Base to Obama: Come In, Please
As Year One of the Obama Era draws to a close, the recent Arianna Huffington/David Plouffe exchange illustrates a structural defect in the coalition Obama's seeking to build. And make no mistake: Some might call it The Year of Living Non-Dangerously, but it looks more like a deliberate strategy. It's not waffling or weakness: Barack Obama wants to become the Tony Blair of American politics.
The President seems to be deliberately moving his party rightward in order to capture the political spectrum from center/right to left, freezing out the Republican Party. It worked for Blair, but will it work here? Or will he lose his base in the process, damaging his own effectiveness? 365 days after his election, here are some pointed - and sometimes painful - questions.
In many ways disappointment with the Obama Presidency was inevitable. The President consciously (and tactically) presented himself as all things to all people, a kind of Rorschach Test on which people could project their own hopes and dreams. But a million different dreams had to collapse into a single reality when the real-life Presidency began, in much the same way that a "probability wave" of many trajectories collapses into a single photon in physics.
But it's more than that. The campaign made implicit promises of trustworthiness and new-style politics, as well as some explicit promises that have been jettisoned without explanation. He reversed himself on key health care pledges without explaining to his supporters why, and he broke his promise on ending government security much the same way. His handling of government spying abuses raises our first question: Would we have ever learned about Watergate if Barack Obama had been President?
He did not run as a center-Right Democrat, nor did he promise to restore the Clinton Administration if elected. There may be good reasons to govern from the center-Right, but he hasn't given his supporters the courtesy of an explanation. And the Clinton Administration was a deep pool of extraordinary talent, so it was wise to draw from it - in most cases. But in many critical jobs - especially Treasury - his choices have been disappointingly weak.
Then there's the whole issue of governing from the center. Here the question becomes, Would Barack Obama be a better President today if he had never read 'Team of Rivals'? Sure, it's inspiring to read how Lincoln drew his bitter opponents into his government, wisely and selflessly. But, leaving aside the challenge some historians have made to that book's thesis, is the President learning that some of his rivals may not have the same high moral standards as Lincoln's? Most politicians want to please everyone, especially those that don't like them. Let us hope that this emotional impulse is not being masked in the cloak of false pragmatism. In other words, Has the President written the wrong future biography for himself? Is he aspiring to be Lincoln when the times call for Roosevelt?
Which leads us to the next question: Is the President's Big Tent big enough to include his supporters? The President has projected an almost visceral dislike of bloggers, and his Cabinet boasts few DC outsiders like the ones that formed his initial base. Rahm Emanuel showered progressive activists with "F bombs" recently. By contrast, during his Presidency Bill Clinton spoke with warmth and empathy about the ragtag protesters at Seattle's World Trade Organization meeting. Many get the sense that Obama sees young (and not so young) activists as foolish and naive, a source of unpredictability and disorder that just makes him uncomfortable. That impression may be false, but it is an impression nevertheless.
Pace Mr. Plouffe, the base's disappointment with the President is not based on "frustration with the pace of change." It's based on their fear that the President may not really be interested in fundamental change. If that is anyone's fault, then to a large extent the blame lies with the President - and his advisors and communicators.
Some (in the Administration and elsewhere) may say, Who cares? What difference does it make if a group of granola-eating activists and bloggers is unhappy? We've got a center-right coalition to build. We're about the hard work of day-to-day governance. But Democrats would be foolish to assume that any future election will be an easy one. A dispirited base damages a campaign at its foundation, and at its heart. Perhaps the President should consider a sit-down with his critics on the Left, as well as those on the Right. If nothing else, he should use them as an excuse for passing legislation he supports anyway.
Compromise is the lifeblood of politics, as long as it's not done too quickly - or too cynically. Obama's lack of specificity on health reform and his willingness to defer to Congress could be seen as expediency, or as more Rorschach Politics. (As long as it's called "health reform" and it passes, we win. ...) Unnecessary compromise dilutes the outcome, especially when one's opponents lack good will.
