Disastrous Obama goes on tour

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Updated: October 19, 2011 3:28AM

President Barack Obama launched his Midwest bus tour Monday. Given the gravity of the economic mess the country is in, you’d think he’d be in Washington working every hour to come up with a program to get Americans back to work. Then again, given the disastrous results of what he’s done so far, maybe it’s better Obama is out in the country feeling some of the pain he’s caused instead of sitting at his desk coming up with more bad policies.

The country is paying the price of electing a president who had little experience, no background in the private economy and a 1960s era liberal ideology he wanted to impose on the 21st century.

Obama says the nation didn’t get into this predicament overnight, so it can’t get out of it overnight. No one expects that — though in the past sharp recessions were followed by robust recoveries. Still, it shouldn’t have taken Obama 2œ years into his term to grasp how bad things are. But that’s what happens when a president takes his eye off the jobs ball to pursue ideological goals like ObamaCare, to promote unionism by suing Boeing for building a new plant in right-to-work South Carolina, and to advocate a tax and regulate regime that unsettles business and investors.

Obama’s response has been to say the buck stops somewhere other than the Oval Office. He and his political operatives talk about the “Tea Party downgrade” as a way of trying to divert the public’s attention from a Democratic spending binge that is the actual cause of worries about the soundness of U.S. fiscal health. Voters aren’t buying the finger pointing. The Gallup tracking poll Sunday put Obama’s approval rating for the first time under 40 percent, at 39 percent.

The question: Will the Republicans offer a credible alternative to Obama in 2012? The GOP field is more unsettled with the entry of Texas Gov. Rick Perry into the nomination race over the weekend. Had that not happened, the Iowa Straw Poll on Saturday would have pretty much put Mitt Romney on the road to the nomination.

By giving victory to Minnesota Rep. Michele Bachmann and knocking former Minnesota Gov. Tim Pawlenty out of the race, a few thousand Iowans would have, under normal circumstances, cleared the way for Romney. Bachmann has admirable attributes — she’s smart, principled and in tune with the nation’s economic fears. But she’s also ideologically rigid, prone to gaffes and out of step with another national sentiment — that we need a president who, unlike the current one, is committed to working across the bipartisan gap to get results.

Perry has a lot going for him but is untested in the brutal arena of national politics. He can point to the Texas economy — it’s responsible for 40 percent of all U.S. jobs created in the last couple of years. He’s a gifted speaker — as he proved Saturday in his announcement speech articulating how Obama has put America on a downgrade path in domestic and foreign affairs.

But Perry has yet to face the 24/7 scrutiny of a national campaign. Questions loom about whether voters outside the South and West will accept another politician with a Texas drawl and swagger, one committed to evangelical Christianity, and one who adheres to some right-wing views not in favor with independents. Perry can’t claim George W. Bush’s record as governor of working with Democratic legislators.

Romney will be recalibrating his strategy as Perry and Bachmann duel in Iowa and South Carolina over who will be the pure conservative alternative to him, barring another late candidate entry. Romney wouldn’t be such a weak front-runner if conservatives didn’t fear that, as president, he would accommodate to Washington’s ways.

What Perry offers is a record of job creation, solid conservative credentials and oratorical skills to match Obama’s. That’s why he’s energizing the Republican race. Now we’ll see if he’s the real deal.