Contra Krugman: President Obama Won't be Another Clinton or another Reagan -- He Won't be Another Anybody
Paul Krugman writes terrifically about so many things--most recently his dissection of America's insanely unbalanced subsidies for owner-occupied housing.
Yet when the name "Barack Obama" appears, the great economist seems to lose his moorings. This morning's column slams Obama for his alleged centrist tendencies.
As Krugman begins:
It's feeling a lot like 1992 right now. It's also feeling a lot like 1980. But which parallel is closer? Is Barack Obama going to be a Ronald Reagan of the left, a president who fundamentally changes the country's direction? Or will he be just another Bill Clinton?
This sounds odd coming from Krugman, who spent months knocking Obama for allegedly denigrating the Clinton years. Krugman also omits any mention of that little Iraq matter, on which Obama has not been a waffling centrist.
Krugman denigrates both Clinton and Obama by holding them against a false standard of what liberal Democratic politics is about. Krugman also offers a rather naïve analysis of American politics. President Clinton was a centrist for many reasons. The most important ones had nothing to do with his inner feelings or his personal ideology. He was centrist because he could count the wafer-thin majority he struggled to hold in the Senate and the House. If he had captured the support of seven more reliable Senators, Clinton would have enjoyed a different presidency.
FDR enacted the New Deal with a huge legislative majority. Rick Perlstein's engrossing Nixonland notes that LBJ enacted Medicare, Medicaid, and civil rights legislation with a 2-1 House majority. Before and after this unique period, LBJ was perhaps the ultimate dealmaker and triangulating politician.
If Barack Obama enjoys a large majority, he will be positioned to enact a very progressive legislative agenda. If he doesn't, he will have to make painful compromises. Without the votes, full-throated partisan rhetoric quickly becomes empty bluster.
My jaw dropped farthest when I read Krugman's twin dismissal of Obama's political challenge and the historical nature of a potential Obama victory. He writes: "One thing is clear: for Democrats, winning this election should be the easy part." Man, I wish I had this confidence.
Electing an African-American president of the United States named Barack Hussein Obama is never going to be the easy part. Lest you have any doubts, read Andrew Golis's sobering Talking Points Memo commentary.
Golis notes what another story in today's Times can only discuss through polite euphemism: Even in 2008, many American voters are racially prejudiced.
Given this American reality, one might say it is a mistake for Democrats to nominate a black man as its standard bearer. I refuse to make this concession. Can we say the obvious? An Obama victory would be a huge moment in American history. If anyone can climb this mountain, Obama is the one to do it.
His presidency might succeed or fail. We cannot know today if he would deliver on health reform, or whether his presidency will be swallowed by a terrorist attack, budget problems, or Iraq. One thing we do know: He won't be remembered as another Carter or another Clinton. He won't be remembered as another Reagan. He will be remembered as himself, not another anybody.
Make no mistake. This election will be a dogfight. The best thing Obama can do for every progressive cause is to assemble an electoral majority. Paul Krugman worries that an Obama victory would be less transformative than Reagan's was. I can only wonder what country Krugman is talking about.
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Having read Krugman's article in Truthout before reading this article, I'm a little puzzled. Krugman didn't just up and say Obama's another Bill Clinton; nor did he say that was a bad thing. All he said was that, since Obama seems to have abandoned everything about his campaign that could be construed as Ideas in order to focus exclusively on strategy, he's becoming more like a Bill Clinton, who also focused almost entirely on strategy, than like a Ronald Reagan, whose campaign never strayed too far from the ideas he expressed campaigning for the nomination. Which led Krugman to conclude that an Obama presidency will not be a focus for change so much as a practical guide for effectively negotiating political waters. If Obama supporters are afraid of anything that even looks like criticism, they must not have as much confidence in him as they let on. But maybe he's a much bigger man than his supporters seem to think he is.
Exactly.
Paul Krugman is there to keep everyone, conservatives and liberals, honest.
Sorry if the truth is sometimes inconvenient to Obama's supporters.
Obama's shrieking rush to a "center" which allows the trashing of our Fourth Amendment, subsidizes Religion and Governments' coital embrace and who knows what's next? would stink no matter what.
But it stinks even worse because he is not going to win with it. Let us move past denial into acceptance: He Is Not Going to Win. And he is not going to win because he is now very busily muddying the distinction between himself and the two candidates we had before who may have "won" but neither of whom are President perhaps because the elections were stolen, but also because they didn't win with enough votes to render a theft impossible.
