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Has Obama's Popularity Peaked?
There is a growing number of Americans, including some in the dominant moderate/liberal media, who are speculating upon this question: When will Barack Obama’s “Day of Reckoning” arrive? Not this month probably, as the President’s honeymoon, while fraying, is still largely intact, in line with other first-termers (yes, including George W. Bush) who haven’t yet reached the benchmark 100-day mark. Yet while hyper-partisans yuk about the largely inconsequential theater of Rush Limbaugh lapping up attention (and ratings) and RNC chairman Michael Steele’s embarrassing apology to the talk radio celebrity, at some point, sooner rather than later, Obama won’t be able to rely on his supporters and Congressional allies to whip up the troops with increasingly pointless Bush-bashing.

As the recession deepens, with even congenitally optimistic economists unable to predict any semblance of recovery in 2009, Obama will be held accountable by citizens who’ve lost their jobs, seen savings evaporate and the stock market—which Obama unwisely commented about last week, saying that daily DJIA/NASDAQ tallies are similar to gyrating political polls—is in the sewer. As any young businessman will tell you, nothing kills off a bad product (like Obama’s economic recovery plan) faster than a good salesman. The President’s a great cheerleader, and it helps that he’s perceived as a hands-on chief executive, but if the results aren’t there, his rhetoric will ring hollow....

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Ignoring the hole in the roof
...In the last few months, our economic and financial problems have worsened dramatically, and the administration has really done nothing to fix the problems. Despite this glaring and fundamental issue, Obama continues his incredibly ambitious and expensive plans with almost no regard for the growing economic mayhem. On a day when the Dow again lost another four percent, Obama announced plans for healthcare reform with a $650 billion price tag. He’s prepared to sign a $3.6 trillion budget which will double our national debt and add more to our deficit than all of his predecessors combined; he is prepared to sign the $410 billion omnibus spenging bill replete with its 8570 earmarks—something Obama promised to eliminate. Meanwhile, Geithner has yet to offer any sort of concrete plans to address the economy. The house is crumbling around him, but the President seems determined to make it bigger anyway.

Barack Obama didn’t cause the problems he now faces, but he’s exacerbated them. What Obama and his administration should have done—and perhaps still can—is set aside other plans and focus almost myopically on the economy. Fix this, and Obama’s political capital will be nearly limitless. But fix it, and fix it now.