Strategists and pollsters call it “Bibi fatigue.” It’s irrelevant to the half of Israeli voters, who already loathe Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, but it certainly applies to the other half, made up of his supporters or just people who think that he is a good prime minister. There is a creeping awareness among these voters who are not part of Netanyahu’s hard-core base that he has exhausted all he has to offer. They have grown tired of the cacophony surrounding him and the endless racket raised by him and his supporters. They are weary of the muck being slung in every direction and the personality cult surrounding that surrounds the prime minister. While some will not yet admit that they are ready for someone new in the office, they have their concerns.
It is exactly this phenomenon that Netanyahu is now fighting. The only person who could never suffer from “Bibi fatigue” is the man himself. He certainly isn’t exhausted. Even at 70, he has been crisscrossing the country at a killer pace. His previous two campaigns focused on intense online activity including Facebook videos and live social network broadcasts round the clock. This time, Netanyahu has decided to leave the web and go back to his roots, to go out into the field and breathe fresh life into his faltering camp, to spread his optimism and convince his supporters that the task in front of him is possible.
