Obama Can't Thumb His Nose at the GOP, and Here's Why

The loud clamor from progressives, some liberal Democrats, and even a few self-described moderates for President Obama to get down and dirty with the GOP on health care and other big ticket legislative issues will always fall on deaf White House ears. There are good reasons why. Obama never had anything resembling the big and popular mandate that the press and Democrats believed he had to make sweeping change. He ran against an aging GOP candidate saddled with the colossal burden of a divided, corruption- and scandal-plagued GOP, a Saturday Night Live joke line vice presidential running mate, a tanking economy, an unpopular war, and a GOP president whose ocean bottom ratings made Hoover Hoover look like the second coming of Lincoln.

Yet Obama still got trounced among white voters. A good chunk of whites voted for him less because of his message of hope and change, than because of disgust and loathe of Bush bumbles, fumbles, and miscues. Candidate Obama delivered carefully calibrated rhetorical toss away lines about ending the war, single payer health care, nailing Bush lawbreaking officials, cracking down on the Wall Street greed merchants, and jump-starting a new war on poverty. Yet he is and always has been a solid team-playing Beltway, centrist Democrat, and these political positions are anathema to centrist Democrats. To play the centrist political game correctly requires compromise, conciliation, and bipartisanship. Illinois Republicans, and that included some of the most conservative down state Republicans, repeatedly gave Obama high marks as the one upstate Illinois black Democrat who would continually reach across party lines to build consensus to get legislation passed.

Obama learned early that this was the sure-fire way to bag the big financial and corporate dollars, stay in good stead with the Democratic Party regulars, and garner favorable ink in the mainstream media. He gave a bigger hint that compromise and conciliation would be the watchwords of his administration in his coming of political age keynote speech at the Democratic National Convention in 2004. The punch line that brought swoons and wows was that Americans shouldn't be pigeonholed into Red States and Blue States, and that he would work hard to close the political and ideological rifts and divisions between them. This was a political template for a non-confrontational, don't-ruffle-the-GOP's-political-feathers approach to policy matters.

Then there's the matter of race. The escalating GOP counterinsurgency against him is fueled by playing on the thinly veiled racial fears of a black liberal leaning president. A president who has an allegedly suspect birth status, religious ties, and patriotism, and who will subvert the liberties, and economic well-being of law abiding, patriotic hard working white Americans. This is pap and hogwash, but the scare tactic has worked.

Polls show a big fall off in his approval ratings. Democrats are now inching up on Republicans in getting the blame for the mess in Congress. This makes Obama even more gun-shy about trying to ram health care reform, or any other part of his agenda, through Congress with Democrats only. This would draw not only howls of dictatorship but stir massive political and public disruption and unrest. This would open the door wide for Republicans to rebound and actually win back a few seats in the 2010 mid term elections.

The specter of a rejuvenated, even more warlike GOP is Obama's worst nightmare. The low intensity warfare against him would severely hamper his efforts to better shore up the economy, pass immigration reform and revamped campaign reform law, and wind down the wars.

Imploring Obama to thumb his nose at the GOP and go it alone with Democrats shows pure ignorance or Kool Aid delusion of who and what Obama is and how he got where he got. It just ain't going to happen.

Earl Ofari Hutchinson is an author and political analyst. His forthcoming book is How Obama Governed: the Year of Crisis and Challenge (Middle Passage Press, January 2010).

Comments

[fictioneer]

How can this man be an author of a book about a year that hasn't happened yet? Well, only if he pre-wrote the story and is fitting the pieces together as he sees it---and not as it is happening. I don't buy this revision of a year that isn't over yet.

[Lego87]

I think the article has merit. While I understand that a lot of people would be happy with Obama push healthcare without a single Republican vote. I can understand were the author is coming from as well.

Bush for instance didn't have to go to war with Iraq without Dem support, he had plenty. There is also the matter of those democrats sitting in the states where they have a red bullseye on them over this and might loose in 2010 because of it. I am sure they have voiced concern to Obama.

And just in case something did go wrong with the reform, and it didn't go as planned, it sure would be nice to have other people on board as well sharing the blame than an army of "I told ya so's". Im not saying it would go wrong, im just stating that I understand where the author is coming.

