If President Obama needed any more indication of how much his public support has eroded, he need look no further than a recent memorandum of sorts published in the New York Times by former President Bill Clinton's pollster, Stanley Greenberg. Listen to Greenberg, whose progressive polling firm partners with Clinton strategist James Carville, advise Obama and Democrats on what his latest round of polls and focus groups reveal are their only hope to survive politically, given the current reality:
"Voters in the developed world are turning away from Democrats, Socialists, liberals and progressives."
"Voters feel ever more estranged from government—and they associate Democrats with government."
"If they are to win trust, and votes, Democrats must show they are as determined as the Tea Party movement to change the rules of the game."
"This distrust of government and politicians is unfolding as a full-blown crisis of legitimacy [and] sidelines Democrats and liberalism."
Greenberg says that his public opinion research now reveals that voters believe, "Government rushes to help the irresponsible and does little for the responsible."
To win, Democrats must "advocate policies that would control the borders and address problems of undocumented workers," and voters want to "see strong enforcement at the border and in the workplace, and the expulsion of troublesome undocumented immigrants."
"Finally, progressives have to be serious about reducing the country's long-term deficits" because "the deficit matters to people and has real meaning and consequences."
To recap, after analyzing his reams of public opinion research, President Clinton's pollster just advised the most progressive President in American history to mimic the Tea Party's resolve, stop government from rewarding the irresponsible over the responsible, crack down on illegal immigration and get tough on border enforcement, stop illegal immigrants from being hired over legal citizens, and deport violent or law-breaking illegal immigrants, and to top it all off, Obama and the Democrats should stop the government's profligate spending spree and bring down deficits.
Crickets chirping.
In sum, to have any shot of surviving the political onslaught of the rage roiling in the land, the leftist pollster, writing in the New York Times, has just pleaded with Obama to morph himself into a Tea Party conservative.
Whatever one thinks of Greenberg's progressive political views, he is a seasoned and accomplished pollster who, along with James Carville, Dick Morris, Paul Begala, George Stephanopoulos and others, successfully navigated Bill Clinton to two presidential victories. Put simply, Greenberg knows of which he speaks. And what his soundings reveal spells potential disaster for Democrats heading into the next election cycle.
Why? Because the more Obama and Democrats attempt to tack back to the political center, the deeper the erosion will be among their progressive base. Indeed, already, Obama has seen sizable losses in support among his liberal base, and there are already signs that Obama's backers may be experiencing "donor fatigue."
Recall again that Bill Clinton's reelection was made possible when Dick Morris urged him to sign the Republican's welfare reform bill so that he could "end welfare as we know it," as Clinton famously put it.
It's hard to imagine Obama willfully undergoing a similar course correction and advocating and passing the kinds of center-right policy proposals Greenberg's polls and focus groups demonstrate the voting public demands. Indeed, given the disenchantment among his progressive base, along with the economic free fall black Americans are presently suffering as the nation witnesses the disappearance of the black middle class, every inch that Obama's campaign dares to move to the center will further infuriate and alienate the dwindling vestiges of support he presently enjoys among his progressive base.
Much can and will change between now and November 2012. However, when a successful Democratic strategist all but urges the most far Left president in American history to don a three-cornered hat and join the Tea Party policy parade of fiscal discipline and border enforcement, you know there's serious trouble in progressive paradise.
