Obama's not hiding

„Get out your Wonderbras and your Forrest Gump videocassettes. It's starting to feel like 1994 all over again. The Democratic president's approval rating now, as then, is a lowly 44 percent. His party is forecast to lose about 50 seats in the House and eight in the Senate - about the same as in '94. Voters now, as then, are in a sour mood, and some Democrats are again afraid of being photographed with the unpopular president.

But the strangest similarity may be in President Obama's speeches. As he barnstorms the country in these closing days before the midterms, he has borrowed Bill Clinton's 1994 stump speech -- in some cases, word for word. »It's up to you to remember that this election is a choice«, Obama said in a recent speech. »It's a choice between the past and the future; a choice between hope and fear; a choice between falling backwards and moving forwards. And I don't know about you, but I want to move forward. I don't want to go backward. Compare that to this common Clinton passage from '94: »Ladies and gentlemen, this election, all over America, represents a choice, a choice between hope and fear (...) between whether we're going forward or we're going to go back. I think I know the answer to that. You want to keep going forward.«

Obama has even extended Clinton's automotive metaphor of '94. Clinton's model: »You know, if you drive your car and there's a lot of stuff on the windshield, you could think it's dark outside when the sun shining. (...) That's what they've done. They've put a lot of dirt on America's windshield. We got to clean it off between now and Tuesday. Will you help? Will you do your part? Will you go forward? (...) Think about it like this: Every one of you is in the driver's seat.«”