Roll Call: Obama Now The Underdog

It’s becoming clear that Barack Obama, who is as ruthless in his dealings as anyone ever to occupy the White House, is now trading on the perception that he’s the underdog in the 2012 election.  Stuart Rothenberg, writing for Roll Call, attests to the shocking news (at least, to Rothenberg) that Obama’s status as the frontrunner is in trouble:

“Back in October, President Barack Obama’s job approval rating stood at 44 percent in the NBC News/Wall Street Journal survey and only 17 percent of voters said that things in the country were ‘generally headed in the right direction.’ Those numbers suggested that the president would lose re-election unless he was able to change the direction of public opinion … [Now] Obama is clearly once again in serious trouble. In fact, the president now looks like a narrow underdog for re-election. Yes, a narrow underdog.”

Of course, Rothenberg isn’t exactly known for accuracy in prognostication. This is what he wrote in April 2009 about the Republicans’ chances of winning back the House in 2010:

“Over the past couple of weeks, at least three Republicans — House Minority Whip Eric Cantor (Va.), former Speaker Newt Gingrich (Ga.) and campaign consultant Tony Marsh — have raised the possibility of the GOP winning back the House of Representatives next year. That idea is lunacy and ought to be put to rest immediately … there are no signs of a dramatic rebound for the party, and the chance of Republicans winning control of either chamber in the 2010 midterm elections is zero. Not ‘close to zero.’ Not ‘slight’ or ‘small.’ Zero.”

Notwithstanding Rothenburg’s own shortcomings, the prevailing narrative promulgated by the White House is to portray Obama as the underdog, with emails to the public asking if we’ve “got his back.”

For a man who is as ruthless as Obama in his consistent desire to flout the Constitution to pose as weak and needing help would be ludicrous if he weren’t so inherently dangerous to the charter of our republic.  Obama has the likes of George Soros, virtually all of traditional media, the unions, and the rest of the liberal constellation behind him. His new pose as underdog is a clever political ploy, not a serious analysis of the situation.