[hapiday]

The Meek,

I thought the same thing and said it on this site. I think you are right about all this being planned. McCain was given the heads up. The Republicans didn't want to clean up this mess. Let the Hillary or the black guy have it. But, I have a feeling President Obama is going to clean up some of this mess we are in. I think the Republicans think they are going to get back in 2012 after most of the work has been done. I will campaign from sun up to sun down to get people out to vote in 2010 and 2012.

We must campaign just like we did in 2008. The young people are watching and are more politically aware now than ever.

[The Meek]

I had a paranoid thought during the campaign when McCain and Palin were the Republican's candidates. What if the Cheney types knew that they had screwed things so bad they couldn't fix it so they threw the election by putting the stupidest and least charismatic people they could find up as candidates. Perfect, this way they could blame everything on a black man or a women.

And still Dumb and Dumber got 47% of the vote. OMG I couldn't believe it. It doesn't give me much reason for hope.

But I do hope that the O man will be able to outwit them all.

[Lionfish]

Don't let that Lion fool you..Black people don't fight like white people. We are thinkers, we don't go get a gun or a whip. I am from the south and very much of a mixed heritage..­I have seen a lot of the Ku Klux Klan as a child, of angered whites, burning crosses, and several black boys and men hanging from trees.....­.I hate to say it but these Republicans are nothing but the Klan in suits....

[hapiday]

I agree with you. I have been saying what you said since the elections. Black people are so accustomed to be abused, insulted and misunderstood that when we fight back, most whites don't know they have been struck until it's too late. We can't afford to hoop and holla every time something happens. We watch, listen and wait. President Obama can't rule in anger, he can't go off the handle, he can't get emotional over every insult. I'm sure he and his administration sees the same things we see. The Republicans are doing every thing they can to derail his presidency. But, I think there are going to be some surprises in this presidency.

[Plurabelle06]

53% of Americans voted for Obama and only 46% voted for McCain. Americans are sick of Republican tactics and if the Dems in the White House and Congress shut down the GOP legislatively, then the people who voted for him will be appeased and they will vote a majority for Dems next time. The GOP is going to scream the sky is falling about every single thing the president does. The mass GOP hysteria toward the President of the United States addressing US school children as if he were a pedophile wanting to supervise nap time is proof that they are not acting based on reason. Since these people will not be happy until the president has been shot or a Republican elected, there is no point in including them in the policy-making decisions. If you aren't part of the solution, you're part of the problem. The Dems need to shove the obstructionists out of the way and get down to the business of fulfilling their promises and repairing the damage the nation has suffered from kowtowing to the GOP mindset for the last 8 years.

[Flavor]

Plurabelle06, I bet you have a high IQ. The reason, I said that is you stated that word for word accuratley, The one thing that I would like to add to your beautiful statement is this, the rep. party does know how to sell wolftickets they have experience in doing it, they waste no time in getting the heard in to do the howling. On the other hand I see weakness with the democrats, and I see no unity what so ever and this will and can tear down the house of democrats, the one thing that can save this union is the people who seem to think that president Obama has got to do this by himself and that is one thing the republican party has down pack they form a chain of wolves and they howl, and they are heard even all the lies they form. We the people have got to help this president and come out and stand for what is right. Thank You, Pluralbelle06 you get it.

[jimmyjones22]

You're wrong, and here's why:

Most normal people are scared to death by birth and gun toting nutcases at public events, yet these are now the core of the republican party.

Also, calls of socialism/­Nazism/com­munism is equally badly received by the majority of the public. The 'silent majority' today is those normal people who aren't yelling other people down who have questions in town halls. Normal people who just have questions see these people as obstructionist.

Also, young people have not abandoned Obama, and just because his honeymoon period is finally ending doesn't mean that he's losing support.

Most people who find themselves losing faith in him is because he doesn't 'jam' his changes through. People already voted for change, and people aren't very patient about it in these hard times. If he doesn't make some profound change, he will not face an easy re-election.

[stereolabb]

A poor analysis from a usually sharp observer. Obama compromising with those who would wish to destroy him is suicidal. The country (save the predictable reactionary cretins) would generally support him if he gave a heart-felt uncompromising fight to corporatism run amok. Did it hurt Teddy Roosevelt, Harry Truman, FDR? Great leaders act to fit the temper of the times. DINO's would follow suit or face elective wrath as well. The times call for decisive progressive reform. This was both Obama's elective promise and mandate. To do less, to sell his progressive wing and strongest base down the river as he and Rahm are seemingly wont to do, would surely lead to this president's swift downfall.

