When is it time to look for a new candidate for 2012?

Dear Friends,

In The New York Times this morning both Frank Rich and Maureen Dowd wrote articles expressing, better than I have, that the main problem with President Obama is his failure to actively support anything.  Here are a few quotes from Frank Rich's column:

But the real problem is that he’s so indistinct no one across the entire political spectrum knows who he is. A chief executive who repeatedly presents himself as a conciliator, forever searching for the “good side” of all adversaries and convening summits, in the end comes across as weightless, if not AWOL. 

Mr. Rich then goes on to explain the popularity of New Jersey Governor Chris Christie who has a 51% approval rating.

But the core of Christie’s appeal at home is that he explains passionately held views in concrete, plain-spoken detail. Voters know what he stands for and sometimes respect him for his forthrightness even when they reject the stands themselves...G.O.P. propagandists notwithstanding, Christie’s appeal does not prove that New Jersey (and therefore the country) has “turned to the right.” It does prove that people want a leader with a strong voice, even if only to argue with it.

Mr. Rich concludes with a sobering thought.

Everyone will have caught on by 2012, but that will be too late for many jobless Americans, let alone for Obama. As the economics commentator Jeff Madrick wrote in The Huffington Post, the unemployment rate has been above 7 percent only four times in a presidential election year since World War II — and in three of the four the incumbent lost (Ford, Carter, the first Bush). Reagan did win in 1984 with an unemployment rate of 7.2 percent, but the rate was falling rapidly (from a high of 10.8 two years earlier), and Reagan was as clear-cut in his leadership as Christie (only nicer).

Maureen Dowd in her column while discussing Don't Ask Don't Tell made the following statement which could be applied to President Obama's entire presidency so far.

Once again, the Democrats waited too long to close the deal, the president showed no leadership, and a campaign promise that was seen as a fait accompli now seems a casualty.

I am not quite ready to start looking for another candidate for President in 2012, but I am getting very close.  We need to start talking openly about the possibility.

Thanks for reading and please comment,
The Unabashed Liberal