It starts with the definition of President Obama. As a candidate, he was able to withstand the right wing message machine’s attempts to define him, at least to the majority of the electorate that put him into the White House. No similar effort has been made once elected and in office. What are the defining characteristics of the Obama presidency? What does he want to get done? If you get into a conversation about this, you (assuming you are of a liberal bent) probably spend all of your time on the defensive, saying how ridiculous it is to think he’s a Muslim, not born in the US (and therefore an illegitimate president), an anti-colonialist, a Socialist, a Fascist, anti-American, etc.
Obama has been defined by his opponents as anything and everything that will resonate negatively with the listener. And now from the left he is defined as weak, too willing to give in, etc. Mr. President?
–
We’ve probably all read that what the Democrats did wrong was to not tout their accomplishments loudly enough. I think that gets things backwards. The time to cheerlead for your programs is at the beginning and throughout the process, to get and keep everyone on board, to get people to argue in favor of what you are trying to do. The message has to be repeated throughout the process to keep people informed and with the program. The football coach doesn’t give his motivational speech after the game has ended. And a president (or a House Speaker or a Senate Majority Leader) shouldn’t wait until a bill is signed before getting the public engaged.
Failure to do this allows the other side to define the program and frame the debate. It is all defense after that. It also puts one at the disadvantageous position of having to compromise way too early so that you don’t look so extreme in the opposition’s frame.
If Obama had been out front and very visible pushing for something on health care reform (and not just health insurance reform), the stimulus, financial reform, etc., I think it would have made a difference in the public acceptance of the result, even if the result ended up the same as what we got without that effort.
–
I do buy into the “it’s the economy, stupid” argument, to a certain extent. The majority party is going to lose seats no matter what if people are having a hard time getting by. But if Obama had pressed hard for a bigger stimulus (and explained why) and had more regular contact with the public, essentially letting them know he “feels their pain” and is working every day to turn things around, it may not have been so bad. Repeating what I said before, he allowed himself to instead be defined by the opposition.
–
Imagine if the last two years had gone by without the constant barrage of noise from the likes of Fox News, Hannity, O’Reilly, Beck, Limbaugh, etc. Imagine if everything that happened wasn’t heavily spun by the right wing message machine. I believe that the election results would have been different if the heads of people entering the voting booth were not filled with negative thoughts about the President.
But of course, that’s fantasy land. Here in the real political world, if you have adversaries who will do anything to win, you have to deal realistically with that. If Obama and the Democrats do not do a better job of defining themselves, their objectives, their initiatives, and the Republicans, starting now, 2012 is going to look even worse.
Is my summary of Obama’s statements during his campaign followed by his actions once in office. He wasn’t about to loudly advertise the switch. The switch came disguised as bipartisanship and accommodation of the Blue Dogs. Obama has shown himself capable of being forceful with Congress, when those involved were progressives.
<
p>I’m not faulting him because he didn’t accomplish single payer health care or a stimulus package that was large and targeted enough to boost employment to acceptable levels. I’m faulting him because he showed no signs of seriously trying and pretends that what he got was adequate.
<
p>The key phrase in your post is
<
p>
<
p>But that would have upset big pharma, the hospital lobby, and the financiers. It might have informed the public about the possibilities for real reform instead of leaving them confused and frustrated.
Barack Obama won on the populist message. Yes, he communicated that message incredibly well and it’s what people wanted to hear. It was the change we were looking for. Unfortunately he has led under the same idealism that got us into this mess in the first place.
<
p>Sure, the middle class got a tax cut. I think it’s $800 for married filing jointly. That works out to $15. per week which is scant noticeable, especially when, in the meantime, our state and local taxes have risen to eat that entire amount up.
<
p>He bargained in the back room with Big Pharma and the health insurance industry to give us national health insurance reform that is going to bankrupt every small business and working class household in America. The HCR package has a few very important and needed mandates in it. However, for Obama and our congressional leaders to believe that average household budgets can support such high costs just shows that they don’t have a clue what it is to be middle class in America. People couldn’t afford health care in 2008 and they can’t afford health care in 2010. Forcing them to buy it does not make it affordable, it only makes you forced to buy something you can’t afford.
