Barack Obama and Ernie Shore

Perhaps the best model for Barack Obama as he begins his presidency is an obscure pitcher named Ernie Shore who threw his last pitch in 1920 and is remembered by only the most intense baseball historians and sabrmetricians. More than 90 years ago, Ernie Shore was brought in to a game after the starting pitcher, whose first name coincidentally was George, had give up a walk to start the game. Shore proceeded to pick the runner off first base and retire the next 26 batters, essentially throwing a perfect game. This remains the greatest single relief pitching performance in baseball history and a task comparable to the one that now faces Obama. To continue the baseball imagery, if George H.W. Bush was, as Jim Hightower famously described him, a man who was born on first base and thinks he hit a triple, than Barack Obama is like a relief pitcher who was brought in to pitch with his team down by about ten runs and is somehow expected to lead his team to victory.

Cleaning up after George W Bush was never going to be easy. When Obama won his historic election in November, many analysts and observers were quick to point out the daunting challenges facing President-Elect Obama. Those voices sound almost quaint now. The challenges which were facing the country in November pale compared to what Obama will have to confront when he takes office next week. Today, those halcyon pre-Madoff, Mumbai attack, Operation Cast Lead, Russian gas crisis days, when the condition of the economy was merely disastrous rather than catastrophic, feel like a distant and simpler time. While these events have occurred around the world, President Bush seemed to be invigorated by Obama's victory and has stepped up his unique blend of arrogance and obliviousness during the last two months of his presidency.

Accordingly, the Obama administration will take office with less room for error than any administration in recent history. The consequences for making the kind of mistakes, such as, failing to pass a major and highly anticipated piece of legislation, getting bogged down in difficult confirmation hearings, not heeding serious warnings from the outgoing administration or taking a few months to figure out how the presidency really works, that presidents often make early in their first term, will be far more dire for Obama than for any of the last few presidents.

It is not just Obama, however, who will have to operate under these unforgiving circumstances, but the Democratic congress confronts a similar challenge. The good news, however, is that this moment is an extraordinary opportunity for the party. The Democratic Party dominated American politics for a generation, and congress for almost three generations, because, current right wing ranting notwithstanding, of the successful work Franklin Roosevelt did in ending the depression and ushering in a period of sustained prosperity and restructuring our foreign policy. If Obama is able to achieve success even approaching that of Roosevelt, the benefits for the Democratic Party will be enormous.

If, however, Obama is unable to pass a stimulus bill, reform health care or achieve other significant goals, it will be unfair to place all the blame on the White House. Congress will have earned some of the blame as well. This means that the Democratic leadership in congress will have to seek a balance between working with the administration to pass legislation while maintaining their own institutional strength and independence. When the Democratic congress and president were unable to work together in 1993, it was the Democrats in congress who paid for it as they lost control of both houses of congress in the midterm elections of 1994. President Clinton, however, went on to win reelection handily in 1996, put together, on balance, a pretty good presidency and solidify his family's control of the party for almost a generation.

The stakes are much higher this time as failure to work together now, or to provide genuine solutions to the myriad problems we face, may not yield such immediate electoral reprisals for either congress or the president, but will probably cause more serious longer term problems for the Democratic Party. The next few months represent a test for the relevance of the Democratic Party. If the party demonstrates an inability to govern, yet again, the question of what is the point of the Democratic Party will not be easily avoided. Like most things in politics, and life, this doesn't feel fair. It was after all, Bush and the Republicans, who got us in this 10 run hole, to return to the baseball analogy, but who needs a relief pitcher who takes a ten run deficit and turns it into a 13 run deficit, even if he is better than the guy before him.

Comments

[shorefarmsorganics]

First of all, please don't compare my cousin Ernie Shore to Obama. This is the dumbest comparison for two different subjects that I have ever heard of.
If your going to put Ernie Shore in an artical please get your facts right about him. The game this happened in was on June 23, 1917 while playing for the Boston RedSox. And the "George" he replaced, happened to be Babe Ruth. I guess the Babe wasn't important enough to mention. You also didn't happen to mention that Ernie Shore served as Sherrif of Forsyth County for 34 years and was a World War I veterian.
How can you posibally compare this man and this baseball event to anything that has to do with our current persident?

[FZliveson]

Bad analogy....Obama is more like a replacement manager for Billy Martin (bush) on the
Yankees. Steinbrenner could be played by Cheney, except that on his worst day, George
Steinbrenner had more heart than Cheney does on his Best day

[chocolatecity]

"NO WHERE in the stimulus package have a seen a WORD about Education"

Have you seen the stimulus package? Because I don't think it has been submitted yet. On This Week Obama did state a need to put resources into schools as part of the package. Just a little patience.

