The long game vs the short game.

I was looking over some old posts I made, back when. Among them was one about when Mr. McCain corrected Mr. Obama in one of the debates in 2008 — and got it wrong. That led to some of the links I cited at the time. This one’s from Jim Fallows, and I think sums up the way Mr. Obama has been criticized ever since. He’s always playing the long game, and a lot of people want him to do something right now that doesn’t really work in those terms. Fallows’ point was that McCain failed to think strategically in his own campaign, while Obama clearly did think that way.

It’s striking how Mr. Obama has shown over the years that tendency to think strategically, and how his critics rarely match him.