In a series of pieces during the past two weeks (see here, here, and here), I've laid out the evidence for two propositions: The president's economic record will be at the heart of the 2012 election, and he cannot win without focusing on the heartland — the swing states stretching from Pennsylvania to Iowa.

The case for the first proposition goes as follows:

To an extent that we haven't seen since 1992 (and maybe not even then), the 2012 election will focus on a single issue: economic growth and job creation.

For that reason above all, President Obama will be waging an uphill battle for reelection, because the American people are giving his management of the economy very low grades. (Recent CBS/NYT surveys have placed approval of his performance on the economy and job creation at below 40 percent.)

While for understandable reasons the president's campaign team wants to turn the election into a choice between two futures, the odds of success for that strategy seem low. Most political scientists who have studied the question conclude that when there's an incumbent in the race, the principal issue is that candidate's job performance. (That's why Reagan's "Are you better off..." was such a killer question against Carter in 1980.)

President Obama, therefore, has no choice but to address the economic question head-on, which will require him to offer a much more persuasive defense of his record than he has up to now.

The case for my second proposition — the Heartland Strategy — is this:

The president's team hopes to recreate the "new majority" strategy that expanded the playing field and led to victories in states such as Virginia, North Carolina, Colorado, and Nevada in 2008 and perhaps Arizona and Georgia as well in 2012. This does not seem realistic, however: while the president's support among African Americans remains strong, it has dropped sharply among Hispanics disappointed by what they see as his failure to push for comprehensive immigration reform and his administration's aggressive deportation strategy. And every survey and focus group points to diminished enthusiasm among the young adults whose relentless networking on Obama's behalf contributed significantly to his historic victory.

To make matters worse, the president's numbers in Florida are dismal, he trails likely Republican nominee Mitt Romney by 10 points in New Hampshire, and he has no chance of repeating his 2008 miracle victory in Indiana.

These facts underscore the crucial importance of the heartland states — especially Ohio and Pennsylvania. As a matter of history and simple arithmetic, is very unlikely that President Obama can be reelected without carrying them both.

Although Pennsylvania is usually 3 to 4 points more Democratic than Ohio, the evidence suggests that Obama is surprisingly weak there and needs to do some real work to shore up his standing in a state that Democrats often regard as being in the bag.

As for Ohio, the last Democrat to take the White house without winning that state was John Kennedy, who did it with electoral votes from Texas and other southern states that Obama will not receive. (The last Republican to win the presidency without Ohio? There hasn't been one since the founding of the party in the 1850s.)

Ohio is pivotal, election after election, because it is a demographic and political microcosm of the country. If a presidential candidate can win a majority there, he or she can almost certainly do so in the nation as well. And that's why both parties should pay close attention to the results of last week's election, in which the Ohio electorate overwhelmingly rejected both Gov. Kasich's assault on public sector unions and the individual mandate at the heart of President Obama's health reform law.

If these two core propositions are correct — if the 2012 election will be about Obama's economic stewardship and will be won or lost in the heartland — then the key question is this: How can the president defend his economic record in a region much of which has not enjoyed robust growth for quite some time?

Let's look at some basics:

It's hard to imagine Obama losing Illinois or winning Indiana in 2012. That leaves six key heartland states. Note what they have in common: despite widely varying rates of unemployment, none of them has experienced a rapid decline in that rate over the past year. Because there's no sense of dynamism in the region, hope and confidence in the future are at a low ebb. That's the reality the president must speak to, there and elsewhere.

How can Obama recast the economic discussion? Here's my best shot:

First, he must acknowledge Americans' sense of being stuck and then explain why recovery from this downturn has been so painfully slow — in particular, the impact of the financial collapse and our excessive debt burden, private as well as public.

