The politics of hopelessness

By E.J. Dionne Jr., WashPost, Published: March 16

Listlessness is bad politics. Defensiveness is poor strategy. And resignation is never inspiring.

You can feel elements of all three descending around President Obama as he fends off attack after attack from his conservative foes, who vary the subject depending on the day, the circumstance and the opportunity. This sense of drift inspired an explosion over the weekend of disparaging commentary (some of it coming, usually anonymously, from Democrats) about the president’s political infirmities.

Obama and his party are in danger of allowing the Republicans to set the terms of the 2014 elections, just as they did four years ago. The fog of nasty and depressing advertising threatens to reduce the electorate to a hard core of older, conservative voters eager to hand the president a blistering defeat.

American politics has been shaken by two recent events that hurt first the Republicans and then the Democrats. Republicans have recovered from their blow. Democrats have not.

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