[listeningpost]

I'd much rather see a valiant single term than an ineffectual try at two. We can't afford that.

[laborgrunt]

IMO this analysis is pap and hogwash. The country is already too far to the right, asking for a public option is not extremist, calling the Prisdent a Nazi Muslim Commie is extremist. So bottom line is, there is no dealing with these ppl. They ran the country for 8 years and before that they got what they wanted from Clinton (see NAFTA, DOMA, W2W, etc). They have gotten what they wanted, and I wish President Obama would not only thumb his nose at them, but every once in while that he would give them a bloody nose as well.

[porsche996]

President Obama by winning the election has now met the Plutocracy he really truly serves, and it ain't the people that elected him.

We caught an otherwise bright man on the way up' and now he is corrupted by the aroma of the pies baking up to the big house and wants like anyone would, to stay in the deluxe apartment in the sky.

This is what McCain was talking about and Clinton was talking about when they said he wasn't ready....i­t appears they was right. If he had Jessie Jackson, Ralph Abernathy and Dick Gregory advising him he might grow a pair but I think he's like the kind of Keith Willis small forward that doesn't like to mix it up inside but seeks to get his shot from the wing, where it's safe.

We needed a Charles Barkley kind of small forward that would just flat kick a bigger man's a*s to get what he needs. This is not the man we need.

[MajorDem]

I have to disagree with Mr. Hutchinson's conclusion, that Obama's presidency depends on compromising and mollifying conservatives lest their response gets worse, and the big corporate money abandons him. The smart money backs the winner and winners dont play against their own strengths.

Americans respect one thing more than any other and that is strength and resolve. The Conservatives are acting this way because no one is standing up to them. The Dems have the power and need to use it-- or they will loose it. Roll the conservatives a few times and they will get the message-- there is a new sheriff in town. Dems loose because they dont deliver -- not because they are too liberal.

As for the race issue. Mr. Obama has to be the President regardless of his race and who does or dosent like it. They may never like him but in the end the will respect him.

[lafrance]

I think many also miss, along with the author, the very big problem of our population being spoon fed conservative ideas and thinking for the last 30 years and seeing what once was centrist democratic mainstream thinking as now radical.
Mainstream democrats are treated as fringe while rightwing fringe are seen as just average populist upset.
Those who were born in the late 70s on do not know how skewed the thinking of average people is now.
I remember as a child in the 60s mainstream thought and ideas are now considered to be so far to the left that they are outright rejected.
Nixon was seen as very republican, rightwing but, by today's standards he would be seen as a far left liberal on the order of Kucinich.
There is such a fear of doing more then just talk about changing things that actually doing it makes people go into anxiety attacks.
This is the climate Obama is operating in.

[MajorDem]

Ditto

[kevinw]

Then stop all of the crap about this being a transformational Presidency. It is GW II. He has not investigated torture or other constitutional violations. FISA is tinkered with, but pretty much the same. We still do renditions. Supoosedly we provide a chaperone to make sure there is no inappropriate touching, but really why send some one else to another country for questioning unless you are planning to do something that wopuld be illegal here. To put your argument in a much clearer light, Obama is a simple politician and the whole "yes we can " thing was just a gimmick. If he actually did what he promised, how would he gat all of those corporate dollars?

What the pols are missing is the only chance the party has of staying in power is to be radical and do the right thing. You can triangulate this one. The progressives have been lied to by experts. They will not fall for the phony trigger crap. Right now they are acting like we are as dumb as the ant-abortion crowd that is still waiting for the constitutional amendment on abortion. They are still giving the GOP money even after they had control of all branches of government including the judiciary for 6 years. I wonder if they told them they gave them the amendment except it has a trigger.

[Helzapoppin]

It's not ignorance, nor is it delusion. Many of us on the left know full well Obama is not capable of being an effective Progressive leader. That does not, however, mean we aren't going to push hard for a Progressive agenda and have our voices heard anyway. Just because Obama is no Progressive doesn't me we abandon the field to all the other forces trying to have their way.