Obama Is Going to Lose. And the further he moves to the "center," the less difference that makes. Sad, isn't it? But here we go again...
We're sorry your candidate didn't get nominated. Please get over it and start doing something productive instead of trying to make your own prophecies come true.
Exactly what planet are you broadcasting from, or, if from Earth, what drugs are you strung out on?
Obama couldn't lose this election if he tried, given the incumbent doofus' antarctic approval rating and McFlipflop's platform of four more years of the same, including a tanked economy, morally and financially bankrupt Iraq War, no health care, insane foreign policy, ravaged environment, etc. Not to mention the symbolism of a strong, vibrant, eloquent, intelligent multi-racial young man applauded by the rest of the world vs. a faded, cranky, stumbling, out of touch, old fart white guy whom the rest of the planet abhors.
Political Reality 101: Even given the stacked deck of Obama's popularity vs. McFlipflop, for a Democrat to win the White House in the generally conservative USA, it is necessary to follow the Bill Clinton road map down the center line, and not the McGovern/Dukakis detour to the left side of the road, playing to the base. The base is a given; kick them in the butt with centrist pandering, and they still have no choice but to follow. They're hardly going over to Barr, or, God forbid, Nader.
Presidential elections are won in Ohio and Florida, not California and New York.
It's well past time that America had a president who is great at communicating AND has many
outstanding progressive ideas. Obviously, Reagan and Carter each had one and not the other.
Bill Clinton was full of charisma but by leading from the center in a conservative dominated era,
accomplished little in preventing the growth of American Imperialism, domestic spying and the
losses associated with selling out our workers for the profiteers of globalization.
"He was centrist because he could count the wafer-thin majority he struggled to hold in the Senate and the House."
"If Barack Obama enjoys a large majority, he will be positioned to enact a very progressive legislative agenda."
Amidst all the whining of this blog is this historical inaccuracy. The Democratic majority in 1993-4 was not "wafer-thin", the Democrats had a 56-44 majority in the Senate and a 258-177 majority in the House. Obama will probably have the same type of majority should the Democrats have a good night this November -- the same type of majority that Clinton had and blew.
Granted, Clinton and the calcified Democratic Leadership of the day blew their once in a lifetime opportunity, but Clinton didn't have a narrow majority.
The Democrats will no doubt increase their majorities in Congress this election, but unless Obama starts standing not just for a change in style, but an actual change in substance, all we will get next year is a change of style, not a change in substance.
And Paul Krugman will still be speaking truth to power no matter who wins.
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"Krugman also offers a rather naïve analysis of American politics."
With your inaccuracies, I think who the "naive" one is pretty clear.
You're being far too literal in your definition of "majority". Did he have the numbers? Yes. But did he have supporters who were willing to go to bat for him in a time when it was no longer in fashion to be seen as a Democratic congressman? Heck no. Do you really think that numerical majority mattered when all most of them were worried about was trying to cater to the right-wing uprising so they wouldn't lost their seats?
Also... "Paul Krugman will still be speaking truth to power no matter who wins."
Funniest thing I've read all day.
Laugh away in ignorance.
Paul Krugman was speaking the truth about the War in Iraq at the beginning when the Congressional Democrats were cowering under their desks.
Krugman is certainly closer to the truth than many of the Obamaniancs on this board were during the primary season.
Clinton's working majority was much smaller than these number suggest, as his Gays in the military, healthcare, and budget battles demonstrated,
Given the sharp right turn that Sen.Obama has made recently, I wonder if it's still true that Sen. Obama can enact a truly progressive agenda. If he gets elected by selling out the progressives that gave him the nomination, how does that auger that he will then veer back towards them and make good on all of that "Change we can believe in" rhetoric? Furthermore, if he can so easily leave behind all the primary stuff he said shouldn't that make those in that mythical "swing vote middleground" wonder what he would renege on should they vote for him in the general election? I don't think Krugman is far off on this one -- right now we don't have a clue as to what a Pres. Obama might do, but I do know that I'm not impressed with the way things are shaping up.
Glad to know you are buying into the hype.
If you are not impressed with the way things are "shaping up" so far, just wait until John McCain is elected because progressives insisted on turning on Obama like a pack of wolves. Harold Pollack makes a very good point when he says that the best thing Obama can do now is assemble an electoral majority.
