Obama And Transforming Leadership
Adapted from: Obama's Challenge: America's Economic Crisis and the Power of a Transformative President (Chelsea Green Publishers)
There is a tide in the affairs of men.
Which, taken at the flood, leads on to fortune;
Omitted, all the voyage of their life
Is bound in shallows and in miseries.
-- Shakespeare, Julius Caesar
Barack Obama could be the first chief executive since Lyndon Johnson with the potential to be a transformative, progressive president. By that I mean a president who profoundly alters American politics and the role of government in American life -- one who uses his office to change our economy, society, and democracy for the better. That achievement requires a rendezvous of a critical national moment with rare skills of leadership. There have been perhaps three such presidents since Lincoln.
Obama unmistakably possesses unusual gifts of character and leadership. Because of the deepening economic crisis, he will have to move imaginatively and decisively. He will need all of his inspirational and political skills, as well as ones he is still learning.
If Obama is elected, on January 20 the recession that he inherits from George W. Bush will become his. He will need prevent further deterioration in what is already the worst financial collapse since the Great Depression. The American economy could return to a path of recovery and shared prosperity -- or rapidly spiral downward.
Voters will expect concrete improvements as well as loftier national aspirations. And as a simple matter of politics, if the crisis deepens in 2009 and he fails to deliver relief, his support could well erode and he could lose a working legislative majority mid-way through his first term in the 2010 elections. He, and we, could end up with economic crisis and political deadlock.
Obama will be challenged both by hard economic realities and by the constraints of conventional wisdom. In principle, two core premises about the economy, which have governed the economic thinking of both major parties for three decades, have been demolished by the deepening crisis. The first is that markets could accurately price ever more complex financial inventions, with no need for government involvement. The second is that private outlays were invariably more effective than public ones.
Economic recovery will require the drastic revision of these premises, just as in 1933. Government has already engaged in massive bailouts of financial institutions, seemingly blowing away the idea that markets don't need government. Yet we have a national case of cognitive dissonance, for the same outmoded ideological assumptions linger on. The Bush administration has been adopting emergency policies in practice that it rejects in theory. Obama, like Roosevelt, will need to reinvent a regulated, balanced form of capitalism.
This path will also make Obama a more effective candidate. McCain's charges of elitism -- preposterous when you recall the path that took Obama where he is today -- are one step short of calling Obama "uppity." They play to lingering prejudices that a black man should not rise above his place.
But the reluctance of some white working class voters to pull the lever for Obama are only partly racist. Obama could be offering more to America's economically stressed families than he has done to date. At times he hits all the right notes rhetorically. But at other times he is caught in an undertow of bad advice -- that we mustn't use deficits, even in a serious recession; and that we need to praise the genius of free markets (which will cause taxpayers to eat a trillion dollars of speculative losses before this crisis is over.)
The new president will need to inspire the American people to demand enactment of bolder measures than either the Congress or Obama himself currently think necessary or possible. As historian Doris Kearns Goodwin observes, all of the great presidents used their leadership first to transform the public understanding of national challenges and then to break through impasses made up of Congressional blockage, interest-group power, and conventional wisdom. In different ways, Abraham Lincoln, Franklin Roosevelt and Lyndon Johnson found allies, respectively, in the abolitionist movement, the labor movement, the civil rights movement, as well as the press and the general public. Each president grew immensely in office. Each changed the national mood, then the direction of national policy.
They did not do so by being "post-partisan," or centrist, but by taking huge political risks on behalf of principles that the people came to deeply respect. Often they enlisted some members of the opposition party in their cause, thereby splitting the opposition--but not by splitting the difference. Yet they also functioned as great unifiers.
By appealing to what was most noble in the American spirit, these presidents energized movements for change, and thereby put pressure on themselves and on the Congress to move far beyond what was deemed conceivable. They generated accelerating momentum for drastic reform that proved politically irresistible. The abolition of slavery seemed beyond possibility in 1860, as did the vastly expanded Federal role in the economy in 1932, and the full redemption of civil rights in 1963.
As Goodwin notes, "History suggests that unless a progressive president is able to mobilize widespread support for significant change in the country at large, it's not enough to have a congressional majority. For example, Bill Clinton had a Democratic majority when he failed to get health reform. When you look at the periods of social change, in each instance the president used leadership not only to get the public involved in understanding what the problems were, but to create a fervent desire to address those problems in a meaningful way."
A crisis is an opportunity, but it hardly guarantees a successful presidency. For every Franklin Roosevelt, there is a Herbert Hoover. For every Lyndon Johnson turning the civil rights impasse into moment of national greatness, there is a Jimmy Carter fumbling the energy crisis -- or Johnson himself blundering into Vietnam. And on the conservative side, for every Ronald Reagan bringing working-class voters into the Republican coalition and successfully associating national optimism with far-right policies, there is a George W. Bush.
