Americans appear to be tuning out the leader of the free world if the collective audience shrug at a recent campaign event is any indication, and President Barack Obama is responding in kind, political commentator and Missouri state legislator Jay Barnes told
Newsmax TV on Tuesday.
"It certainly seems the evidence is there that Obama fatigue is setting in," Barnes told "MidPoint" host Ed Berliner, referring to a report that
attendees walked out while Obama spoke at a campaign rally on Sunday in Maryland.
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Between the crumbling poll numbers, flighty congressional colleagues, and pundits already writing political obituaries, this
presidency is experiencing something others fated to go the full eight years have endured, said Barnes.
"President [George W.] Bush suffered from the same malady in the last two years of his term," said Barnes.
But Obama appears determined to ignore the evidence of his popular decline and corresponding drag on Senate Democrats who are clinging to their endangered majority, said Barnes.
Even if Republicans control both chambers in January, Barnes noted that Obama has already promised to press his agenda by "pen and phone" — meaning executive orders made without congressional approval.
Reports of a federal
plan to print millions of blank green cards prove the president still thinks he has leverage, said Barnes.
Turning to other political figures with national ambitions, Barnes said Texas Gov. Rick Perry's absence during a critical part of the Ebola crisis "might come back to haunt him."
Perry, a Republican who is considering another run for president in 2016, was in Europe when the disease was confirmed to have infected two Dallas hospital workers. Perry cut short his trip but returned home to a chorus of criticism from state Democrats,
Politico reported.
"There's a clear rule here, and that is, if you're a governor with hopes to be president, if something happens in your state over which you have any control that is international news, don't leave the state," said Barnes. "Stay there. Act presidential. Be in charge."
Elsewhere, Barnes said Republican Gov. Scott Walker of Wisconsin is "making a big bet" in his bid to get re-elected by resisting calls to tack toward the center.
"The bet is that independents and conservatives in Wisconsin will show up to the polls in a bluish state and elect him governor [again] on a conservative platform," said Barnes.
If Walker proves correct, in a state that also voted twice for Obama, Barnes said Walker has a strong argument for a future presidential campaign: that "our message resonates with independents and with Republicans as well, and I can win those swing votes even in tough states."
"The message that you will not sell out who you are in order to win election is a message that sells to all voters, but particularly Republican primary voters," said Barnes.