Barack Obama, after the storm. Washington's political elite is talking about it. The Republican wave is only a matter of size and scope, barring an October surprise. And yet, while the storm clearly looms over the horizon, Obama's reaction remains a mystery.

Will Obama triangulate à la Bill Clinton? Double down with liberals? Will he seek to retake the political center?

Obama must win back independents to win reelection. The more interesting question is, therefore, how can Obama retake the electoral middle ground?

Many analysts have framed the question around Clinton. And Clinton's past indeed provides one potential roadmap. Republicans won the House in 1994 for the first time in four decades. Democrats were both shocked and awed. "The president is relevant here," Clinton told reporters in early 1995. It was a president protesting too much. Yet Clinton soon proved relevant with the Oklahoma City bombing. And in time, he resurrected his presidency by returning to the perception that initially won him the presidency.

Clinton returned home. Not to the place called Hope. He returned to the moderation of the New Democrat platform. He took up Republican causes and took on Democratic sacred cows. The president who pushed healthcare reform and gays in the military was gone. This Clinton was fighting for a balanced budget and welfare reform. He was once more the centrist-reformist. Americans understood where Clinton was going because they knew where he had been.

Presidents can go home again. But it will be a more difficult trip for Obama. Obama's home, his core character, remains vague. He was elected during Democrats most ascendant moment. The GOP era imploded. Obama needed only be "change you can believe in."

Obama was the anti-Bush in so many respects: white to black, Republican to Democrat, south to north, folksy to urbane, ineloquent to professorial, Texas ranch to Chicago's Hyde Park. The old Ford F-150 was traded in for a shiny Prius.

But Democrats have discovered that this remains an F-150 country (it's still the best selling automobile in America). And a Prius cannot suddenly become a pickup truck. Obama cannot remake himself by becoming someone else. Instead, he must be true to the image that won independents on Election Day.

Locating that Obama is difficult. Obama's persona was kept deliberately ambiguous. We witnessed this strategy, most clumsily, when Obama said it was "above my pay grade" to determine when a baby has human rights. Yet, writ large, Obama's disciplined obscurity worked. Constituencies projected their ideals onto him. They believed.

It's been said that "anger always comes from frustrated expectations." This is why the Rorschach politician has not only struggled as president, but faces a difficult struggle to revive his presidency. Political faith is a fragile port. It awaits the charismatic politician. People easily anchor their ideals onto him. But if the politician's anchor falters, he will quickly lose the people and soon find himself adrift, unable to connect as he once did.

Obama is now a man without a port. He must re-anchor. He needs a new narrative that emerges from his first narrative. Great presidents push policy proposals that flow from the persona that won the office and principles worthy of that office.

Obama was elected to "turn the page" and begin a new chapter. He came to be seen as a liberal from earlier chapters. By 2010, Democrats were haunted by revived stereotypes (tax and spend liberal). By summer, a majority of independents told Gallup pollsters that Democrats were "too liberal."

Obama's ambiguity has been filled in, and in a bad way. He can rebound. But he must build upon his image, rooted not in 2008 but 2004. The Obama of the Democratic convention: "There's not a liberal America and a conservative America -- there's the United States of America."

This is the Obama that Doug Schoen, a centrist pollster, believes can comeback. Schoen was part of a small circle of advisors who helped Clinton recover from 1994.

"I don't think Obama has a home to return to, but he sure as hell must build himself a new home," Schoen said.

"Clinton's attitude was, I'm way out of position. I've got to get back to where I was during the campaign. He basically said look, I've got to get back to the center," Schoen continued. "Obama's got to say, I've listened. I'm going to negotiate with these people. They've had their voice heard. I'm going to take as much of their agenda and create a bipartisan agenda."

It's the practical move. Congress will be more polarized next cycle. Obama will need Republicans to win legislation. It's the ideal time to bridge red and blue America. Partisanship can become his antagonist. But will this president choose issues that transcend partisan fault lines? If he did, will enough Republicans meet him half way? If the recent past is prologue, it's tempting to answer "no" on both accounts.

But what's the alternative? Obama goes for more liberal change. Washington only changes for the worst (it can get worse). Nothing gets done. Partisans further entrench. The middle is further disillusioned. And the once-idealistic candidate leaves America only more jaded for his presidency. That's one way to respond to a wave.

Yet there's also the other way. It's the way America once saw Obama. And that Obama would have tried to rise with the wave, rather than let it take Washington under.