If Obama does rise to the occasion, he will be elected with a transformative mandate. But if he does not, even if he squeaks into the White House he will face a rough road. In short, Obama must be a great president, or he is likely to be a failed one -- his presidency grounded "in shallows and in miseries."
End of Part I. Tomorrow, Part II: The Hope of Audacity
Robert Kuttner's new book is Obama's Challenge: America's Economic Crisis and the Power of a Transformative Presidency. (Chelsea Green Publishers. www.obamaschallenge.com.) He is co-editor of The American Prospect and a senior fellow at Demos. He'll be covering the election, convention, and the economic situation on at www.obamaschallenge.com.
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Obama's memorable stand on the definition of when life begins was so heroic it literally made me weep like a baby.
"That's above my pay grade".
He is clear. Fearless. Considered. And admirable.
I've got to stop before I begin crying again.
Pretty funny reelcobra. Of course "life begins at the moment of conception" is morally and scientifically as wrong as you can be. Life began a while back, either in one fell swoop of creation as the less informed believe, or as a result of inexorable forces at work on raw elements over eons. Reproduction, you see, is not the creation of life but the continuation of life.
Now then, when a creature is imbued with soul becomes the question. And life is not uniformly believed to be imbued with soul. Does a plant have a soul? Does a cat have a soul? You see the problem. It is a question of when a human, who apparently is the only organism capable of having a soul, becomes sufficiently different than a plant that they merit the recognition of having a soul. Without a precise definition of what a soul is and how it is acquired, it is possible to consider eating a potato as murder and the inverse, equally, that no human has a soul so they are no more important than potatoes.
Of course you can’t put all that on a bumper sticker. The good news is that chronic willful stupidity is usually maladaptive. In other words, if you can’t catch on then your kind dies off.
Nice rhetorical sleight of hand, Herrington.
But when you argue, like Obama does, that you can rip a baby out of the womb and kill it one day before he or she was about to be born you cross the line between the decent and indecent.
Nothing fancy or complicated about that.
And this issue isn't going to go away.
If Obama's strategists, consultants, pollsters, debate prep people, and managers had not yet developed an effective answer to the most obvious, the most likely, and the most important question, ABORTION -- then why did they allow him to appear for questioning at an evangelical religious forum?
Is this malpractice or simple incompetence?
Is Drew Westen really right about the Democratic consultants?
Would the title of Amy Sullivan's 2005 "Washington Monthly" article, 'Fire All the Consultants!' be more effective for the Democratic Party if interpreted literally and not just figuratively?
Quack! Quack!
What a ducky answer!
Lots of answers could have been acceptable. That's not one of them.
Clear as mud ( no insult or allusions implied!). If he needs a prompter to make an effective comment. Imagine how well he would answer harsh questions from the media. Oh that's right except for the far right media the media won't press him.
Kuttner, you speak to the reason I supported Obama over Clinton and even over the rest of the field. Even his detractors fear his ability to move the public. And for the American public it will come down to not so much a question of whether he is moving in exactly the right direction but whether they sincerely want any movement at all.
I believe in words. I believe that a lie can circle the globe before the truth has got its pants on, but I also believe the converse. If it were not for words there would be no Platonic ideals, no Magna Charta, no Napoleonic Code, no Constitution, no Marxism and not even any children’s books. Words are used to disparage Obama for using words.
Safety is an anathema to progress. Leadership, in a free society, is as much a teaching position as it is administrative or a matter of command. If, as is readily apparent from our current state of leadership gridlock, the public does not have the wherewithal to resolve its mind on direction, then a leader who can shape a vision in this intellectual vacuum is and should be the goal of both sides, instead of both sides being engaged in the maintenance of the gridlock.
As the first African-American ever to run for president, Obama has to plot a delicate path to the presidency. That by necessity entails a more careful - some might say timid - approach to his election campaign that some of his supporters might wish.
But it really doesn't matter. What matters is how he behaves once elected. He can't guarantee himself a second term, so he has 4 years to make his mark and make history. His country requires great changes. All he has to do is display the courage of his convictions and make them.
The Democrats, including Obama, have not been effective at this at all. The CNN thing was the worst. McCain constantly says: "We must drill for more oil to lower your gas prices." It's simple and it clicks with people. Yeah, it's misleading and detrimental to our long-term energy and evironmental needs. But it's working for them.
We can't whine about it and get frustrated over how many stupid people there are in the country. We need to be hammering an equally simple, pandering message. Obama should be saying "Investing in wind/solar/biofuel will lower your gas prices." None of this "It will take sacrifice, it will be tough, it will require the kind of dedication our WWII soldiers gave" - that crap ain't working. Tell people it will lower their gas prices and that the oil companies are afraid of that. That's it. Simple and effective.
