Liberalguy

Senator Clueless, Even to His Own Party By Monica Crowley (bio)

Honolulu, we have a problem. While Russia was busy invading one of its democratic neighbors and hammering the Soviet Union back together, Barack Obama was on the 7th hole. Strolling the putting greens and beaches of Hawaii wearing not much more than cargo shorts and a smile, Obama poked his head up every so often and made ever more tortured pronouncements about the new Cold War. Today comes word that his cluelessness even has members of his own party rolling their eyes. According to a brand-new Rasmussen poll taken in light of Russian tanks rolling into Georgia, 85 percent of Republican voters believe John McCain is the better of the two presidential candidates to handle a similar crisis in the future. No surprise there. But here is the surprise: only 61 percent of DEMOCRATS feel that way about Obama! And more than one out of five (22 percent) Democrats think the Republican presidential candidate would handle this kind of crisis BETTER than the candidate of their own party! In other words, Obama is suffering a huge crisis of confidence among Democrats. Even they concede that the grizzled war hero is better equipped to deal with international crises than their own guy. Just as worrying for Team Obama must be the poll numbers from the coveted Independents: 56 percent prefer McCain in an international crisis to 28 percent who prefer the Deer in the Headlights. The move by the Rooskies reinforced pre-existing concerns about Obama: that he’s too young, too inexperienced, and too liberal to be a wartime Commander-in-Chief. And the Russian invasion gives us a whole other war to have to worry about. This crisis also reinforced a pre-existing perception that Obama isn’t all that interested in the military–or is afraid of it. (See: Bill Clinton 1992-2001). His choice to blow off seeing our wounded troops while in Germany didn’t help the perception. Nor did his refusal to participate in a townhall with McCain at a military base in front of thousands of active duty servicemen and veterans. Democrats are having a bit of buyer’s remorse. Maybe Hillary was right when she made a futile call to New Mexico Governor Bill Richardson to secure his support: “He cannot win, Bill,” she said. “He cannot win.” And now, more and more Democrats are admitting that he isn’t ready to lead either.