Second, he must display some humility and acknowledge that he didn't get everything right. It was a mistake not to underscore the difficulty of our circumstances right from the start. It was a mistake to predict that unemployment would peak at 8 percent if his stimulus bill were enacted. While it was necessary to save the big financial institutions from a total meltdown, it was a mistake to ask so little from them institutions in return. And it was a mistake to act so timidly in the face of a housing and mortgage crisis that has cost the middle class many trillions of dollars in lost wealth.

Third, he should emphasize what most Americans believe: without the steps his administration took at the depth of the crisis, there might well have been a second Great Depression. Sure, "It could have been much worse" isn't much of a bumper sticker, but it's a place to start, and it has the merit of being true.

Fourth, what he has done so far has not only halted the decline but has yielded more than twenty consecutive months of growth in private sector jobs — progress that would be more noticeable if states and localities hadn't been shedding so many employees in response to the squeeze on their budgets.

Fifth, while most Americans didn't like it when his administration intervened to save GM and Chrysler, it was the right thing to do, not only for auto workers, but for much of the heartland's economy as well. Allowing these two firms to dissolve would have broken the back of regions already struggling with double-digit unemployment. Leadership means doing what's necessary and right, even when it's unpopular.

Sixth, we now have the opportunity to build on the foundation laid during this painful period in our history. Obama can emphasize steps such as: a bold new response to housing foreclosures and underwater mortgages; an infrastructure bank that mobilizes both domestic and foreign capital to put Americans back to work on projects that will strengthen our economy; and a tougher stance vis-à-vis Chinese policies that have taken their toll on American workers and firms. And yes, we need to come together around fundamental spending and tax reform that can stabilize our fiscal future without further undermining the hard-pressed middle class.

That's the guts of the affirmative case Obama can make. (No doubt he believes he's already doing it, but he hasn't been frank, comprehensive, and persistent enough to break through.) And if he does make it relentlessly until next Labor Day, he can then pivot and ask, What's the alternative? What is my opponent offering? If you think that an agenda of deregulation for big polluters, more tax breaks for the wealthy, and a laissez-faire policy that allows the housing sector to "hit bottom" is the way to jump start job creation, the by all means vote for him. If you don't, you have a chance to continue moving down a path that can move us from the shadows of stagnation to the sunlight of opportunity and to build a new economy in which all Americans — not just a favored few — enjoy the fruits of growth.

       

       

      

       

The only interlocutor for the United States in Turkey will be President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan from now on, Professor Kemal Kirişci has said, adding that Washington has come to recognize the reality that whoever becomes the prime minister “knows he is not going to do anything that is unauthorized.”

The U.S. has lost its hopes regarding Turkish democracy, according to Kirişci, who is at the Washington-based Brookings Institute.

Prior to President Erdoğan’s visit, there were a record number of articles saying he would not receive a warm welcome in Washington, let alone a meeting with U.S. President Barack Obama. Yet Erdoğan ended up in the White House for a long meeting.

I was able to observe both of his visits in May 2013, and the one that took place last March. The difference is day and night. In 2013 the U.S. administration was bending over backwards to welcome Erdoğan, and he was hosted very lavishly.

The last visit was also preceded by the article of Jeff Goldberg, where there was a reference to how disappointed Obama was with his relationship with Erdoğan. I think that the appointment was given because Turkey and the president of Turkey is very central and critical to the fight against the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL). This is the only reason why this appointment was given; this is my reading.

The meeting took place despite Obama’s disillusionment with Erdoğan. Does that mean that Turkey is indispensable, regardless of rules Turkey? Or is Erdoğan not expendable?

Both. The term that is being used in Washington for the U.S. relationship with Turkey is “transactional,” meaning wherever we have common interests and common concerns, we are going to try to cooperate. The idea of a model partnership based on shared liberal values is no longer an issue; the cooperation is out of necessity.

Was there ever a Davutoğlu effect in bilateral relations, since he was one of the figures shaping foreign policy?

