Why Obama is Failing

Here's a pretty good analysis of why Obama is falling in the polls. He has an "economic team" that is failing and Obama is not smart enough to realize they are getting into trouble, so he keeps backing them rather than firing them and getting in advisors and staff who can help him effectively address the real economic woes of the the country: jobs, a cratering housing market and commercial real estate market, and a credit crunch that keeps 90% of the businesses in America stuck. Here are some key bits from the Bloomberg News report by Albert Hunt:

A year ago, the expectation was that President-elect Barack Obama’s economic team would be a smooth- functioning machine, and the outlook was for turbulence in the national-security arena.

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Two recent anecdotes illustrate this problem. On Dec. 2, as Obama prepared to give a major economic speech at the Brookings Institution on Dec. 8 (and a day after his Afghanistan speech at West Point) he met with policy makers. He heard a familiar reprise of the previous several meetings with budget director Peter Orszag arguing for more emphasis on reducing the deficit and Council of Economic Advisers chief Christina Romer leading the contingent espousing a greater short-term stress on jobs.

The president, by his standards, exploded. “Why are we having this meeting again, the same discussion,” participants quoted him as saying.

Several administration insiders, prominent outside Democratic economic advisers and a few Congressional heavyweights, all worry this is symptomatic of a process that isn’t working well. Summers, they argue, is brilliant on policy and ill-suited for a high-level staff job, which is what the head of the National Economic Council is.

“If you came up with 10 words to describe Larry, coordination and collaboration would not be two,” says one person requesting anonymity who has worked with Summers extensively and admires his intellectual force.

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The other problem, an inability to effectively communicate an economic policy, was typified in a Dec. 4 interview with Geithner, who was asked what is the “clear, coherent economic message” of the administration.

He proceeded to talk about “high-class education” for children, affordable health care, better incentives for energy and infrastructure, public-private arrangements and the like.

There are 15.4 million unemployed Americans and another 11.5 million “underemployed,” either having given up looking and thus not counted in the jobless numbers or involuntarily relegated to part-time work. A laundry list of the Democrats’ agenda is unlikely to prove comforting.

Geithner, who wins praise from Obama and others for his substantive performance after a shaky start and some more recent cheap political shots, acknowledges that public communications isn’t his forte. It isn’t Summers’ either. And those who are more effective, including Roemer and fellow Council of Economic Advisers member Austan Goolsbee, sometimes are cut out of the action.

The result: On the economy, Americans are losing confidence in the president, who gets little credit for policies that avoided an economic calamity and are starting to turn things around. In a survey by pollster Ann Selzer a few weeks ago for Bloomberg News, voters by 50 percent to 45 percent disapprove of Obama’s performance on the economy; the numbers were worse on handling the budget deficit and dealing with Wall Street.

Twelve months is more than enough time for a "fast learner" like Obama to catch on that he has signed up some real duds for economic "advisers". He should can Larry Summers and Timothy Geithner. The fact that he hasn't and appears that he won't is why I've really soured on the guy. He has shown himself inept in managing Congress, he gave away the ranch to try and woo Republicans on health care and got nothing, and his economic "team" is useless. When will Obama wake up that his "Change You Can Believe In" is a complete mess. When will he recognize that over 10% unemployment is unacceptable? When will he recognize that he is digging a grave for himself in Afghanistan by sending in more troops?

I've lost all confidence in the guy. I'm ready for a guy at side stage to send out the hook and yank Obama off the stage. The American voters need to send in a new team in 2010 and 2012. (But please, please don't send the Republicans back into power! Those guys are far worse than Obama!)