Real leadership means encouraging and leading policy changes even if there is significant opposition. Lincoln, FDR and LBJ all had to deal with that and succeded in various ways. Obama must lead the charge, including using the veto pen, twisting arms, speaking to the public for support as needed to effecutate the changes the USA and the world badly needs.
For almost 8 years we have had a President who did very little real and sound leadership, giving in to many special interests, only in recent months using the veto pen. The policies he and Chenny led were for the worst in America getting us into a unnessary war in Iraq, ripping apart regulations as to finanical services, mortages, the enviroment, employment/labor protections and the like. That must end.
A leader doesn't answer a question about the beginning of life "... whether you’re looking at it from a theological perspective or a scientific perspective, answering that question with specificity ... is above my pay grade."
Real Democrats know that the "buck stops here"; the most liberal, first term Senator in the US, Barack Obama, will never be elected POTUS with these nuanced, non-answers.
"Above my paygrade" - he was referring to "God." It was a straight answer - in other words nobody can be sure, only God knows. He was being humble, something you clearly can't understand.
Really? Since only God knows if or when a human being has rights, and we can't be sure what God knows, we can't be sure that we have rights?
In my humble opinion, Barack was not saying what you think he was. At least I hope not.
That was how I took it too, MegWe.
Nope, sorry, that's not what he was doing. He was punting.
His direct quote was, "whether you’re looking at it from a theological perspective or a scientific perspective, answering that question with specificity … is above my pay grade.”
Thats a little different than "only God knows". If you believe that only God knows, than say Only God Knows.
Absolute, complete cop out.
I would simply be happy if the new president fulfilled his role of the Executive Branch, Congress fulfilled it role as Legislating Law, and Judicial fulfilled its role as Judging Constitutionality.
If the above power are changed or interfered with we have a Constitutional Amendment so the people had their required say.
If this happened then those who create treason maybe punished and the Constitution would remain in tact.
Johnson passed legislation in reaction to the Murder of JFK, his "father knows best" attitude is better exemplified by his Viet Nam policy. What made him a Nixon one.
Roosevelt was truly a great leader. Calvin Coolidge was deep into Hoovers woos Almost like GHWB was in Ruby Ridge and Waco for Clinton
Obama will need to lead the country with solutions that create fair trade, fair employment, fair prices and fair financing. He needs to dismantle Monopolies, stop price fixing, and economy of scale.
American can bear the burden for our past mistakes and pay the price with righteous action. The glutinous greed of the rich and corporations has just about choked itself and will finish itself off soon if not sooner
Not only does he have to be a GREAT President, but Obama will have the added burden of being the FIRST black President! NO PRESSURE here......
Actually, Mr. Kuttner you're on to something that hasn't be discerned or appreciated about people's attraction to Obama. It's not "star quality"; it's about people looking for someone who admits he can't do it alone, that it will require more than just fulfilling one's citizenry responsibility on Nov. 9. Truth is that he will treat us like adults and take us through the process of understanding how life is going to change (because of Bush, depleting energy sources and planet life challenges ahead) He has demonstrated his capability to communicate and inspire. The fact that so many are inspired is exactly what's needed when he starts telling us the truth about the hard work, new challenges, opportunities and sacrifices ahead.
This article is close to being on the money. Except for the brilliant leadership, etc. If Obama had the skills Kettner is talking about, he wouldn't be having the trouble he's having now. But the rest of it is right on.
I agree, although I think the problem is not really lack of skill. Obama has plenty of talent and skill. His problem is fear (or corruption, or lack of ambition) that masquerades as calculating intelligence.
His great potential vanishes when he abandons bold truth for the empty, stumbling, corrupt pabulum of triangulation. Instead of playing the game by the plutocrats' rules, he should transform the dialectic by exposing and defining the plutocrats and industrial cartels for what they are, as Roosevelt would do. He should acknowledge and validate people's cynicism about what is being done to them--in other words, he should attack the plutocracy openly and directly--while at the same time eliminating people's cynicism that nothing can be done to change it. Such real hope can come only if he inspires the People with bold, nation-building social-democratic reforms--like single-payer--that will lay the foundations for a prosperous working class in the 21st century. To do that he needs an authentic rhetoric that establishes progressivism as the true heart and strength of America, while fiercely challenging and eradicating the tired supply-side lies and cartelist fallacies
As Kuttner implies, Obama is fumbling so badly now not because he lacks skill, but precisely because he is not doing any of the things he would need to do to be great; in other words, because he is running as a centrist .
Another great reply !!!!! He told us to vote our hopes... not our fears... but he's not running on his own advice.
And those troubles are?
His troubles are finding and sticking to a message, not finding a point and changing his stance ten days later, teaching the American people why he voted the way he did on issues, not running away from them. Letting people know the people he surrounds himself with don't have influence on him, he has influence on them.
The only trouble he's having right now is the racism that runs rampant in America. Be sensible, be color blind, use your brain not your eyes.
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