We wish the President every success at Year One. We remain guardedly optimistic, despite the disappointments. We would pitch in and help ourselves, if we were welcomed. And we recognize that politics is hard, messy, and filled with compromise. But, if greatness is a combination of talent and historical need, this President has the potential for greatness. So the final question is this one:
Does the President understand that compromising with cynics can lead to a half-cynical outcome?
RJ Eskow blogs when he can at:
A Night Light
The Sentinel Effect: Healthcare Blog
Website: Eskow and Associates
So, one year after the election, what do you think Candidate Obama would think of President Obama? Tweet your response (our Twitter hashtag is #OneYearLater), or post it in the comments section.
Follow RJ Eskow on Twitter: www.twitter.com/rjeskow
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Although I continue to defend President Obama, it is becoming clear that the promises in his campaign speeches were only intended as aspirational messages. Time and again he has abandoned liberals in the Democratic party in order to curry favor with Republicans or with those he considers "centrists." Prominent examples of this tendency include his failure to investigate the torture policies of the Bush administration, his continuation of the abuses of rendition, his adoption of the Bush line on government secrecy and the prerogatives of the executive branch, his refusal to acknowledge the folly of our policies in Iraq and Afghanistan, his failure to push for abolition of the ridiculous "don't ask, don't tell" rules, his capitulation to corporatist forces on financial regulation and his unwillingness to assert the power of his office in the health care reform debate. He relies on Rahm Emanuel, who apparently regards himself as the Henry Kissinger of domestic realpolitik and who does not hide his contempt for activists. Perhaps the President believes that progressive Democrats have nowhere else to go. But he has forgotten that there is always the alternative of staying home. If he continues to pander to the occasional Republican who deigns to listen to him and to give nothing more than lip service to the ideals that captured the imagination and energy of those same bloggers he now regards with disdain, he should not be surprised if large numbers of dispirited supporters decide to stay home in 2010.
I think by now it's pretty clear that Obama's "base" doesn't include most of the people who voted for him. He has for the last 9 months only fought to protect the wealthy, their corporations, and the status quo. He's not a "center right" anything. He's a right wing politician pure and simple.
Maybe we should elect two Presidents...
One to make speeches (written by a speech writer)I wonder if the speech is from the speech writer's ideas or the person the speech is written for.
And the other Pres. to make the decisions.
Seems that one isn't always capable of both...
I think the Pres. is not always sure which way to go. He has to make tough decisions on the troop increase and knows that a lot of people will not be happy....and then, on the other end of the spectrum, there are those who are not happy if he doesn't send more troops.
The same with the Health Care mess. Can't please all the people all the time...and only some part of the time.
The biggest mess now is the economy and printing money non stop to make up for the loss in taxes because of all the jobs being shipped to China.
Climate change too...damned if we do and damned if we don't...
Be healthy and die of starvation or have jobs and live better until
we die of pollution.
If that is even an option.
Good luck Mr. Pres. you said "YES WE CAN" so it it time to put
your money where your mouth was.
In just a little over three years it'll all be over and then here we go again.
There is enormous dissatisfaction and a pervasive sense of betrayal among all the Obama voters I know, and Obama evidently cares not at all about it, actively courting the right and actively alienating the left.
I doubt that will work for him, no matter his reputed chess skills--and he seems easily bullied by checker players who threaten to kick over the board unless he kisses their ass. He's made numerous big mistakes so far, and if he and his people keep dissing those who point them out, they will find themselves without a base at all, subservient to their coveted "center-right", the very same "center-right" who created the current catastrophe.
Do you think Obama is going to continue his town hall crap? I look forward to the possibility of attending one and speaking out.
Obama to base...come in please: You dropped me off in Washington on election night...then left. Where are you?
We were being triangulated against and poked with a stick by our DLC corporate shill President to show how centrist he is.
