In the wake of his party's midterm elections rout, a profusion of political commentators -- including many prominent Democrats -- are urging President Obama to move to the right and focus on wooing Independent voters and Republicans. Obama appears eager to try to appease Republicans in the new Congress and chart a more centrist, Clintonian course. But, if only for reasons of political self-interest, he shouldn't discount the growing uneasiness toward his presidency among his party's base.
Nearly half of Democrats, according to a recent Associated Press poll, would like Obama to face a primary challenger in 2012. By a count of roughly two to one, Obama supporters do not believe he'll deliver on his promise to bring change to Washington. A third of Democrats do not think the president will be re-elected. Few expected the political climate to change so drastically, or for Obama to be facing a revolt within his own ranks, in just two years.
Back in 2008, Obama was the avatar of an unprecedented grassroots political movement and a new era in American politics. His campaign represented the culmination of an ambitious effort by Democrats to reshape their party by empowering local activists and organizers. After the 2004 election, when Karl Rove eagerly anticipated the dawn of a permanent Republican majority, Joe Trippi, Howard Dean's mad genius presidential campaign manager, wrote an influential op-ed in The Wall Street Journal entitled, "Only the Grassroots Can Save the Democratic Party." Later that year, Dean embraced that grassroots mantle when he unexpectedly became chair of the Democratic National Committee, vowing to revitalize the party at the local level in red and blue states alike. "The way to rebuild the Democratic Party is not from the consultants down, it is from the ground up," Dean said. His fifty-state strategy decentralized authority and elevated rank-and-file activists, which helped elect Democrats across the map in 2006 and 2008. The Obama campaign drastically expanded the political mobilization Dean sparked, on a scale nobody could predict. Yet the momentum didn't last -- and Democrats suffered the consequences in 2010.
After his election, Obama's backers hoped he would transform the very nature of governance in Washington, bringing millions of politically savvy supporters into the legislative process and building a parallel force that could thwart the entrenched power of wealthy corporate interests. Instead, in a bid to avoid the youthful mistakes of the Carter and Clinton years, Obama packed his White House with well-worn veterans of previous administrations, who embodied longevity over innovation and connections over change. A candidate who ran as a vessel for bottom-up politics assembled a surprisingly conventional, top-down, insider administration. "'Yes We Can' became 'Yes I Can,'" said Harvard University community organizing expert Marshall Ganz, a key adviser to Obama's campaign.
As a result, the spirit of grassroots organizing that animated Obama's campaign has been largely missing from his White House. His post-campaign arm, Organizing for America, became a mere afterthought and extension of the White House political operation. After running as change agents in '06 and '08, Democrats became the party of Washington and the status quo in 2010. They were punished accordingly.
Interestingly enough, at the very moment that Obama demobilized his grassroots movement, the Tea Party adopted the Dean/Obama playbook and ran with it, fielding insurgent candidates across the country, injecting much-needed energy into the GOP and taking over local parties from the bottom up. They forced establishment Republicans to pay attention to their agenda, through primaries and protests. The consequences weren't always beneficial to the Republican Party -- Tea Party-backed candidates squandered winnable races in places like Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware and Nevada -- but few can underestimate the impact these conservative activists had in 2010. The success of the Tea Party should be a reminder to progressive activists that pressure politics works. "Republicans fear their base and the Democrats hate their base," political commentator David Frum has argued. If they hope to shift that power imbalance, Democratic activists must prove to Democratic candidates that their support can no longer be taken for granted.
As he negotiates with Republicans going forward, President Obama must not forget about his left flank. Re-engaging with his grassroots base, in a real and meaningful way--not just a month before the election -- would be a good place to start.
Follow Ari Berman on Twitter: www.twitter.com/AriBerman
Jeff Schweitzer: A Falsehood Wrapped in an Enigma Stuffed Into a Burrito
 |
 |
|
| Obama | Romney | |
|---|---|---|
| Electoral Votes (270 to win) |
332 | 206 |
| Obama | Romney | |
|---|---|---|
| Total | 65,899,660 | 60,932,152 |
| Percent | 51.1% | 47.2% |
| Democrats* | Republicans | |
|---|---|---|
| Current Senate | 53 | 47 |
| Seats gained or lost | +2 | -2 |
| New Total | 55 | 45 |
| Democrats | Republicans | |
|---|---|---|
| Seats won | 201 | 234 |
I would love to know who they think can do a much better job? Then names that are being thrown out there are NOT impressive at all.
You got your Palin-NOT, Huckabee-NOT, Newt-NOT, Romney-NOT, McCain-NOT, J Bush-NOT all of the above is a yawn fest with no new ideas.
I didn't expect anything from President Obama when I voted for him and thus had no unrealistic expectations and thus not bitter. I'm just damn glad that McCain/Palin didn't win.
