Opinions

I'm not sure I can add much to this weekend's tributes to our veterans, but I would like to try. Memorial Day, of course, honors those who died in service of their country. But I would like to consider the day in the broader context of those who survived.

The grim fact of battlefield triage is that in every major conflict it has made remarkable advances in saving lives. In the Civil War, of course, many more soldiers died from disease than from actual wounds: About 400,000 of the 620,000 casualties were attributed to infectious diseases like typhus and to sepsis after treatment.

A complicated and challenging aspect to the presidential campaign revealed itself on the front page of The Washington Post this morning. One story details Mitt Romney's huge lead among financially struggling white middle-class voters. According to the most recent Washington Post-ABC News poll, white voters who say they are feeling economic strain favor Romney 58 to 32 percent. This is surprising given the early stage of the race and since Romney was not the universal choice of this voter segment during the primaries.

The poll suggests that these voters have made up their minds about President Obama and that they are ready to support his opponent. The numbers are consistent with the final vote totals for Sen. John Kerry in 2004 and Al Gore in 2000. However, it is surprising that the numbers are so bad for Obama this early in the race against an opponent who is supposed to lack the ability to connect with middle-class voters.

Elsewhere on the front page, there is a story about Romney receiving a hostile reception during a campaign visit to a poor black neighborhood in Philadelphia. Romney couldn't be under any illusions about winning much African American support, but it is discouraging that his visit was greeted with open hostility rather than the usual bracketing by opposing surrogates or even a collective yawn. Instead, prominent elected officials ranted while protesters insisted that he "get out."  The Washington Post quoted one woman saying she was "personally offended" by Romney's presence.

Carter’s defense of Vice President Biden is both appropriate and typical. Typical, in the sense that every vice president suffers from these same types of rumors and occasional sniping. You could replace Joe Biden with almost any modern vice president’s name in the first paragraph of Carter’s post, and it would apply. 

Carter’s defense is appropriate because by any standard Biden has been a good vice president. I’ve always respected Biden, and I consider him to be a thoughtful advocate of his position. I think the vice president is particularly creative for a Democrat.   

Well, well, Ed, I don't see the week so far through such a dark glass for President Obama. First, to repeat: We are either going to have a very close election where one side wins by such a small margin that Justice Scalia may have to see if he can find a precedent somewhere in that Bush v. Gore decision, or Mitt Romney will win comfortably. The latter scenario results from the inherent fragility of our economy and our world: One more big shock could sink Obama.

But let's assume, for now, what has been predicted all along: a close election. Ed cites a bad Florida poll for Obama; here is a better one that shows Obama leading. My prediction? Obama decides he can win without Florida. That makes things much harder, but the Obama campaign has several electoral-map scenarios where it adds up.

It’s only Thursday, but it is not too early to declare that the president has had a lousy week. 

First, 43 different Catholic institutions have sued the Obama administration over the president’s demand that all religious organizations, under penalty of law, provide, pay for and/or facilitate access to services (including contraceptives and sterilization) that are contrary to their deeply held and constitutionally-protected religious beliefs.  

This is a major blow to whatever popular appeal was left in Obamacare and is another reason to vote against the president.  President Obama has fractured his relationship with Catholics.  If he started today to repair the damage, he still couldn’t undo all the harm done between now and Election Day.  This is serious, and it will spread beyond Catholics to other churches and fair-minded people.  Religious institutions in America are used to the government telling them what they can’t do.  Obama has broken new ground by telling Catholics what they must do, regardless of their religious tenets, or suffer fines and other sanctions imposed by the government.  This is a war of choice by Obama; it is the wrong fight at the wrong time with the wrong foe.

Much has been written about this, and there is much more to come.  Everyone following politics in 2012 should read Cardinal Wuerl’s op-ed, and Michael Gerson’s latest column. 

Next, a Quinnipiac poll out of Florida suggests that Obama is in real trouble in that state.  It’s not just that he trails Mitt Romney by six percentage points, 47 to 41, but to be an incumbent president and poll as low as 41 percent of the vote and have 50 percent negatives in a state that you carried in 2008 by more than 235,000 votes is more than a red light flashing in the cockpit.  There is smoke coming out of both engines, and if it stays this way much longer, Obama will have to bail out of Florida and concede its 29 electoral votes.  Florida is too big for a tentative campaign. You are either all in with many millions of dollars or you skip it.  It doesn’t appear that Obama will have enough money to campaign heavily in all of the states he won in 2008.  Florida is now in the “lean-Romney” category.

And last, there is the downer of the Facebook IPO.  Rather than a sign of American financial resurgence, it looks like an exploding cigar.  Obama is not to blame for what happened with the botched offering.  However, it affects the economic atmosphere in a way that reinforces how bad things are and how pessimistic voters are about the prospects of an economic revival.  Successful IPOs are great wealth-creators, but they have been particularly scarce during the Obama years. Maybe Obama thinks this is good. I've never heard him say otherwise. Has anyone else?  Nothing about the Facebook IPO boosts confidence in the environment in which Obama needs to try to build political momentum. And since bad gets worse, there are now reports that on top of the financial debacle, criminal, congressional and civil inquiries have begun that will linger in the headlines through the election.

  Obama appears to have a cloud over him right now. Romney has done a good job of mostly keeping quiet and sticking to the blocking and tackling of building a war chest and an organization, while Obama is bruised and battered by his own mistakes and blindsided by unexpected events.