Once again an initially popular Democratic president tries to pass healthcare reform, raise taxes on the wealthy and expand domestic spending. And once again the voters send a sharp signal that they want him to chart a more centrist course. As Yogi Berra said "It's déjà vu all over again."
President Clinton's wakeup call came with the 1994 mid-term elections -- Obama's came a year earlier with yesterday's special election in Massachusetts.
In response to the similar situation, President Clinton fundamentally changed everything -- his team, his policies, and the overall direction and message of his administration. He moved to the center with a balanced budget, welfare reform, and policies that helped concerned moms raise their kids, leaving behind the divisive bitterness of his first two years. As a part of that new team then, I saw how President Clinton consciously took his presidency back to the centrist message of his presidential campaign and relentlessly pursued swing voters; he didn't go small, he went to the vital center -- 24 million jobs and a balanced budget were big accomplishments.
President Obama now has plenty of time to turn this around before facing the kind of losses President Clinton did. But stopping the Republican machine now will not be done on the basis of words alone -- it will take actions and results to calm this electorate.
It also won't be done on the basis of stepped up populist rhetoric. You can't make deals with Wall Street, Pharma, and other major interest groups and then turn around and make them the whipping boy with any credibility. No doubt there will be a fight over this in the White House with many inside wanting to go back to the equivalent of "people vs. the powerful." Only the voters see the White House as the powerful now and such a lurch would probably have the harshest electoral consequences next November.
But Obama can turn it around and keep the country moving on a steady path of change if he makes the kind of significant changes in his direction that President Clinton did. It's all about getting above the trappings of Washington and being who you said you were.
Here's five things the President could do now.
1) Agree to full transparency in health care hearings and other major reform areas -- Obama's original idea to put them on C-SPAN was the right one. Then go on a major transparency in government binge, seeking out new ways to bring people closer to what the administration is doing through social networking and other online means. Make transparency an action, not a theme.
2) Break health care up into its components and move them step by step. The problem with health care is no one agrees on the solution and this bill is not about the longer lives, greater access and greater efficiency people want. Break it down and start with the easy stuff like electronic medical records first and work up to the harder parts year after year.
3) Look for ways to be genuinely bi-partisan instead of seeking the 60th vote through deals and compromise. Genuine bi-partisanship would have given the Republicans malpractice reform in exchange for a public option -- if you don't invest the opposition in the outcome, then they have no reason to support it. Just looking for one vote is an exercise in deal making and compromise that does not live up to the post-partisan promise. Obama's got to call the Republican leaders and sit down with them, not push them away.
4) Put jobs front and center -- the failure to do this earlier is at the root of the discontent. The administration hit the 10 per cent tripwire of unemployment and the numbers in the center of the country are dismal -- far worse than Massachusetts. This means moving the country forward into the new economic world, not trying to take it backwards. Raising taxes is another flash point now as much of the administration's support came from upper income voters turned off by the right wing, anti-intellectual campaigns of the Republicans. People need to know there is a strategy for competing and winning in the emerging global, high tech economy.
5) Don't be afraid to do what some think of as the small stuff -- helping people in their daily lives. Helping people deal with the new stresses of modern life -- from texting on the road to many working well past 65 -- is not a small thing. People are again afraid of big, grandiose plans that they fear can bankrupt the country and need to see the government also relating to their daily lives in manageable, concrete ways. It's the kind of daily activism Democrats uniquely bring to the White House. This has got to be part of a strategy that returns us to lower unemployment, lower deficits, and restrained spending.
There will be plenty of time to push back on the Republicans when they get too heady. That day will come as it did when Newt Gingrich shut down the government and it backfired. But right now the Republicans are not the issue -- the issue is whether the administration has gone Washington and whether it can reclaim the centrist, people-oriented mantle that brought it to town. And this means taking the administration back to the vital center and fulfilling its core promises -- greater transparency, less political posturing, true bi-partisanship, extreme focus on jobs and the economy, and a government that demonstrates daily how really cares about the people.
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Clinton was a successful president because he sat in the Oval Office during a period of economic expansion. Prosperity
Barack Obama has surrounded himself with right wing conservati
The very latest contrivanc
If any hope remains for Democrats to maintain their majorities
This president promised transparen
NAFTA free trade was a "no brainer" to just about all economists until post NAFTA Paul Samuelson of MIT showed that free trade could hurt those that signed on. .
Labor and Environmen
On the above comment - we agree.
Democrats are against the Supreme court ruling that companies donations are considerd free speech, yet the polls say the public agrees with the Supreme court.
Democrats state that after all the stymulus money spent, the economy is getting better. The people do not according to the polls.
Democrats have lost the last three elections where Obama won in 2008.
Democrats want to pass the carbon tax bill and public is against.
Democrats are attacking the banks for giving bonuses based on profits, yet many of the banks didnt want the money originally but were forced to take it and those that did need it paid it back. Who hasn't paid and seems to get a pass, not ignored by the public? GM and Chrysler. That money was given to prop up the unions and will never be seen again. A total loss.
Obama has announced that we will initiate a deficit commission
Obama, Reid and Pelosi have sole the majority of Americans out with the Louisiana purchase, The Nebraska buyout and the setting up a special call of non taxed, the unions. Americans got it. This administra
Want to win big in November?
Regulate the cr@p out of Wall Street.
Tax their bonuses until they squeal.
Break up the too-big-to
Come up with a foreclosur
Focus on jobs, jobs, jobs. If it takes a new CCC or WPA, just do it. And, President Obama, don't just say we need it and leave it to Congress to implement it. LEAD!
Indecision
Seriously, do people pay you for this kind of advice? If we wanted another Clinton administra
Do liberals, way down deep inside their minds, EVER consider the possibilit
What I hear is this: The public is angry (well duh but why?), the public is scared and confused, so that's why their are hammering the party in power, etc. They really don't disagree with our policies, they are just confued and uncertain. We (Dems) just need to "stay on message."
Behind closed doors, do liberals ever talk to each other about even the remotest possibilit
It is central to the liberal mentality that nothing is ever their fault.
Hope that cleared up some of your confusion.
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If I have the wrong impression of your meaning, please elaborate.
"Genuine bi-partisa
The other two basically say "Give up. Think small. Play that tiny insiders game the voters so love." In effect, promise the moon, then in a showy display of weakness and total dysfunctio
Do you consultant
We're from opposite "ends" of the political spectrum, and are both equally disgusted with what currently passes for government
I'm still willing to believe that is exactly what President Obama is trying to do, but it's time to try another approach. If one side is refusing to engage in the process of government
This is NOT true and this writer is ill-inform