If he can't, you can kiss any progressive politics goodbye because you will be looking at a President McCain burdened with a largely Democratic congress. Which will result in gridlock.
Thanks for that, HWNA. I feel like I'm in the Twillight Zone. We liberals seem to think that 90% of the country is liberal or very liberal. Guess what? They aren't! So, that means that once you have wrapped up your primary nomination, you need to focus your attention on NOT JUST LIBERALS! Geez. You have to be president of ALL of america, not just the liberal part. You also cannot take a ultra-liberal agenda and expect to have any positive outcome in a 50 state strategy.
Second, we must also remember, that (despite his current flips and flops) McCain is not a "traditional" republican. He appeals to independents and moderates...and apparently is loved by MSM. And if the republican base comes out and supports him, however unenthusiastically, and he gets moderates and independents because they deem Obama too "liberal", then McCain wins the election...but hey, at least progressives will ONCE AGAIN get to state how they stood on principles...and lost.
We are acting as if we already have this in the bag, and we don't. Please remember that Obama cannot deliver on anything if he never gets into office.
If you want to enact change, if you want to actually get behind "post-partisanship", you're going to have to stop acting like the only people who have to change is your opponents. You're decrying Obama's fickleness yet you are failing to recognize that he is no more the left's puppet than he is the right's. If you expect someone to be partisan and post-partisan simultaneously, do you actually think you're not going to be disappointed?
Nonsense. That's just political naivety. This whole "post-partisan" caca is simply nonsense. That's not the way politics works, and no, Obama is not going to change politics itself.
FDR only accomplished great change after he was willing to steamroll conservatives when he had the chance.
Obama should stop triangulating and start taking the battle to the conservatives while they are on the backfoot.
Have you ever heard the expression... that if you don't stand for something... you'll fall for anything?? That's how I'm starting to feel about Sen. O.
You say... you're going to have to stop acting like the only people who have to change is your opponents..
Guess what?... our opponents NEVER change. It would be nice for a change to get someone on our side who actually can get them to come to us. I thought O was just the man to do that. He had no problem attracting conservatives and independents during the primary. Once Clinton left the race... the only voter demographic he was losing to McCain was White Men. (the polls had to actually extrapolate "suburban' white women from white women to find another edge for McCain). So no... Sen O didn't HAVE to move to the center... he CHOSE to.
LBJ was a great Legislator but not a very good President. What we think of his legacy as President, he could have acomplished as Majority Leader in the Senate. He badly managed the War in Veitnam, and The Great Society wasn't a great society at all.
In the 1980s we let the Republicans define Liberal as Tax and Spend. People don't like taxes. It is going to be real hard ,in the current environment to explain to the middle class, that is being squeezed into the poor class, why they have to give their money to someone with even less money.
LBJ saw central government as the solution to just about all problems. It wasn't and it still isn't.
Obama has seen that decentralization can work. He has decentralized the fundrasing process. He has by-passed the MSM and the main-stream Bloggers. He has gone directly to the people.
If the US is going to survive with anything that resembles the US of the last century we are going to have to do things differently. We have to figure out how to make that change as we go, but change is what is required.
I agree with you on Vietnam, but his Great Society's "War on Poverty" program resulted in close to a 40% drop in poverty from when he took office in 1963 to 1970. Equally impressive was the steep drop in poverty level among African-Americans, which dropped from 55% in 1960 to 27% in 1968.
Say what you will about government inadequacies today, but in terms of accomplishing what it set out to do, the War on Poverty was ridiculously successful, even with limited funding due to the expansion of the Vietnam War.
http://www.digitalhistory.uh.edu/database/article_display.cfm?HHID=372
I wonder if many of the posters here bothered to read the most recent Krugman column. For my money, he doesn't say anything particularly controversial or even arguable. His main thesis seems to be that Obama may turn out to be a centrist . . .in the Bill Clinton mold.
I suspect that many of those now bad-mouthing Krugman have voiced identical concerns in the past.
Centrist tendencies, on what is this based ? This sounds like more Krugman self-interest to me. Shows you the inconsistent mindset of an economist who has a strong opinion on health care. He is one who fails to address a critical subject like Iraq. He won't go there though.
LOL.
How uniformed can a comment get?
