President Obama's cold hard assessment of his chances for reelection

By Richard K. Barry

I'm trying to process what I think about President Obama's comments that he believes the odds are against him in 2012, given the state of the economy. I'm not surprised that anyone would think such a thing, I'm just wondering what I think about the president using this as a strategy.

In an interview with ABC News' George Stephanopolous, he admitted, in essence, that his reelection bid would be a challenge and that the American people were "not better off" than they were four years ago, saying that "the unemployment rate is way too high."

Clearly, he is trying to take away as many GOP attack lines as possible. I understand.

Then, to give a hint of how he would respond to such criticism, he said that while he was used to being the underdog, "at the end of the day people are going to ask -- who's got the vision?"

He then went on to outline all the great things he had done and would do, like his proposed American Jobs Act.

And, as if to support Obama's contention, ABC News reported that:

The latest unemployment figures for the month of September will be released Friday, [with] the jobless rate not expected to significantly improve. And next year, leading up to the fall elections, the unemployment rate is expected to climb to its highest level since 1940.

So, I would agree with Obama and his campaign team that it would be unwise to argue with the facts, or what the facts are likely to be come election day 2012. I would agree that they are really doing the only thing they can do, which is to try to convince voters that Obama is still the one with the best vision for the country and the best plan to get us out of the mess we're in.

I just don't know how much patience Americans are going to have for a president who will be going around saying that after four years in office things are still really, really bad, and that this will make it hard for him to get reelected -- that he is the "underdog."

I get what he's trying to do, that this is supposed to set up his pitch. And I guess he has no choice, but it still makes me uncomfortable.

Maybe I'm just from the school that says no matter how bad things are you still go as upbeat as you possibly can. You act like a winner. People are drawn to hope and run from despair. They don't follow underdogs.

Maybe that's not possible this time around. I don't know. Not sure. But I don't like it.

(Cross-posted at Lippmann's Ghost.)