must "punish our enemies" at the polls, and Attorney General Eric Holder's "my people" are to be set against "a nation of cowards." With all the advantages of incumbency and an obsequious media, why is Barack Obama reduced to stooping to save his campaign?

A dismal economy, of course, explains voter discontent. So do the contradictory and illogical explanations about the recent killing of a U.S. ambassador and three other Americans in Libya. Mitt Romney is also proving a far better campaigner than were prior so-so Obama opponents like Hillary Clinton and John McCain. Obama's first debate was a disaster.

A more worldly Obama no longer talks of cooling the planet or lowering the rising seas. Barely even with challenger Mitt Romney in the polls, he now alternates between the crude and the trivial in a campaign that in its shrillness on the stump evokes the last desperate days of failed incumbents like Gerald Ford, Jimmy Carter and George H.W. Bush.

Obama blasts Romney as a "bullsh--ter," and releases an ad in which a starlet compares voting for him to her first sexual experience. When Obama is not crude, he is adolescent -- as he references Big Bird, plays word games like "Romnesia" and ridicules Romney for his "binders" debate remark.

The greatest problem facing Obama, however, is not just his mediocre record of governance, but the growing public perception that he is as uncool in 2012 as he was cool in 2008. Voters no longer feel they're square for voting against Obama. Instead, it's becoming the "in" thing to shrug that enough is enough.

A common theme of classic American tales such as "The Rainmaker," "Elmer Gantry," "The Music Man" and "The Wizard of Oz" is popular anger unleashed at Pied Piper-like messiahs who once hypnotized the masses with promises of grandeur.

The bamboozled people rarely fault their own gullibility for swooning over hope-and-change banalities, but rather, once sober, turn with fury on the itinerant messiahs who made them look so foolish.

In other words, it is not just the economy, foreign policy, poor debating skills or a so-so campaign that now plagues Obama, but the growing public perception that voters were had in 2008, and that it now is OK -- even cool -- to no longer believe in him.


TOPICS: Culture/Society; Editorial; Politics/Elections
KEYWORDS: 2008election; 2012election; barackobama; hollywood

1 posted on 11/01/2012 10:50:23 AM PDT by Kaslin
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To: Kaslin

Obama learned cool along the way I guess but he never learned class and never learned grace.


2 posted on 11/01/2012 10:53:17 AM PDT by jimfree (In Nov 2012 my 12 y/o granddaughter has more relevant&quality executive experience than Barack Obama)
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To: jimfree
That is for sure, and neither did Moochelle.

Both are klutzes

3 posted on 11/01/2012 10:56:19 AM PDT by Kaslin (Acronym for OBAMA: One Big Ass Mistake America)
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To: Kaslin

Cool? From booting slum tenants out in the cold to delivering the deals to our enemies, Obama remains the COLD, self-centered, serial destroyer. #COLD #EMPTY #FAIL


4 posted on 11/01/2012 11:08:15 AM PDT by Voter62vb
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To: jimfree
Class is a distinction unto itself. Cool is not always classy and in fact, usually is not.

The trouble with people who are hung up on ‘cool’ is that they are usually the most inexperienced and ill-bred people. They never manage to outgrow their attachment to the latest version of what is ‘with it’ and hip... their taste never develops and they are immature until the day they die.

I like to say these are the people who, if they won the 20 bazillion dollar lottery tomorrow, would STILL take their vacation in Disneyland and think they are doing great because the have the biggest TV on earth! Their tastes will not mature but instead they will want the same things they did when they were 12 years old... only more of them and bigger!

5 posted on 11/01/2012 11:12:42 AM PDT by SMARTY ("The man who has no inner-life is a slave to his surroundings. "Henri Frederic Amiel)
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To: All


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6 posted on 11/01/2012 11:16:12 AM PDT by musicman (Until I see the REAL Long Form Vault BC, he's just "PRES__ENT" Obama = Without "ID")
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To: Kaslin
Hanson states "even cynical Europeans went crazy+" over the first Socialist candidate ran for POTUS put there by overwhelmingly ignorant Americans who for the past 200+ years have NEVER, EVER had anything but freedom. Coupled with a charming Brooks Brother poster boy who was half Black these poorly educated people put a Marxist/Socialist who derides Capitalism in favor of Marxist spreading the wealth...a tried and failed form of economy...ENTER Mitt Romney...a Conservative successful Businessman running against the Marxist/Socialist. Socialist love Obama....Economist and conservatives do not....they trust the Conservative Businessman.

The 2012 Election:
A Republic v Socialism - Freedom v serfdom - Democracy v Chromatocracy

7 posted on 11/01/2012 11:24:26 AM PDT by yoe (Vote for the Real American whose love for his country has NEVER been in question.)
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To: Kaslin
"Voters who feel they were had in 2008 have had enough."

NRO's subtitle sums it up nicely.

8 posted on 11/01/2012 11:37:14 AM PDT by neverdem ( Xin loi min oi)
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To: SMARTY

Agree to both. Obama is ungracious and classless when he blames Bush or in a health care says “I won John”. Those are only two of the times this man has shown himself to be incredibly small.


9 posted on 11/01/2012 11:51:47 AM PDT by jimfree (In Nov 2012 my 12 y/o granddaughter has more relevant&quality executive experience than Barack Obama)
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