The Republican strategy obviously worked. When Mitch McConnell stated in 2008 that Republicans would see to it that this was a “one term presidency, we wondered how they would pull it off. Actually they didn’t. They couldn’t get him out after one term, but they did succeed in almost completely destroying his presidency. Their double-barreled approach is unique in American political history, (and one must wonder if it will be repeated when the next Democrat is elected president). First, they obstructed Obama’s every initiative so that he could not govern effectively, then blamed him for not governing. Meanwhile, they used every trick in the book, including an accommodating punditry, to maintain a constant “hate Obama” campaign, tapping into America’s latent racism (come on, admit it). A whole vocabulary of coded language was resurrected from Jim Crow days to maintain a constant barrage of anti-Obama noise. Whenever they were called out on it, the response was indignant and vehement denial. Sadly, this approach would not have worked if Obama, himself, had not helped it along by systematically alienated his progressive base. As one critic put it early on: “Obama campaigned from the left, but governed from the right.” Too much of his progressive base simply stayed home in 2010 and 2014. The big question is: will these same folks stay home in 2016?