http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/434315b2-8ea6-11df-8a67-00144feab49a.html   
      
   Obama faces growing credibility crisis   
   By Edward Luce in Washington    
      
   Published: July 13 2010 18:51 | Last updated: July 13 2010 18:51   
      
   Robert Gibbs, Barack Obama’s chief spokesman, got into hot water this    
   week for daring to speak the truth – that the Democrats could lose    
   control of the House of Representatives in November. But it could be    
   even worse than that.    
      
   Contrary to pretty much every projection until now, Democratic control    
   of the Senate is also starting to coming into question. While Mr Obama’s    
   approval ratings have continued to fall, and now hover at dangerously    
   close to 40 per cent according an ABC-Washington Post poll published on    
   Tuesday, the fate of his former colleagues in the Senate looks even    
   worse.    
      
      
   In the past few days polls have shown Republican challengers taking the    
   lead over previously safe Democratic incumbents, such as Barbara Boxer    
   in California and Russ Feingold in Wisconsin. Indeed, given the    
   uniformly negative direction in the numbers, it is now quite possible    
   the Republicans could win the Senate seats formerly held by both    
   President Obama in Illinois, and Joe Biden, vice-president, in Delaware.    
      
   Add to that the continuing woes of Harry Reid, the Senate Democratic    
   majority leader, in Nevada, where the Republican party’s recent    
   nomination of Sharron Angle, a far-right and highly eccentric Tea Party    
   supporter, appear to have had no positive effect on Mr Reid’s prospects,    
   and the Grand Old party has a good shot at taking control of both houses    
   of Congress. Worse for Mr Obama, political scientists say that at this    
   stage in the calendar, there is almost nothing he can do about it.    
      
   “If you ask me where the silver lining is for President Obama, I have to    
   say I cannot see one,” says Bill Galston, a former Clinton official, who    
   has been predicting for months the Democrats could lose the House. “Just    
   as BP’s failure to cap the well has been so damaging, Obama’s failure to    
   cap unemployment will be his undoing. There is nothing he can do to    
   affect the jobless rate before November.”   
      
   The direction of the data could hardly be worse. According to Democracy    
   Corps, a group headed by Stanley Greenberg, a liberal pollster who is a    
   close friend of Rahm Emanuel, Mr Obama’s chief of staff, a majority of    
   US citizens see Mr Obama as “too liberal”.    
      
   Astonishingly, 55 per cent of citizens think Mr Obama is a “socialist”    
   against only 39 per cent who do not share that diagnosis. The same poll    
   shows 48 per cent support for Republicans against just 42 per cent for    
   Democrats. The numbers are eerily similar to 2006, except that it was    
   George W. Bush’s Republicans who were on the receiving end four years    
   ago.    
      
   “The bottom line here is that Americans don’t believe in President    
   Obama’s leadership,” says Rob Shapiro, another former Clinton official    
   and a supporter of Mr Obama. “He has to find some way between now and    
   November of demonstrating that he is a leader who can command confidence    
   and, short of a 9/11 event or an Oklahoma City bombing, I can’t think of    
   how he could do that.”    
      
   In private, informal advisors to Mr Obama are almost as negative.    
   According to one, the US public’s loss of confidence in Mr Obama’s    
   leadership is a factor above and beyond their dissatisfaction over the    
   state of the real economy, which continues to slow as last year’s $787bn    
   stimulus starts to run dry. The adviser, who asked to remain anonymous,    
   said the public did not know what Mr Obama really believed. Examples    
   include his lukewarm support last year for a public option in the    
   healthcare bill and his equally lukewarm support today for a Senate bill    
   that would extend unemployment insurance and aid state governments to    
   keep teachers in their jobs.    
      
   In both cases, Mr Obama has offered only token, negotiable, support. “I    
   never thought I would say this, but even I’m unsure what President Obama    
   really believes,” says the adviser. “Instead of outsourcing decisions to    
   Congress, he should spell out his bottom line. That is what leaders are    
   for.”    
      
   Next week, Mr Obama is likely to sign a historic Wall Street re-   
   regulation bill into law. Earlier this year he did the same for    
   healthcare. But polls show the public either does not care, or even    
   opposes these otherwise big reforms. “The longer this goes on, the more    
   it looks like Obama wasted his first year on healthcare,” said the    
   outside adviser. “It’s still the economy, stupid.”   
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