<
p>They instituted credit card reform that was actually quite substantial, then delayed it so long that the banks had an opportunity to pillage the American credit card consumer by raising rates, fees and minimum monthly payments. Pretty much negated the entire reform package, at least in the short term.
<
p>Wall Street is still playing the same game, and the wealthy continue to get wealthier. Yet private sector investment in our country is at a stand still. The wealthy and Wall Street investors are OK with middle class Americans not having anything, because they have found other ways to make money. Yet we are still waiting for all that money to trickle down. I’m not sure how to tell you this but it’s not going to.
<
p>It’s really not the communication thing, it’s the behavior thing.
<
p>
wonders how much the media failed to echo him like they did the teabaggers — he spoke at rallies constantly. I think of the 2008 election where he got a lot of coverage, but thinking back to it a lot of the coverage was negative — like 3 constant weeks of Jeremiah Wright. Teabaggers got all the coverage in this cycle.
…since about may of ’09.
<
p>presidents often move reluctant senators by camping in the senator’s state, talking to the senator’s voters, and putting on The Fear, none of which obama did during the time “town halls” were capturing daily media cycles.
<
p>the administration and its minions never did the “pivot” that would have gone something like…
<
p>”who is behind these town halls…who is trying to protect the insurance interests…who wants to screw you out of what you voted for? republicans!”
<
p>…even though they still could have done it as late as august of ’09–which would have set the republicans’ “waterloo strategy” back months and months and months.
<
p>this administration does not seem to get the idea that they gain political capital when they’re out, “loud and proud”, fighting for the hope and change agenda that brought in all those new (and not necessarily democratic) voters in ’08…and the same seems to be true among many democratic members of congress who would like to tap into this new voting bloc.
There’s a great New Yorker piece this week by Hendrick Hertzberg, who’s also wondering about the significance of the mid-terms and the puzzle of where Obama’s rhetorical skills have gone. It probably won’t make you feel better, but it’s lucid thinking.
<
p>So, hoping that I’m within “fair use” guidelines, here are two great quotes.
<
p>The first reflects on the midterms:
<
p>
<
p>The second reflects on the President’s ability to communicate:
<
p>
<
p>The full article is here.
You don’t want him out too much, or else his own appeal is blunted. Personally I like his approach of empowering people to give opinions, listening, and then deciding.
<
p>Those shrinking violets in the Congress will be OK.
<
p>
Obama was always more of an inkblot on Democratic Rorshach test than an actual progressive. During the 2008 campaign, Paul Krugman pointed that Obama wasn’t really all that progressive.
Still, Obama was a great candidate with great handlers. As a president, however, he’s risk averse and wary of open conflict. If he were playing poker, he wouldn’t play a hand unless he was pretty sure he’d win it. While he surrounded himself with people from the Clinton Administration-not necessarily a bad idea since he lacked a lot of experience, it was a cautious move. Who was there to shake up his cabinet? The Clintonistas had been there before, but they are still invested in politics that are strategically 10 or 15 years out of date.
As a candidate, he was pretty astute. As president, he’s has been tone deaf and out of step. Health insurance reform may yet turn out to be a turning point in our country’s history, but Obama played it in a way that guaranteed the Democrats would yield the minimum in political capital. The GOP is farther around the bend than it was in 1994, and yet Obama still talks like we can work together. As Krugman has said, “It’s hard to avoid the sense that Mr. Obama has wasted months trying to appease people who can’t be appeased, and who take every concession as a sign that he can be rolled.”
The GOP sees politics as war. Pure and simple. And Obama needs a war-time consiglieri, one who didn’t cut his teeth in the Clinton years, who sees that meeting in the middle is fruitless when the Right keeps shifting to the right.