One of my favorite scenes in “The West Wing” is a flashback from early in Season 2. Jed Bartlet, then a long-shot presidential candidate, asks Leo McGarry, his campaign manager, why he is trying so hard to get him elected.
"Because I’m tired of it,”, Leo answers. “Year after year after year, of having to choose between the lesser of, ‘who cares?’ Of trying to get myself excited about a candidate who can speak in complete sentences. Of setting the bar so low, I can hardly look at it."
After Clinton’s impeachment and the failed campaigns of Al Gore and John Kerry, many liberals shared Leo’s frustration. Democrats had low standards; many who had grown up with Roosevelt and Kennedy as recent memories worried that no candidates with such inspiring vision could ever get elected in the twenty-first century’s cynical political culture.
Barack Obama was the candidate we had been looking for. Here was a man who wanted to inspire the nation to achieve big things. He was tolerant, principled, and devoted to reason. He saw the best in everyone, even those that hated him. He had a sense of history, but also understood the Internet and rap music.
Obama won a landslide victory after a campaign that appealed to our best selves, and I dared to believe that a strong majority of Americans could be united around a common agenda. The Great Recession disrupted this inspiring moment and robbed Obama of his honeymoon period.
All presidents must respond to events as they happen, but no president had the start of his term in office coincide with the beginning of economic catastrophe. He achieved a lot in his first six years, but amid historic levels of economic anxiety, the public was no longer in the mood to be inspired. His popularity suffered, and he had to spend the first six years of his time in office apologizing for circumstances what were not of his making while waiting for the economy to make up lost ground. Cynicism reasserted itself over politics.
That’s why it felt so good to watch Obama deliver the State of the Union address last Tuesday. For the first time, he told the nation that the economy is improving, unequivocally. He didn't try to explain why bad times weren’t his fault or to inspire hope for the future despite the present. Reeling off a series of positive data points, he was able to say honestly, credibly, and for the first time in his presidency, that everything is going to be okay. The speech’s punchline was, “the shadow of crisis has past.” In other words, “situation normal.”
As economic optimism and consumer confidence skyrocket, public anxiety is lifting, and Obama’s approval ratings are on the rise. Perhaps now Obama will have his honeymoon. It’s like he has finally arrived, six years later (albeit with Republican majorities in Congress, but I’ll take what I can get).
This is a good sign for Democrats in 2016; as Dana Milbank pointed out in a column last week, an incumbent President’s approval ratings are highly correlated with the likelihood of his party to win the next election. If Obama can use newfound popularity in his final two years to help Hillary Clinton become President, he will leave his ongoing initiatives on immigration, climate, and conservation in safe hands. It would be his ultimate vindication.
It’s been difficult to watch my dream president take such a beating for the last six years. I’ve been waiting for this moment in Obama’s presidency since I first saw that scene in The West Wing. I can’t wait to see what the next two years will bring.