The United States’ economic troubles are mounting and already prodigious.  While it’s true that Obama inherited a mess – created by government – he has made our economic problems progressively (pun intended) worse.  Amidst that failure, however, Obama has accomplished something that is simply hard to believe.

Before I get to that stunning achievement, it worthy to consider just how bad the employment picture really is.  Since the Great Depression, unemployment has reached this neighborhood of 10%, i.e. nearly double the historic average, only one other time.  That was during the early 1980’s.  That unemployment was brought on by the combined bad economic (read: “political”) decisions of Presidents Johnson, Nixon, Ford and Carter.  All combined, they produced high unemployment and high inflation in addition to new terminology – stagflation.  In order to wring inflation out of the system, President Reagan’s economic remedy eventually produced a record 92 months of growth but started with unemployment above 10%.  In fact, unemployment was above 9% for 18 months before steadily dropping to 5.3% at the end of Reagan’s two terms.

The U.S. economy remains in a tepid stage at best – subject to a multiple dip recession at worst.  Unemployment is high and private sector jobs are taking longer than usual to rebound.  Even the Obama administration is forced to admit unemployment will be high for a long time to come.   Starting two years ago this July, I said if Obama was elected president, we would have a difficult economy, at best, for at least six years.  Unless our governments, federal and state, make a concerted effort to change the economic psychology facing Americans today, that prediction can’t help but come true.

There is no question that the American economy is in bad shape.  Unemployment has only been this high one other time since World War II, i.e. in the 1980s.  Recessions similar or deeper than this recession occurred in 1918, the Great Depression, the 3 recessions of the 1950s, and the stagflation of the late 1970s and early 1980s.

Politics is a game of addition – successful politics anyway.  Great leaders, when faced with a divided electorate, not to mention difficult economic times, use a limited agenda to forge consensus out of broken paradigms.  Once they achieve an initial success, they seek a broader consensus.  In the 1980’s Reagan faced a divided Republican Party and a fractured and dispirited nation.  Concentrating on the prosperity issue and our national prestige, Reagan first brought Republicans together and then independents and even many Democrats.  Indeed, so successful was Reagan at bringing people together, that in time he could rely on a group of Reagan Democrats.  Few other presidents have had such success at building consensus let alone are able to claim a voting bloc from the other party in their name.

There is little doubt that Obama faced a divided electorate when he first took office and a difficult economic climate.  Rather than start with a limited agenda designed to build consensus, Obama did the opposite.  Obama chased too many rabbits at once and preferred ideological fights over practical solutions.  As a result, the country is more divided than ever – not less.

All Presidential speeches are judged within the context they are given.  For Obama and the Democrats, that is just one week removed from the Scott Brown loss.  That loss has put the Democrats on their heels going into the 2010 mid-term elections.

So did Obama’s speech change that dynamic and did it offer a vision for the future that will sell with American voters?  That answer to those questions cannot be answered affirmatively.