One, Obama hasn’t lost yet. And I have to believe that he will be able to expose Romney and the Republicans in their zeal to grab power and lower taxes for the rich.
Two, their difficulties with Washington politics are very different. On one hand, Carter was an honest and naive man that refused to play the back room dealing games that make (used to make) Washinton run. Carter wouldn’t play ball, and nothing got done. His successor, Ronald Reagan certainly did know how to play the Washington game, and was very successful at getting things done. (Anyone remember the “Reagan Democrats?”)
On the other hand, Obama faces an absolutely partisan, fanatical, and highly adversarial Republican party. There’s no “playing the game” with this lot. To get anything done, he needs to win the election, have big majorities in the Senate and Congress, and those Republican Tea Party crazies have to be booted out of office. Unfortunately, those conditions will never happen (not in the near term, anyway). And even if he wins a second term, he’ll have great difficulty getting anything done, no matter what he does. Quite a shame, really.
And an unfortunate shame for the world. For, as the great ship America sinks, the crew is too busy focusing on partisanism to notice that the water is rising to their necks...
