Dealing with 'Obama fatigue'

Can a presidential candidate have too much exposure?

Barack Obama has managed to turn himself into “the central figure in American politics,” said E.J. Dionne Jr. in The Washington Post, but his “extraordinary achievement” has come at a price. A recent Pew Research Center study found that 48 percent of those surveyed said they had heard “too much” about Obama, while only 26 percent said that about Republican John McCain. Obama’s challenge now is telling voters who he is while “moving the spotlight off himself.”

Too late, said Jed Babbin in Human Events. “Obama fatigue” has set in. Americans are tired of hearing Obama's “moralizing,” and his talk of how Americans “are a people of improbable hope,” whatever that means. Voters now know that Obama is a "prig," and their doubts will linger unless he shows another side in head-to-head debates.

Obama isn’t the only one suffering from all the attention focused on him, said Alister Bull in Reuters’ Tales from the Trail blog. McCain has been mercilessly blasting Obama with “a barrage of controversially negative advertisements,” and his audience seemed grateful this week when he managed to get through a 20-minute speech without badmouthing his rival.

Subscribe to The Week

Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.

SUBSCRIBE & SAVE
https://cdn.mos.cms.futurecdn.net/flexiimages/jacafc5zvs1692883516.jpg

Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters

From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.

From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.

Sign up

It’s a good thing Obama is spending this week on vacation in Hawaii, said Swaraaj Chauhan in blog The Moderate Voice. We could all use the break. One reason Americans get tired of their leaders “could be that they talk too much.” Whenever anyone goes on and on “the content gets diluted, and people begin to yawn.”

To continue reading this article...
Continue reading this article and get limited website access each month.
Get unlimited website access, exclusive newsletters plus much more.
Cancel or pause at any time.
Already a subscriber to The Week?
Not sure which email you used for your subscription? Contact us