…then I would say it’s time to replace the coach.

I mean really, c’mon. Their playbook is pretty atrocious, their defense is non-existent, and we all know they’re going to crumble in the post-season without a shake-up.

So the Obama team has this signature move that’s kind of their go-to. I’m sure you’ve noticed it. They fake right, then drive left. Think immigration reform. That miserable Arizona law happened and the Democrats saw an opening to get a slam dunk of a reform bill passed. What did Obama do? He sent 17,000 National Guard troops down to the border. How about climate change? He faked right by making a concession to increase drilling in the Gulf. On health care reform he took a single-payer system off the table from the beginning, and talked the talk on tort reform. He’s done it in countless other instances as well including the stimulus and many other economic endeavors.

There’s a clear reason why Obama is doing this. He branded himself in his successful election campaign as a post-partisan figure, someone who is above politics and the normal pandering that goes on in Washington. Yet the real question is does it work? No. Let’s first take Obama’s talk of off-shore drilling in the Gulf. It turned out to be a major “oops,” but more importantly limited his rhetoric. Instead of using the spill as an opportunity to make one of his dazzling, soaring speeches and rally his base around meaningful reform, his path dependency on finding middle-ground and making concessions to try and draw in the votes of moderate policymakers likely killed any chance of getting the bill this year. In all instances, this move has become so predictable that we can simply see right through it. The right know’s he’s faking, they happily take their bone, and are ready to guard him on his left because it’s so clear that he’s not going to take the middle path when it counts. Prepared for his drive, they push him to the center and he makes a weaker shot. Am I taking this analogy too far?

Let’s go to Shirley Sherrod, the former USDA employee. In case you’ve been living under a rock, a conservative blogger posted a YouTube clip of a seemingly racist statement she made in front of the NAACP. In it she told a story of how she didn’t do as much as she could to help a farmer facing foreclosure. Regardless of the fact that the event happened over two decades ago, Tom Vilsack asked for her resignation before Fox News and the rest of the media even picked up the story. Instead of wearing themselves down defending her and getting caught in a dirty mud-fight, they chose to just give up the point. As it turned out, Sherrod was using the story to explain how she realized it doesn’t matter if someone is black or while. What matters is that they’re poor and we should all work to pick up each other. Making matters worse, the farmer in question has lavishly praised her. On  day when we should have been celebrating much needed financial reform passing, instead the White House was dragged into the mud anyway and the Sherrod story dominated the news cycle. The issue is this is not the exception, but rather the rule. The current administration seems to relish in giving up easy baskets. Remember Van Jones? How about the ACORN debacle? Can someone please enlighten me as to what the White House is gaining by doing this?

Combined these two have me quite worried about November. We’re at the point in the Congressional session where we’re really not going to see anymore significant legislation till January. Even so, if we were to have a second stimulus (which wouldn’t be necessary had Obama not compromised on the first), the economic indicators that will have a lot to do with his fate won’t improve for months. On the other hand, despite popular opinion, he’s had a very successful two years. By running on his record versus the alternative, and hitting some populist notes he should be able to minimize the massive loses for his party both houses of Congress are facing. I’m sure you could imagine someone like Bill Clinton being like look, the Republicans have spent the last year fighting off reform on Wall Street, now they’re coming out saying we need to preserve the Bush tax cuts, a boon to only the rich, while at the same time trying to prevent the middle class folks layed off through no fault of their own from gaining unemployment benefits. This is the strategy Team Obama should be using when it counts, but I just can’t see him going down that road even though it sounds like an absolute slam dunk.

American history values leaders, not politicians. In many ways Obama has been one, having a vision, taking it and pushing it through even if there was no political gain from that victory. Think health care. People have got to respect him for the gutsy moves he made to accomplish something no one, save Lyndon Johnson and FDR were able to accomplish. Yet with his horrible fake move, lack and defense and inability to step up his rhetoric during election season, his record of achievement is being overshadowed. When I said we should “fire the coach” at the beginning of this post, I didn’t mean anyone should literally be axed. But I do think the President’s advisors need to reevaluate the political climate and what it takes to get things done in Washington, because one more false move now, and they could pay for it for the next four years as Bill Clinton did. Unlike the “comeback kid,” I question whether they can survive.