change is hard

President Barack Obama makes an election night phone call to Rep. John Boehner (R-Ohio) from his Treaty Room office in the White House residence, Nov. 2, 2010. (White House/Pete Souza)

There's an almost-reasonable argument to be made that things didn't go as badly as they might have done for the Democrats. Harry Reid somehow held on against the Tea Party favourite Sharron Angle in Nevada; O'Donnell went down (as predicted) in Delaware. They retain control of the Senate (though obviously, if all Senate seats had been up for grabs last night, they'd have been routed) and won back the governorship of California.

But this is straw-clutching. The Republicans exceeded already-high expectations, gaining (probably) 65 seats in the House. If O'Donnell lost, a far superior and more dangerous Tea Partier won in Florida (Marco Rubio) and Rand Paul won in Kentucky. Most ominously for their opponents, Republicans swept to power in statehouses across the country; 33 out of 50 states now have a Republican governor. That gives the GOP the power to redraw the political map and reconfigure political machines to bolster the chances of Republican candidates in 2012 and beyond. Most stinging of all for the White House was the defeat of Ted Strickland in Ohio, which is itself a significant blow to Obama's chances of re-election in 2012.

The president's path to re-election just got a lot steeper. Now, the party in the White House usually takes a beating in the midterms. The Republicans would be as mistaken to get carried away at their success yesterday as the Democrats were two years ago. Reagan and Clinton had to suck up a hammering in 1982 and 1994 and of course, both went on to win re-election.  But does Obama have the kind of political skills needed to fight his way out of this tight corner? Does he have the ability to connect with the voters over the heads of Washington politicians, in the way that Reagan did? Can he duck and shimmy and scrap like Clinton? Will the Republicans play into his hands, as they did under Gingrich? I'm not sure.

As I said the other day, Obama rose to power on a hugely powerful story of change. But he hasn't yet found a governing narrative. What does he want to do his presidency? What's he for? What's he against? He's got to give some big, clear, convincing answers to these questions, starting with his press conference later today.

He's also got to pray that the economy picks up speed in the next two years. If it doesn't, he's odds-on to lose in 2012.

Comments

[Ejoch]

You're spot on about the narrative needed. Somebody in The Times the other day (or was it the LA Times...) pointed out, a person mightn't have liked George W Bush's approach to the world, but they understand what he was trying to do, especially in foreign policy.

It isn't just connecting with the voters though is it- it's more fundamental. Clinton recovered because he was content to move to the centre, it wasn't an alien place for him. The recent White House announcements seem to imply the President won't countenance such a thing.

[Jon]

@Ejoch: Though I agree with your point of creating a clear direction, I disagree with the view that moving to the center would help Obama. The Democrats just lost a huge election, where their base didnt show up, the voting percentage of under 30 voters got halved. Signalling that Obama is now going to move to the center is unlikely to motivate the coalition of voters that elected him in 2008.