He has decided that he wants his presidency to mean something different, and he has made the fateful decision that he will govern as a left-wing political populist. That is why he has embraced the Occupy Wall Street movement, why he keeps using class-warfare rhetoric, why he has given up on deal-cutting, why he has decided to run against Congress rather than on his accomplishments.

But the problem for the president is that this tactic is not working with crucial swing voters. More specifically, it is not working with white voters.

As Ron Brownstein pointed out, in writing about an Allstate/National Journal Heartland Monitor Poll released on Dec. 16, Obama’s approval ratings among all white voters are absolutely terrible: