Tom Foreman | BIO
AC360° Correspondent

On a hot afternoon in 2003, as the work day was winding down, a massive power failure struck the Northeast. Maybe you remember it. More than 50 million people saw their computers, office lights, traffic signals, transit systems, telephones, electric massage chairs, and margarita blenders stop cold. They flooded into streets suddenly stripped of their electrical essence and began trekking home, wondering all the while what had happened.

And now we might see the same scene play out at the White House if the economy continues to lag because every week brings another indicator that the country’s financial problems are creating severe power shortages for all of the president’s plans.

Health care reform, green energy ideas, foreign policy proposals, and educational objectives – every one of them was expected to draw the usual and expected opposition. But now the economy is undermining those initiatives, too. When all else fails, his opponents can simply say “You know, we just can’t afford your changes right now.”

Take immigration. President Obama has spoken repeatedly about the need to grapple with our immigration policy. But our latest CNN/Opinion Research Corporation poll shows that the citizens of the country are rapidly moving to their own conclusions without his leadership. Three-quarters, the highest number ever, now say we must reduce the number of undocumented workers here, and a record 37 percent say they should simply be deported. That is the economy talking.

It’s not like voters are utterly rejecting the president’s ideas. This has more to do with timing than philosophy. Households coast-to-coast have delayed or curtailed purchases of appliances, vacations, new cars, higher education for their kids, and even critical things like tickets to the monster truck show. We still want all of those things, but we realize we can’t have them now.

President Obama has even reinforced that thinking. When critics complain about the shortage of jobs, the weakness of the investment markets, the slowness of recovery spending, or anything else, his advice, time and again, has been “Be patient.” And yet, one of the most potent criticisms he faces in political circles, is that he is not taking his own advice; he continues trying to push ahead with the wish list he drew up back when the money was flowing like wine.

Despite the emotional appeal of that mantra of “Change,” Barack Obama was elected on one promise above all others – his promise to fix the economy. Our country’s financial turmoil was the primary issue for voters a year ago, and it still is. And until it gets substantially better, the president may find that every time he launches another big program, the lights in the Oval Office will start flickering.

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