Bravo Mr. Eskow. However, why are we still talking about governing from a "center-right" positions when every reputable poll on the issues shows the majority of Americans to be left of what DC calls the center? How about governing from the true center-center and not favor either party. And how about determining the center appropriately for the current time. It is not a fixed position and never has been! Politicians used to understand that but, seeminly no more. The "center" of the country is not where it was 10 or even 20 years ago - not even close. Why are politicians of both parties so unable or unwilling to grasp that? This hatred of bloggers by both politicians and mainstream media alike is all tied to that refusal by them to accept the present and not live in the past. I find it immensely ironic that Obama, self proclaimed agent of change, is so unwilling to listen. He may not like the "tone" but if you want people to calm down, you must listen and find out what is making them so angry. Most often, it turns out to be that, at base, they have some legitimate beefs and no one has been willing to listen - hence the anger.
Not sure why HuffPo didn't post my previous comment, but I agree wholeheartedly. I think, too, we should refrain from using monikers like "granola-eating activists" to describe Progressives, whether in jest or not. I would hardly call the likes of Thomas Friedman, Al Gore, Elizabeth Warren, and Arianna Huffington that term just because they are calling for real reform for climate change, for the financial industry and for health care. Let's leave the name-calling to the GOP so they can shoot themselves in the foot.
Does it worry anyone that the likes of Richard Nixon could probably be deemed more Progressive than Obama?
That is your opinion!
Here is mine: Obama is doing the very best he can
under the circumstances-leave the guy alone!!
Unfortunately, he can't be left alone. He is the President of the United States.
oh gee vicki-thanks for stating the obvious
If his "best" is shilling for corporations and triangulating against the base to prove how "centrist" he is, then you are correct, he is doing the "best" he can and successfully doing that.
Obama knows what he is doing-you don't
you are just a nay-sayer.
Obama sold out, the base knows this already...
"The Conscience of a Liberal" by Paul Krugman is the book Obama needs to read in order to get back in touch with his base.
http://www.amazon.com/Conscience-Liberal-Reclaiming-Compassionate-Agenda/dp/081664179X
Better still, The Conscience of a Liberal, by Paul Wellstone.
If the Democratic Party base organizes itself into a new left-liberal political party, as I hope it soon will (see my comment on this thread earlier), Wellstone should be considered a posthumous honorary founder. I really believe he would be fed-up and decide, as a few of us (so far) have, that it's time to put country and principle over residual party loyalty.
The party that Wellstone and many of us came of age in exists only in nostalgia. I just noticed that Doris Kearns Goodwin, wife of Richard Goodwin (who authored LBJ's Great Society speeches), want to see "more LBJ" from Obama. This is impossible given, in short, what Obama and his team (and the overwhelming majority of other elected Democrats and their affluent donors) are essentially "all about" -- in a harsh word, opportunism.
To elect a latter day FDR (per Krugman) or LBJ (per Goodwin) or another Lincoln or Wellstone president, we have to found a new party that puts forth a fighting enlightenment platform, run a presidential candidate on it, win a general election, and use the resulting mandate to implement it. This could be accomplished within two election cycles of its founding, as it did with the Republicans (1856 and 1860).
Without such a sea change "we the people" will continue going nowhere fast.
Eric C. Jacobson
Public Interest Lawyer
Culver City, California
He's not listening!
Expecting anything other than corruption and criminality from a politician is extremely foolish. Obama is a classic case in point. This nation will not survive another 'moderate' Democrat president like Clinton.
He has lost my vote, but then again, every politician in this country has lost my vote. I will no longer vote in a country where my civil rights can be voted away by a group of people. America, god help you.
Amen to that!
"Tony Blair of America" bad strategy. The politics in this country is not as civil (or intelligent) as the UK. The only he will accomplish in trying to become centrist is piss off the progressive base which is were, let's be honest, the core constituency for the Democratic party. This is not the case in the UK were there oue two major parties on the left the Labour party (the center-left party about to be trounced in the next parliamentary election) and the Liberal Democrats (the name pretty much says it all). Obama fails to realize that while he did pick up a number of "Independents" his last election, his success was based on getting people with real progressive views to actually come out and vote, something that clearly didn't happen this year in VA or NJ.
We, and the whole world called Tony Blair Bush's poodle.
Obama is our Tony Blair? So who's poodle is he?
.
: )
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