Won't address Iraq? Paul Krugman was speaking truth to power on Iraq back when the Congressional Democrats were hiding under their desks and triangulating on the war and Bush's tax cuts for the wealthy?
You should be THANKING Paul Krugman for willing to tell the truth about Iraq when it wasn't popular to do so.
Yet he supported a candidate who voted to go to war. You're a bit of a troll on this site. You only make snarky comments, and I have yet to see any of your "proud" liberal views. I'm so glad you get worked up about Krugman. A real American hero, that guy.
What progressive agenda? Faith-based initiatives, illegal wiretapping, guns under every pillow? Obama will be focused on getting reelected, since his only political ambition seems to be about himself. I guess we can just keep having faith?
Krugman has had a bug up his behind about Obama from the very start. Since the remedies for the diasters Krugman bravely detailed in his book, The Great Unraveling, more likely will come with an Obama presidency, one has to look past politics for his hostility. Possibly it's the Israel thing, possibly it's the loss of a cabinet position Krugman was angling for with Hillary, possibly Krugman just doesn't like someone being smarter and more charismatic than he is. Who knows? I stopped reading the guy months ago. A columnist like EJ Dionne has far more to add to the national dialogue than a stuffy, fussy college professor like Krugman. The Times, with the trio of Brooks, Kristol, and Krugman, is a serious part of the problem progressives have in getting the truth out past the choir.
I think Krugman was bullied by Obama supporters like me early on for his strong attacks against Obama's health care plan. Remember, Krugman was a primary author of the health care plan that both Edwards and Clinton supported and I think Krugman saw 'his' plan being the one not going forward. As with many folks on the left and right, it's all personal.
You ever look at Krugman's picture that accompanies his column in the online edition of the NY Times?
I stopped reading his biased drivel a while ago because every time I see that picture I feel compelled to draw a goatee and little horns coming out of his head on it.
My only explanation for Krugmans continued rantings against Obama is that he is a closet bigot, I can think of no other reason for this once great liberal pundit repeatedly going ballistic on Barack.
Not a bigot...just bitter.
It always seems to get back to "racism", The more this campaign goes on to reveal the man, 0's supporters look more and more under the bed for the boogieman.
Riddle me this patman, where is there any hint of racism? I think I know just who exactly is looking for the boogeyman.
Note to self, continue to form own opinion, and Paul Krugman's opinion does not appear to be an opinion one would want to form as their own.
I believe gay people should be allowed to get married, execution banned, legalization of all drugs in order to prevent the spread of disease and reduction of prison sentences (too many economic incentives), tapped interrogations of all suspects US citizens and non, transparency in all government economic habits, stronger regulation on corporations on all matters (the damn pathological pursuit of profit), proactive measures to ensure all environmental conditions are remedy with habitat first rather than the bottom-line, mandatory recycling services, yadda, yadda, yadda the list goes on in my perfect world. The truth is we are no where close to my vision, but the vision will only start to fruition if Obama takes the proactive measures. He may not be the perfect darling the media has said we dubbed him, but he is the right soul for the job, he cares for us. The FISA bill states the government will still have the ability to prosecute government/ telecoms with criminal charges. This is a lose-lose situation and everybody knows it. Unless you have read the bill, understand the situation, ask the right questions and look for divergent opinions, than you know nothing. As much as I'm the left lefty McGee, I'm set in the pragmatic world rather than what sounds good in my heart. If my children can finish this dream set in motion by Obama, than I'll take this investment. Republicans so shut up and let’s do it figtht the "progressive" fight.
Great points I feel the same way on most of those issues, but we have to deal with the reality that much of the country does not. Obama is running to be president for ALL the people not only progressives. Sure we need a major swing to the left in this country and most people want that too. But that being said on the local level we can all find pockets of this country that meets our lifestyles.
If Obama ends the war in Iraq, passes affordable health care, appoints left leaning judges and gets us on a path of new clean energy technology he has done more than my wildest expectations. This country sucks right now and is getting worse by the day. We need a change in course but I do not expect miracles.
"but he is the right soul for the job, he cares for us"
If you believe the rhetoric of a Chicago trained politician, maybe, but it seems like the old "do anything to win" of the old politics. Now the 0's excuse it by saying, "well he has to go there to win but then he will do what he said he would do. Really think so? This could turn out to be the biggest con job in political history. Reminiscent of the Elmer Gantry/James Jones mode.
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