According to a report in the Daily Telegraph, many Democrats are beginning to wake up and smell the lousy economy. Not only are the party insiders beginning to doubt Obama's re-election prospects but they are beginning to reconsider whether Hillary Clinton would have made a superior president. In the words of the great political commentator Homer Simpson "Doh!"
One big reason is for the party malaise was Obama's performance during the debt ceiling debate. The party faithful was upset that the President agreed to widespread cuts in government spending without winning any revenue increases in exchange.
Finding it hard to defend his often listless and repetitive performances, Democratic strategists and commentators are privately agreeing with Republicans and comparing Mr Obama to Jimmy Carter, another Democrat who remains the post-war benchmark for a failed president.
"He is a do-gooder at heart," said Morris Reid, a Washington consultant and former Clinton official. "He thinks everyone has the same agenda to do the right thing, but other people don't have the same agenda. Their agenda is to score points and get their party re-elected.
They also feel that Obama does not have same "killer instinct" that the Clinton's have. Both as a Chief Executive and a politician Obama doesn't like to get down in the mud and fight.
"This is the downside of him not being terribly political like Bill Clinton was. Bill Clinton woke up every day relishing this kind of fight, and Hillary is just a tougher person. The Clintons are much more combative, they are always ready to go to Defcon 1 ('war is imminent' state)."
....."The notion everyone is talking about is 'is he Jimmy Carter or will he be a one-term president'," he said.
Yikes, the GOP has been making the Carter comparison for months, it's kind of weird to know that the Democrats are starting to agree. It's almost as if "they've lost that lovin' feeling."
Gary Pearce, a Democratic strategist in North Carolina, a swing state Mr Obama is likely to struggle to retain in 2012, said: "Democrats are worried. He looks weak, he doesn't say anything that grabs you, and people are looking for some kind of magic."
He said some activists were asking "do we need someone tougher to fight the tea party?" "You see a yearning for a Bill Clinton-type approach and Hillary would reflect that. Obama is just a different political animal, he is a low-key guy," he added.
Pearce is wrong, it's not that he is a low-key guy, it's that Obama believes he is the "idea guy," he doesn't like to fight in the trenches.
A 2012 primary challenge by Mrs Clinton is currently regarded as unlikely, but growing number of party activists and old hands are hoping that she changes her mind.
On his nightly television show, liberal host Bill Maher dismissed Mr Obama as a Republican, and asked his panel if Mrs Clinton would have made a better president.
"Yes," replied astrophysicist Neil deGrasse Tyson, an African American astrophysicist and broadcaster, adding that the Secretary of State would have been "a more effective negotiator in the halls of Congress."
Some Democrats are even feeling "snookered" that Obama fooled them with his brilliant 2008 campaign
An article in the New York Times by Drew Westen, a professor of psychology at Emory University and a specialist in political messaging, summarized the dismay at Mr Obama's performance and was rapidly circulated online by liberals.
"Those of us who were bewitched by his eloquence on the campaign trail chose to ignore some disquieting aspects of his biography: that he had accomplished very little before he ran for president," he wrote.
Even worse, they are realizing that Barack Obama has accomplished very little after he was inaugurated as president also.
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