Barack Obama Looks Backward, Not 'Forward'

As presidential campaign slogans go, President Barack Obama's newest—"Forward"—is about as meaningless as they come.

Forward—to where, to what, toward whom? "Forward" is how the light brigade charged. "Forward" is where the soldiers at Gallipoli went in the First World War. "Forward" into Little Big Horn is where General Custer ordered his troops to go.

"Forward" is where lemmings go at the beach. "Forward" is a setting for an automatic transmission. "Forward" is what the brash young man with a few too many drinks under his belt is with the attractive young lady at the bar.

"Forward," as it should by now be clear, is not always the right choice. And it's an unusual one for Barack Obama to adopt as a political slogan given the amount of time he, his closest advisers, and senior officials in his administration have spent looking backwards—and encouraging the rest of us to do likewise.

[Scott Galupo: What Barack Obama's 'Forward' Slogan Really Means]

How many times over the last three years—over the last year even—has Obama himself tried to remind us of "how bad things were" when he took over? How the GOP drove the economy into a ditch and left it there among other various, confusing metaphors? The president, to put it simply, spends a lot of time talking about the failures—real or imagined—of his immediate predecessor. He doesn't spend much time at all talking about his own tangible accomplishments, probably because there aren't very many to speak of. Sure there's the nebulous "jobs created or saved" metric that the administration was forced to abandon after even they realized how ridiculous it was. We still don't know where all the stimulus money went, by the way.

No, Obama isn't defending his record. He's still running against George W. Bush, who hasn't been president for more than three years and, because of an amendment to the U.S. Constitution, can never be president again.

[See a photo gallery of Bush’s legacy.]

There has been a fair deal written already about how "Forward" as a political slogan ties back to Lenin and the Bolsheviks or Hitler and the National Socialists or China under Mao. Interesting perhaps, but largely beside the point. As a campaign theme, it is too open to interpretation, too meaningless to really make sense. "Forward" is a direction—not a condition. Is Obama suggesting we want more of what we've had during his first term? The polls seem to suggest a majority of the American people are a solid "No" on that one.

Former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney took his own step forward Wednesday suggesting it might mean "off a cliff." The likely Republican general election nominee suggested that "Progress" might be better. Think of the possibilities: Progress in getting unemployment down and people back to work; Progress in getting the federal debt under control; Progress towards balancing the federal budget, addressing the coming entitlement crisis before it happens, and making the world a far more secure place than it is now.

The only place "Forward" is going to lead the Obama campaign team is back to the drawing board to come up with a new slogan, one that might actually persuade people to give the president four more years in office. This one doesn't cut it.

• See a collection of political cartoons on the 2012 campaign.
• Follow the Thomas Jefferson Street blog on Twitter at @TJSBlog.
  
• Check out U.S. News Weekly: an insider's guide to politics and policy

Reader Comments Read all comments (5)

Add Your Thoughts

Comment Name State Select One AL AK AZ AR CA CO CT DE DC FL GA HI ID IL IN IA KS KY LA ME MD MA MI MN MS MO MT NE NV NH NJ NM NY NC ND OH OK OR PA RI SC SD TN TX UT VT VA WA WV WI WY International Email

Please enter the two words below into the text field underneath the image.

Incorrect please try again

Enter the words above: Enter the numbers you hear:

Your comment will be posted immediately, unless it is spam or contains profanity. For more information, please see our Comments FAQ.