[Dukedraven]

A better baseball analogy: Obama is 10 runs down, a light rain is falling, he's on the road and the crowd is booing, his pitching finger is sore, the bases are loaded, and he's facing Joe Dimaggio. It'll be a miracle if he can get out of this one.

[opines]

Obama could throw a perfect game but the American public is going to suffer through an unavoidable depression. Hard times will last for at least five and perhaps ten years. The hard times are the hangover after a prolonged binge of spending beyond our means and a half century of bloated defense budgets.

The blizzard of unbacked 'stimulus' money may momentarily slow the descent, but it will extend the duration and severity of the hard times we will face.

Our country (and certainly the Congress) at the moment lacks the courage and wisdom to let the failures fail and build around what is still standing. So, we will drag an outdated financial system and automobile industry further into the millenium.

Downsides of economic cycles have benefits. e.g., weeding out noncompetitive entities, but we lose that positive if we lack the courage to endure hard times.

[Geoffrey Dunn - Huffpost Blogger]

There are actually two problems with the analogy: 1) not only is George Bush no "Babe" Ruth (though George H. W. Bush did meet the great Bambino at a Yale ballgame in 1948); but 2) Barack Obama has already given up a bloop single by naming Rick Warren to deliver his inaugural invocation and a wild pitch by naming Bill Richardson to Commerce. Moreover, we don't need perfection from Obama, we need a solid workmanlike performance over the next eight years, you know, a complete game spacing out a handful of hits, a few runs, and keeping us in contention. As for Bush the Younger, he is the "Cold Water Jim" Hughey of American presidents, a perennial loser who went 4 and 30 in his penultimate year, and 29 and 80 lifetime. Indeed, I suggest that George W. be given the "Cold Water Jim" Award by Rick Warren at the Inaugural.

[JimR]

Actually, Obama hasn't started the game yet. The Warren thing? Oh please. That's more like yelling at a fan.

[B1uBall00n]

If we are ever to fix the huge problems we face in America, the American people need to wake up and be responsible for themselves and their future. Obama is not a superhero. He alone will not save America. Just look at gas prices for example, when gas was at $4 a gallon the American people were in a uproar. We need hybrids! Green! Green! Now that gas is back down to $1.70ish a gallon, let's go buy an SUV that gets 10 miles a gallon. Back in the day you didn't buy something unless you could pay for it. Now a days people just slap the purchase on a credit card and worry about it later. Until we as Americans look at ourselves and realize we are also part of the problem things will never change. We need to get back to basics. If you can't afford the 35 inch plasma that's just too bad. If you can't afford that $500,000 house, you'll just have to live with what you can afford. You can't always get what you want. Unless Americans wake up and change the way they act things aren't going to get better.

[schatsie]

Oops, there is something in the Romer article about education... so I hope it is done the correct way.. without throwing money to administrations to do as they please...I want to see smaller class sizes and teachers aides... The teachers I have met feel like policemen and not teachers...

Also, putting a cap on interest rates would help out a lot of people....
Also allowing drug importation from Canada, I believe their FDA is working better than Bush's lapdog administration....

NEITHER OF THESE PULLS a cent from TREASURY or the taxpayers....

[chuckmott]

I see one problem with your analogy. The George that Ernie Shaw relieved was George Herman Ruth, perhaps the greatest baseball player ever. The George that Obama is replacing is George W. Bush, the worst president ever.

[postman606]

Ruth was tossed for arguing ball four, to bad baseball umpires had more commonsense than Congress, who should have tossed Bush.

[schatsie]

NO WHERE in the stimulus package have a seen a WORD about Education.... One of the quick jobs that could be added is to decrease the number of children in class rooms. and add teacher's aides...Face it, the population of children is already decreasing so we are going to have some empty class rooms.. 5 years from now there will be no children.. (Who is thinking about getting pregnant now in this environment when you could lose your job and your house) and healthcare will be taking a bath...Maybe add spanish and chinese teachers, this is the real future of the USA...

And add financial classes, biology for everyone, and pay people to work at Habitat, so they are better prepared to maintain their homes...After all, your landlord is not really going to spend the money to fix the toilet, because it will impact his bottom line...and NO IT IS NOT EASY TO MOVE unless you are the Bushes...or their ilk...

[newleaf]

great point - reduced class sizes would benefit everyone. Especially as so many children go to school ill-prepared, and teachers spend a lot of time correctly behavior instead of teaching academic skills. And I agree, foreign language is appropriate even at very young ages. Money spent on schools as infrastructure, again, would benefit everyone.