Not since Franklin D. Roosevelt and the pseudo-paternalism of his fireside chats has an American president assumed to take as much of a patriarchal role over American society as has President Barack Obama. Hard working people, teetering on the edge of hopelessness, moved to anxiety by the fear or reality of job loss and severe economic hardship, at first rallied to Obama’s air of infallibility. The President’s resolute belief in his own ideas simulated the weight of truth; his devotion to resisting opposition, further evidence of their veracity. The sweet potpourri from the bed of roses cast daily and in abundance by the media at his feet enhanced the guru effect during his initial months in office, a circumstance that he used as a springboard for launching a full frontal attack on the capitalist system.

Addressing a crippled economy in which tort abuses, bloated labor unions, and the self-interest of politicians were just as causal as the straw-man of corporate greed in bringing it to near collapse, Obama nevertheless manufatured moral authority by tar and feathering “evil” corporations with a hot batch of populist rhetoric. Yet, like dutiful children, the captains of the American economy – a system that has (so far) maintained individual choice while sustaining the highest standard of living in human history – obediently filed into the Oval Office to receive firm tongue-lashings, have their car keys taken away, and their allowances docked. Dad had spoken and the key idea is that government direction of the economy is crucial to national survival. Does anyone disagree? I thought not.

Ideas are the semi-catalytic fuel of political mechanics. But although ideas have great potency, their political utility is fleeting. An idea must be put in action in order to perpetuate itself and to yield power to its originator. If it sits idle, unexercised, the idea, no matter what its potential, fades into obsolescence. Most importantly, legitimacy and authority are derived from power, not ideas alone.

No politician in recent memory understands this truism better than President Obama. Most previous commanders-in-chief have come to the office with a lengthy list of legislative accomplishments, in addition to significant private sector achievements on which the legitimacy of their decisions has rested. Because of Obama’s pedestrian record as a lawmaker, and the lack of any other applied skills that might be universally respected by voters, the traditional foundations of presidential authority are unavailable to him. The half-life of unearned legitimacy forces a politician like Obama to perpetually validate his worth by showing that his ideas work, and statistics such as jobs saved or created are an ineffective placebo for real results.

For their part, most Americans seem to have sat like sullen teens on the sofa, enduring a barrage of haphazard policy proposals while staring daggers at the wall and venting their angst by sending the president’s once-high approval numbers careening into a record-setting tailspin. Surviving a wave of capricious and misdirected policies – health care “reform,” regressive cap-and-trade policies, and proposals to punish the same banking entities that are expected to generously prime the economy for much-needed job creation, there was going to be a moment of rebellion. There is every reason to believe that the election of Massachusetts Senator-elect Scott Brown was that moment.

For Obama, maintaining a high rate of success as his ideas become public policy is not a vanity project, it is crucial for his political survival. It is why the election of Brown represents a catastrophic wounding of Obama’s presidency. There is a moment dreaded by fathers when, like a dying star’s losing battle against its own gravity, the effort required to disguise our fallibility is insufficient to counteract our children’s increasing ability to distinguish reality from what M*A*S*H’s Col. Potter would call “horse hockey.” If Brown’s victory is, as some polling suggests, the sending of a message that the president’s policies have gone too far without sufficient results, the Obama’s vision during the campaign is just a promise written in clouds and scattered by the wind.

The Brown Effect may have also unleashed rebellion against Daddy O’s rabid paternalism within the house of his own party and the executive branch with a mini-wave of challenges such as:

• In response to Obama’s call to establish a bipartisan commission to discuss deficit reduction strategies, Democrat senators not so politely RSVP’d ‘will not be attending.’
• The day after Brown’s election, Treasury Secretary Geithner, whose political life is owed to Obama standing against immense public pressure and the weight of common sense to remove him from his post, spoke out to reporters in opposition of his president’s proposal to place new restrictions on banks.

Although Republicans might at first jump for joy at the prospect of a delegitimized Obama presidency, there are significant disadvantages to the country from having a politically castrated chief executive. Primary among them is the fact that, although we may not have elected him to be the all-knowing, all-wise father figure he has attempted to be, the nation needs a leader. No matter how many seats change color in the November elections, neither a GOP leader in the House or Senate can perform the vital executive role on matters of national defense. Furthermore, even in the most unlikely of events, if Republicans win dominating, veto-proof control of the Congress, establishing a punitive relationship with 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue will only ensure weak execution of enacted legislation.

More to the point, he commands the respect and admiration of millions of people. If, in the interest of running up the score (to use a sports metaphor), the GOP attempts to demolish him as a political figure we can forget about ever persuading those voters of the superiority of Republican values of free markets, individual rights, and small government.

Republicans will not lose elections this fall if they take strides to work with the President in ways that advance common goals. Simply put, no Republican has ever lost an election by having their picture taken with a Democrat, especially if they were both lifting sandbags to save a town from a flood. By putting country before politics we will demonstrate leadership currently unseen among Democrats, and if Obama continues to persist with his paternal presidential personality it benefits us all if he more closely resembles The Cosby Show’s Dr. Huxtable rather than Married With Children’s Ed Bundy.

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