President Obama’s strategy for defeating radical jihadists is a sensible balancing of conflicting objectives that shows signs of succeeding. However, you’d never know that from looking at public-opinion surveys about his performance in dealing with the likes of ISIS. He has lost ground across the political spectrum, even though sentiment on his performance in other areas is relatively stable. Much of the reason why the president’s counter-terror narrative isn’t connecting with the public is tactical: nebulous use of terminology, lack of stirring slogans, a dearth of forceful communicators, uneven tempo in public pronouncements, unnecessarily risky rhetoric, and poor timing on the introduction of extraneous issues. I have written a commentary on why the president’s narrative isn’t getting through that you can read here.
Find Archived Articles: