President Obama has two (at least) flaws that are proving to be fatal right about now. First, and this is probably his worst flaw, he thinks he can change the world with one speech. To the extend that he articulates and defends his policies, he does so once. Meanwhile, Republicans are out there parroting their positions over and over again, to pretty good effect.
Obama said from the beginning that he wouldn't play into the 24 hour news cycle. While that keeps him from getting involved in some of the fast burning and quickly forgotten stories, it also means he isn't effectively at setting the agenda and defining the issues. If he wants to compete with Republicans, he needs to be hammering home his message - which as the leader of the Democratic party, it should be a fairly liberal message - all day everyday.
Second, he has decided that above all he should be reasonable and centrist. I'm not exactly sure why but I have a few guesses. Maybe he actually thinks that if he is reasonable, the other side will be reasonable as well. If this is why, he should have learned already that this isn't true and only makes him a terribly ineffective negotiator. He made this mistake with the stimulus, health care, and now the debt limit.
Or maybe he thinks it will help him win reelection. This is a mistake as well. His moderate policies are bad for this economy, which means he will go into reelection with a stagnant recovery or worse a double dip recession, and therefore seen as ineffective. Moderate, but ineffective doesn't sound like a good strategy for reelection.
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