A lot of credit does need to be given to Mr. Dean, Joe Trippi, and the other Democratic strategists who re-organized the party so well; what they accomplished was really brilliant. The not only gained in the elections of 06' and 08', but they seem to have established an entirely new paradigm for how campaigns are run and how political parties interact with their constituents--from the ground up, using technology to get individuals involved. This is a great thing for the country, and I am glad the Tea Party caught onto the same lessons (despite disagreeing with their politics). Hopefully this will become the way things are run from now on--grassroots.
As for Obama himself--yes, I like many other liberals am somewhat disappointed; I didn't vote for him but I was hoping for a lot more than the moderate, ineffectual administration that we've had so far. But I wasn't expecting it; I feared from the beginning that after he won the election he would abandon his grass root supporters, which he did, and it helped cost Democrats in the midterms.
By listening to those calling for him to be 'Clinton-like' and to keep wooing Republicans, he is insuring his own political obsolescence. If the country wants a Republican to run things, they will just vote for a real one in 2012. Instead, Obama ought to start defining his own personality for a change.
I have been a Republican for 40 years, but I think the "bottom up" approach to politics, regardless of the ideology, is best for the country. I certainly did not like obama winning in 2008... but I admired the way it was done.
Thanks
Nearly every failure of the Obama administration (and they way outnumber the successes) is because he didn't put the time in as an executive at some lower level of government.
He seemed to think that people would do what he asked them to just because he was president. Well that's not the way the world works. Being an executive is like herding cats. Every single person has her own plans and desires. Executives need to sit on top of the bureaucracy and weave those disparate plans into a coherent policy.
Sometimes this takes incentives, sometimes it takes threats, and sometimes it takes inspiration. But it always takes experience. Obama didn't have it. Worse, as president, I don't think he's in a position to learn on the job because he's to isolated by his position.
So when Obama tells an agency to do something, they might do it or they might not. Nothing will work for him quickly and only a few things will work slowly.
I think Obama might be a great president in his second term, but only if his second term doesn't directly follow his first.
Although it's pretty sad, I think you're also right about him being too isolated in his position and surrounded by yes-men to learn on the job. It doesn't bode well for the rest of his term, or his re-election. Maybe he can pull a Grover Cleveland though, like you implied, but it wouldn't be worth much if he came back in the same mindset that he left in.
special. And now it's apparent that Obama is nothing special.
Never give in. Never never never never never ~Winston Churchill
They worked hard and never gave up and ended up in good form. No wonder Obama leans Republican. Sure, his mom got food stamps and, sure, his dad left them when he was young - but that didn't stop either his mother and him from putting one foot in front of the other, not looking back, and 'making something of themselves'. That is what Republicans believe should be the American norm - by ourselves with no help or assistance from anyone - that is, unless it is to your benefit.
My take? Obama is a registered Democrat because he knew that a black Republican wouldn't get as far politically as a black Democrat. He's a smart cookie. He's ambitious. He had a plan. He worked that plan and he got what he wanted.
What is scary is that Sarah Palin is doing the same thing. She is striking while the angst in America is hot and she may end up with the whole enchilada - the White House.
However, I do think that Obama is a Democrat for more profound reasons than just his skin color. Maybe he could have fit in on the far left of the Republican party, but he's a much more natural fit as a moderate Democrat.
Interesting idea. Tell me, just for the sake of conversation, exactly who do you think is still in "Obama's Party's Base"?
Mr. Hopey Changey Man is smart -- he can well remember that a huge portion of his campaign money came from the Global Corporate Masters. How dumb would it be for him to abandon them now?
the politicians have abandoned us in favor of the Corporate Dominants:
Reagan: trickle down economics
Clinton: NAFTA
Bush: 2 wars to funnel maximum taxpayer dollars to Halliburton etc.
Obama kiss kiss to Big Pharma through health care "reform"
It is easy to use the word "silly" -- to me it indicates you are not very up-to-date with campaign finance, or particularly well read.
but thanks for joining in!
Only around one-fourth of American voters self-identify as "liberal" or "progressive." So Obama was trying to put forth a progressive platform to a bunch of non-progressive voters.
He succeeded. He got health care reform passed by Congress and signed into law, which had eluded every previous Dem president since Truman.
The lefties who voted for Obama had unrealistically high expectations (and Obama didn't try to disabuse them of those expectations). Many of them were also too young to remember the great political battles of the 1960s and 1970s, in which liberalism was discredited in the eyes of those who lived through those eras as adults.
Obama carries that baggage, and had to first show that liberalism could work on something before getting folks to try liberalism on other things.
He didn't. He detached himself from OFA and went to handle the inside-the-beltway end of things. OFA was a massive failure that demobilized itself. Your article at http://www.thenation.com/article/155108/herding-donkeys?page=full makes that perfectly clear, so why are you claiming here that Obama demobilized OFA?
Tim Kaine is a failure, and should be fired. Howard Dean was an effective chair of the DNC, and should be returned to that job if he still wants it. Obama has never been chair of the DNC, and is needed as president.
But I don't think putting OFA outside the DNC structure would have helped. We already have DFA there, and it isn't doing any better.
If Obama had shown the courage and character to draw a line in the sand and stand up to fight the corporatocracy or conservative movement even once, he probably would still have a base.