LIBERAL NEWS & REPORT

Charlotte, N.C.: Obama Comes To Bat - By: Roger Simon

[ Roger Simon ]

CHARLOTTE, N.C. — Mistakes were made. Hopes dashed. Change crushed. We were all so eager for Barack Obama to succeed. Especially the Republicans. Yes, it is true. They say so.

In his acceptance speech on Thursday, Mitt Romney was positively giddy about the Obama of 2008. You would have thought he once had an Obama yard sign stuck in the lawn in front of his home — one of his homes, anyway.

"Four years ago, I know that many Americans felt a fresh excitement about the possibilities of a new president," Romney said. "Americans were eager to go back to work, to live our lives the way Americans always have — optimistic and positive and confident in the future."

Some, of course, did not get with the program. Some forgot that their goal was supposed to be an eagerness to get back to work and live their lives in optimism, confidence and positivity.

The top Republican in the Senate, Mitch McConnell, seemed to have a different agenda. "The single most important thing we want to achieve," he said, "is for President Obama to be a one-term president."

This was not the Romney agenda. And I am sure that Romney wrote a sharply worded e-mail to McConnell telling him to replace obstruction with assistance. (Though that email might have ended up in McConnell's spam folder; it happens.)

But Romney has come to regret his wild enthusiasm for Obama. "Today, four years from the excitement of the last election, for the first time, the majority of Americans now doubt that our children will have a better future," Romney said in Tampa.

Actually, this is not true. Actually, this is a massive misstatement of fact, which means it is virtually guaranteed to be repeated in every Romney speech from now until Election Day.

As Doyle McManus recently wrote in the Los Angeles Times, Americans have been pessimistic about the future for the past 28 years.

McManus quotes Samuel L. Popkin, a political scientist at the University of California San Diego, as saying: "From 1984 until now, a plurality on almost every survey — and sometimes a majority — has said the next generation would have it worse than this generation."

Popkin, who devised the "worse off" question for the CBS/New York Times poll, noted that, "In October 1984, during the recession of the first Ronald Reagan administration, a whopping 63 percent said they thought the next generation would be worse off.

"The number improved briefly in the early 1990s; soared again to 58 percent in March 1995, during Bill Clinton's tumultuous first term; eased during the boom of the late 1990s; and soared again under George W. Bush."

Wait, this is impossible. Americans felt worse off during the eight years of George W. Bush, our last Republican president, our last Republican steward of the economy?

How could this be? Didn't George W. Bush reduce the debt so our children would not be burdened?

Well, no. According to my crack research staff (Wikipedia): "During the presidency of George W. Bush, the gross public debt increased from $5.7 trillion in January 2001 to $10.7 trillion by December 2008, due to decreasing tax rates and two unpaid wars."

Oh, my. And there was also the collapse of the economy under Bush. How sad. But there is a solution that the Republicans came up with at their convention: Pretend it never happened. Pretend human history began with the disappointing Mr. Obama.

"I wish President Obama had succeeded because I want America to succeed," Romney said on Thursday. "But his promises gave way to disappointment and division."

Yes, it is true. Things had been so good under Bush (fib), we felt so confident our children would have it so much better (untruth), we were so united behind Obama because everyone, even Republicans, wanted him to succeed (lie) that now Obama has deeply wounded our hopes, crushed our ego and us sent us running for the Zoloft or the Republican Party — take your pick.

Paul Ryan — go figure — put it more poetically: "It all started off with stirring speeches, Greek columns, the thrill of something new. Now all that's left is a presidency adrift, surviving on slogans that already seem tired, grasping at a moment that has already passed, like a ship trying to sail on yesterday's wind."

Yesterday's wind. A good image. And many have bought into the belief that Obama has sailed the nation into an inescapable doldrum.

Newsweek recently ran a cover story by former John McCain adviser and current Romney supporter Niall Ferguson headlined: "Hit The Road, Barack: Why We Need a New President."

(One should not take the "We" in that headline literally. Ferguson is a citizen of Great Britain.)

Obama himself, just one year into his presidency in his 2010 State of the Union speech, said: "Remember this — I never suggested that change would be easy, or that I could do it alone."

On Tuesday, it will be the Democrats' turn at bat. They will get one big try here in Charlotte to persuade America to trust them again.

"Let us find a way to come together and finish the job for the American people," Obama has said. "Let's get it done. Let's get it done."

He has three days. Or America will be done with him.

About The Author: Roger Simon -- is the Chief Political Columnist of Politico. Simon also has been a columnist for the Baltimore Sun, a White House correspondent for the Chicago Tribune and the political editor of U.S. News World Report. [ READ MORE: http://www.politico.com/reporters/RogerSimon.html ]