TightWind is written by Kyle Baxter. Stay Hungry. Stay Foolish.

E.J. Dionne thinks the Obama administration is doing poorly because he stopped campaigning:

There was a revealing moment in early August when Obama told an audience at a Texas fundraiser: “We have spent the last 20 months governing. They spent the last 20 months politicking.” Referring to the impending elections, he added: “Well, we can politick for three months. They’ve forgotten I know how to politick pretty good.”

Obama’s mistake is captured by that disdainful reference to “politicking.” In a democracy, separating governing from “politicking” is impossible. “Politicking” is nothing less than the ongoing effort to persuade free citizens of the merits of a set of ideas, policies and decisions. Voters feel better about politicians who put what they are doing in a compelling context. Citizens can endure setbacks as long as they believe the overall direction of the government’s approach is right.

So, Dionne’s argument is that if Obama just ran his administration like a “campaign,” if he only made his case better, then his poll numbers would be better.

Uhm. I’m not sure what Dionne would propose Obama do that he hasn’t done, since campaign is about all Obama has done. The administration sent out a memo in July saying that in the preceding 18 months, the president, vice president, first lady or other senior administration officials had participated in 187 fundraising events for 2010 Congressional candidates. That’s about an event every three days.

That’s just fundraising events. Let’s remember what else Obama has done. In June 2009, the president was interviewed on Good Morning America from the White House’s South Lawn and a town hall-like event during primetime on ABC, and he spent most of 2009 touring the country, putting on “town halls” to promote his reform.

During that time, he also used a typical campaign tactic—trashing any opposition. I detailed this particular favorite of his last November. After buying off health insurance companies to support his reform, he vilified them when he needed a scapegoat; he kicked off his presidency by identifying Rush Limbaugh as the Republican’s leader; he made demeaning Republicans a daily ritual; he warned Democrats that voted against his legislation that he was “keeping score”; and on and on. That’s what you do when you are campaigning, not when you’re the president.

Dionne’s logic has been continually trotted out since Obama’s poll numbers began declining. Here it is: Obama’s poll numbers aren’t declining because the public dislikes him or there is something actually wrong with his administration—they’re declining because the public is ignorant and is being misled. Thus, if Obama just explained it more, then he would be doing better. Nancy Pelosi used a particularly twisted form of this logic when she said that they have to pass healthcare reform so we can see what’s in it—we’ll like it better once it’s law! There’s an apt word to describe this logic: denial.

Not only does it have no basis in reality, since Obama has spent so much time campaigning for Democrats and his agenda, but it’s a particularly strong case of self-delusion. If Obama’s poll numbers are declining because the public is ignorant and misled, then that means there’s nothing wrong with the Democrats’ agenda. It’s a nice way to avoid painful truth.

There’s a simple reason Obama’s poll numbers are declining: when he ran for president, he argued that the question wasn’t whether government is too large or too small, but rather whether it’s effective. In other words, he argued that government could act responsibly to help the economy and move our country forward. The reality, though, has been this: while the administration said that with their stimulus, unemployment would never rise above 8 percent, it rose to 10.2 percent and currently is at 9.5 percent. And while the economy suffered, and our debt soared, he pushed for a healthcare reform bill that added more than $400 billion over the next decade to our ruining entitlement spending and mandated taxes increase by $500 billion in the same period.

So that’s his track record. Obama made his administration’s mantra “effective government,” by which he apparently means a federal government that plays an even larger role in our economy and lives, and it’s been embarrassingly ineffective. He’s done this all while using the presidency, an office that is supposed to be treated with respect, to trash his opposition.

No, I don’t think the answer is for Obama to get in our faces more. He’s done quite enough of that. Perhaps—and I know this is a wild idea—he should try governing.