A Thinker, Not a Fighter

After analyzing what went wrong over the last two years, Frank Rich 'encourages' Obama to be more like Truman, if he wants to win relection:

In the 1946 midterms, the unpopular and error-prone rookie president Harry Truman, buffeted by a different set of economic dislocations, watched his party lose both chambers of Congress (including 54 seats in the House) to a G.O.P. that then moved steadily to the right in its determination to cut government spending and rip down the New Deal safety net. Two years after this Democratic wipeout, despite a hostile press and a grievously divided party, Truman roared back, in part by daring the Republican Congress to enact its reactionary plans. He won against all odds, as David McCullough writes in “Truman,” because “there was something in the American character that responded to a fighter.”

Surely there are dozens of supporters reassuring Obama with exactly this Truman scenario this weekend. But if he lacks the will to fight, he might as well just take his time and enjoy the sights of Mumbai.

Actually, the scrappy Bush was Truman, and he won a second term.   This is unlikely, it seems to me, in that Obama is a thinker, not a fighter.  He comes across like the other brainy Illinoian Adlai Stevenson, who couldn't ever get elected.  Obama wouldn't have either, except he had a different skin color (and knew how to 'preach' like one).