Can Obama save his presidency?

I understand that not everyone thinks that president Obama has failed in his tenure so far to the point where he will go down as a failed president if he doesn't make serious changes PDQ.

Joel Kotkin, executive editor of NewGeography.com and a distinguished presidential fellow in urban futures at Chapman University, doesn't think so, either, but does think the day could be close at hand.

A good friend of mine, a Democratic mayor here in California, describes the Obama administration as "Moveon.org run by the Chicago machine." This combination may have been good enough to beat John McCain in 2008, but it is proving a poor way to run a country or build a strong, effective political majority. And while the president's charismatic talent – and the lack of such among his opposition – may keep him in office, it will be largely as a kind of permanent lame duck unable to make any of the transformative changes he promised as a candidate.

If Obama wants to succeed as president he must grow into something more than movement icon, become more of a national leader. In effect, he needs to hit the reset button. Here are five key changes that Obama can implement to re-energize and save his presidency.

Here are the five changes Kotkin identifies, without his expansive text on each point:

1. Forget the "Chicago way."

2. Focus on Real Jobs, Not Favored Constituencies

3. Step on the Gas. [For this one Kotkin means natural gas, the greenest energy source available right now and its use needs to be ramped up pronto.]

4. Rediscover America.

5. Chuck the Nobel; Embrace Exceptionalism.

Kotkin is optimistic that Obama can "hit his own reset button" and make lemonade out of the lemons of the year so far.

I am not so sanguine. I don't think that Obama knows how to hit his own reset button. Absent a near-truly catastrophic personal, not professional, crisis narcissistic people never do reset themselves. Furthermore, who is going to advise him to consider it? No one will print out Prof. Kotkin's essay and place it in Obama's inbox. He has surrounded himself with like thinkers and outright sycophants. Sort of like this guy.





There is nothing in Obama's resume that shows he ever had to hit his own reset button before. He has never had to make highly difficult, greatly consequential decisions that depended on his own personal reservoir of wisdom and experience. The years are long gone when he could have been mentored by people who could have taught him those skills and virtues. Even the Europeans realize now that Obama is in thrall with himself as much as the Europeans are.

Obama lives at the top of the Washington, D.C. political culture, a town that makes Hollywood look like a Sisters of Compassion convent. As his foundering continues, his staff and advisers will finally realize that, like RMS Titanic 97 years ago, Obama's ship of state has taken on too much water to stay afloat. When that dawns on them, they'll take to the lifeboats to save their own careers. They'll let the captain go down with the ship.

The most important question is how much of American's freedom and prosperity will go down with him.