Starting in September 2015, Davutoğlu projected the image of a pragmatic person wanting to address a problem. The way in which he handled the European migration crisis was assessed as something positive compared to the rhetoric the president uses where he is constantly criticizing and using contemptuous – almost denigrating – language toward Europe but also the U.S. I suspect that Davutoğlu was offered an audience with Obama [shortly after his meeting with Erdoğan] because of this.

How do you think Washington will see his departure?

At the micro level, they thought that there was room for a pragmatic, solution-oriented relationship with Davutoğlu. But in the course of the last year or two, they had also come to realize that Davutoğlu’s foreign policy based around his book “Strategic Depth” was producing conflict between Turkey and the U.S. – the conflict areas being Syria, ISIL, Egypt, Israel and Iraq. 

Do you think there will be any changes in relations with Davutoğlu’s departure?

I think there is a recognition in Turkey, Europe, the U.S. and the rest of the world that from today onward, Turkey’s foreign policy will be run by the president. The notion that Turkey is a parliamentary system and the president is supposed to be equidistant from political parties does not reflect reality. The U.S., with this experience behind them, has come to recognize this reality. Whoever becomes the PM, they know he is not going to do anything that is unauthorized. The consequence is that Turkey-U.S. relations will not be where they were when Erdoğan first came to power; that’s how I can answer the question because it is comparative. At that time, in addition to Syria, trade, the economy and Turkey’s relations with the EU were also on the agenda.

These issues will no longer be on the agenda; there will be only one issue: the Syrian issue. [But another will be how will] NATO manage the challenges that Russia is bringing to European security? I think there is some room for interaction there.

Has the U.S. given up on Turkey as a reliable ally sharing the same values? 

It is sad but that is the reality. Turkey’s agenda today in the neighborhood is not an agenda that overlaps with the Western transatlantic community’s agenda. There is a lot of aggravation that emerges from that reality. For the U.S., the issue of ISIL is regarded as the major challenge emanating from the Middle East to U.S. and European security. I think they have reached a conclusion that cooperating with Turkey is an uphill battle. They also recognized Turkey and the U.S. have conflicting interests with respect to the PYD [Democratic Union Party]. Turkey considers it a threat to national security whereas the U.S. sees the PYD as an actor with which they are able to cooperate against ISIL in a decisive, reliable and credible manner. In the case of Turkey, there is cooperation but there are question marks over the reliability and credibility and commitment of Turkey.

Why are you using the word sad?

It is sad from a personal point of view because when you look at the world right now, it looks like there are two governance system competing with each other. One governance system is the system to which I thought Turkey was always committed. We became a member of NATO, Council of Europe and the OECD. We aspire to become part of the EU because I suppose we believed the values of members of this community provides more prosperity, stability and security to its citizens. Then there is an alternative form of governance represented by Russia, Iran and China [based on] the idea that the state should have a greater say on the economy, the state interest should prevail over the interests and the rights of individuals and that freedom of expression and media can be curtailed to serve state interests. Turkey is increasingly moving in the direction of this second form of governance.

Why, then, did Brookings invite Erdoğan, producing embarrassing moments when the president’s security detailed interfered with demonstrators?

Brookings has a long-established program called the Global Leaders Forum and invites presidents and prime ministers to give speeches. It is an independent think tank and does not confer legitimacy or illegitimacy on a speaker. The Washington audience got an opportunity to see how Turkey is being governed.

It looks like the U.S. remains indifferent to democratic backpedalling in Turkey.

There was a time at meetings on Turkey in which questions were raised along the lines of, “Why isn’t the U.S. doing more against this backsliding?” Interestingly, in the course of about six months or so, this question is being raised less and less. The U.S. has lost hopes about Turkish democracy. The primary reason for this is that they have this impression that Turkish society, especially after what happened after the June [2015] elections, gives priority to this kind of governance. Also, the Obama administration, especially compared to the Bush and Clinton administrations, is less comfortable with the idea of promoting democracy and supporting democratization.

The interview was originally published in Hürriyet Daily News.