The True Believers Don't Anymore

A President knows that if he goes before certain audiences that it will be a tough crowd. It goes with the territory and the really good Presidents know that the prestige of the office and the recognition of the difficulty which the job entails will temper hostile reaction. The opposition might disagree, but they give courteous response to our chief executive.

It is only when the President is a really bad one, not a really good one, that the atmosphere turns cloudy. Then the prudent President minimizes the exposure. He avoids going where he isn't wanted. He limits his time and keeps his speech neutral, short and filled with motherhood, apple pie and commonly shared culture.

This, however, is a case where the President in full-blown campaign mode well before even the opposition has worked up a lather is being greeted with derision by his base:

So Bad, Even They Have Noticed

C'mon, what sort of speech writer loads a line like this on the teleprompter?

“It’s not as cool to be an Obama supporter as it was in 2008, with the posters and all that stuff,” Mr. Obama told Democrats at an exclusive fundraiser in Miami on Monday. “But the values that motivated me haven’t changed, and I hope they haven’t changed for you, either.”

Really? "...all that stuff"?  The core here is that coolness in voting for a black candidate has morphed into realization that all the cool in the world won't lead a nation. The "values that motivated" are now abundantly clear and they aren't the values which Americans hold dear. It isn't that anybody's values have changed. It is that values are now driving the debate, not coolness.