Is The One really in trouble?

The Telegraph's Washington-based commentator Nile Gardiner lists 10 reasons for "The stunning decline of Barack Obama". They are:

1. He is out of touch with the American people
2. Loss of confidence in his handling of the economy
3. Failure to inspire
4. USA drowning in debt
5. His big government message is falling flat
6. Socialized health care is a big mistake
7. His handling of the Gulf oil spill was indecisive
8. His foreign policy is an embarrassing mess
9. He is muddled on national security
10. He does not believe in American greatness

Items 1, 3 and 7 are sub-divisions of one big factor, which is that nobody could possibly have lived up to the messianic hype that accompanied The One's triumphal procession to the White House.

Items 2 and 4 are IEDs left in his path by the Machiavellian inner circle of the Bush presidency, who made sure that the Democrats did not, this time, inherit any fiscal slack - much as Gordon Brown poisoned the well for his successors.

Items 5, 6, 8, 9 and 10 simply register that the default position for the American electorate is centre-right. Less than 20% of voters support the left wing of the Democratic party, to which Obama belongs.

However, as he has discovered since becoming president (as Jimmy Carter did before him), the left wing of the Democratic party is sectarian, rapacious, arrogant and deeply disloyal. If the Democrats lose their majorities in either or both chambers of Congress, it may do The One little harm.

Because the big thing Gardiner does not mention is that a fair old number of people who voted for Obama (I among them), did so to register disgust at the swinish way the Republicans had behaved in power. They have shown no collective contrition, and such new blood as has managed to get into the party has done so in the face of determined opposition from the Republican establishment.

When the Democrats took a hammering during Clinton's first term, it was the saving of his presidency. Americans like their president to at least pretend to be above the partisan fray, and if The One is forced to adopt a bi-partisan approach by the forthcoming elections, he may well recover some of his lost mojo.