Paul Waldman summed up the entire discussion.
The challenge for the president's supporters is to figure out which compromises are simply the necessary evils of governing, and which are unacceptable betrayals of the goals and principles Obama is supposed to share with those who voted for him. Getting elected is never the point -- the point is to accomplish a particular set of objectives.
Mike Lux expressed what a lot of us have been feeling -- while there are many things to be happy about, he finds himself "deeply troubled and conflicted."
I am looking for big, deep, transformative, history making change, and am looking for an administration eager to work with the progressive movement to help make that happen. My optimistic side sees the good things that have happened, and appreciates them. I remind myself that it took Lincoln almost two years to free the slaves, and it took FDR more than two years to pass Social Security- even in big change eras, it doesn't always happen immediately. But it's only a year until the next election, and if we don't start delivering real change and real results- tangible results- for the American people soon on jobs and health care and other big issues, we won't have a chance for bigger changes in 2011.
Barack Obama raised our expectations through the roof with his stirring campaign. He needs to deliver change we can believe in. He needs to convince us that "yes, we can" is more than a political slogan. He needs to take seriously the history of struggle he is always talking about, and create the same kind of big transformative change that Lincoln and TR and FDR and LBJ did.
Drew Westen's piece hit close to home.
Genuine leadership means setting the agenda. It means taking tough stands.... It means fighting for what you believe in and taking on powerful vested interests when people's lives and livelihoods are at stake.
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Leadership is a quality Barack Obama showed on the campaign trail. It is a quality he has failed to show as president.
[W]e need to evaluate his leadership not primarily in comparison to George W. Bush... or even John McCain, but against the other Democrats who would have beaten McCain after the stock market crashed and the economy collapsed in mid September if Obama had not won the nomination. And that is where we start to get a picture of Obama as a leader.
The reality is that any Democrat would have... passed a large stimulus bill with the help of a heavily Democratic Congress -- but no one else would have traded 200 billion in infrastructure and jobs for the chimera of bipartisanship that Obama oddly continues to pursue even while he remains unable to get a Republican vote on anything, no matter what concessions he offers. Every Democrat would have signed the Children's Health bill ("S-CHIP") and ended the immoral policy of denying children health care.
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This, in microcosm, is the essence of the President's approach to leadership -- Obamaprise -- the art of compromising when you don't have to.
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With his extraordinary intellect and his ability to speak to people's hopes and aspirations, this president has the capacity to be the transformative leader we all thought we were electing. But if he wants to be known for giving eloquent speeches followed up by field goals where he could have had touchdowns, he is well on his way to the thirty yard line.
Westen's point about evaluating President Obama compared to what any Democratic president would have done is right on the money. Some who see it as their duty to defend the White House from virtually any criticism from the grassroots rhetorically ask if John McCain would have been better. Of course he wouldn't have been, and any claim that there isn't any real difference between the two men simply isn't credible.
The criticism I'm familiar with, and take part in, isn't that Obama hasn't done good things, or shares John McCain's issue profile, or anything even close to that. It's that when looking at the president's ability, majority, and coalition, as well as what needs to get done, he's fallen short in consequential ways and continues to make some of the same mistakes. It's entirely consistent to say that "he has done some very good things" and "there's a lot more that needs to get done" because of the severity of what we're up against.
Dan Froomkin wrote about the "make me do it"... or in this case, "create the space for me to do it" dynamic.
Obama is of course no longer a community organizer. As president, there are plenty of things he can and should achieve unilaterally. And he should mostly if not entirely abandon his attempts at compromise with those who have repeatedly shown that they have no taste for it.
But some of Obama's lack of boldness may stem from the fact that when he looks behind him, there's essentially nobody there.
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In February (2009), the new president served up a pretty darn bold agenda, backed up by a respectably progressive budget proposal. So what was the reaction? Obama looked over his shoulder and saw -- no one.
The talking heads on TV and in the newspapers tut-tutted about what a big gamble he was taking. And without any palpable expression of public support to worry about, the moneyed interests and their congressional lackeys in both parties went about nibbling everything to death.
Imagine if today Obama announced a bold and expensive new jobs program, to put America to work, build a green infrastructure, and rebuild our cities and highways. What would the reaction be? Journalists would call it radical and risky, the brayers of conventional wisdom inside the Beltway would express horror at the effects on the deficit, and the Glenn Becks of the world would work themselves into froth ranting about how Obama was building a private army of socialist storm troopers or something.
Needless to say, the overriding message wouldn't be that this was a move that had great popular support. Which it would have.
In the absence of any legitimate expression of the public will, Obama would be forced to slink back to the Oval Office, defeated and demoralized.
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So is there any chance of a public uprising of sorts? Any chance that the next time Obama does something bold, someone will have his back? Practically speaking, very little. For a variety of reasons, the American people have gotten out of the habit of taking public political action. And of course now we've lost nine months, during which many of Obama's most ardent supporters have become genuinely disillusioned, and many of those caught up in the enthusiasm of his campaign have simply drifted back to their traditional comfort zones.
Fromkin wrapped up his post by talked about the need for a "progressive populist movement." I couldn't agree more.
Mark Schmidt followed up.
None of this is to forgive Obama his errors of commission or omission. But just as his campaign was built on a base of organizing, online activism, and civic engagement that preceded him, so the success of his presidency and this Congress will depend on the strength of the progressive infrastructure. If progressives don't support these structures for policy development and advocacy, further failure will be a self-fulfilling prophecy. And the fault will lie not in our star but in ourselves.
(emphasis mine)
The extent to which President Obama has failed to rally a winning coalition already in place is debatable. I think the White House fell seriously short on this count during the health care debate. But Schmidt is exactly right about further failure being a self - fulfilling prophecy.
More recently...
Leo Leopold on Wall Street.
It's a damn shame Obama can't deal with it. It's a bigger shame that we won't force him too.
McJoan on the result of propping up Beltway bipartisanship.
This matters.
So does this.
The way I see it, three things need to happen.
- The White House needs to rediscover the "fierce urgency of now" and abandon outdated notions like Beltway bipartisanship that box it in.
- If timid Dems in Congress are standing in the way of getting things done, they can't blame the president for their own inaction.
- Grassroots Dems, as frustrated as we are, need to keep pushing. It's going to take all of us; the White House, Congress, and the Democratic coalition, to reverse the trend and do right by the American people.
The internal debate about who needs to do what and what comes next needs to be an honest one. This isn't something to play games with. Far too much is on the line. Everyone involved should remember that if we don't find a way to deliver, or at least take a bold stand for our values and make clear contrasts, this November, and quite possibly 2012, are going to be very bad for Democrats. And the last thing an already squeezed to the limit Middle Class can afford is more Republican influence on legislation. |
