Andrew Sullivan’s essay on Obama’s long-game strategy is worth your lunch hour. Sullivan, a conservative in the classical sense of the word, details all of the president’s accomplishments over the past three years and shows how they fit into Obama’s long-term strategy of shaping domestic and foreign policy. While liberals accuse Obama of timidity and conservatives accuse him radicalism, the president goes about his incrementalist agenda of change (much of it taking place outside the view of the 24-hour news cycle).
It’s not something that can be easily condensed into a campaign ad, but it’s one of the better defenses of the president’s record that I’ve read. But it’s up to Obama to help voters overcome their perpetual amnesia and show them how things have changed for the better since he took office while also giving a clear vision of what a second term will bring. If he can’t accomplish both tasks, Romney could win by distorting the past and overpromising the future.
