22 August 2012
Dear Mr. President,
I am an active member of my Democratic Town Committee. In 2008, I strongly supported you. I worked hard for your election. As Howard Dean described it, I am from the Democratic wing of the Democratic Party – a progressive and proud of it. I recognized during that campaign that you
were not a progressive, that you were a middle-of-the-road Democrat. But I also saw your intelligence, and believed that once you were President, you would understand that you needed to be an FDR or an LBJ in order to promote the big changes you were touting.
I worried when you picked conservative Democrats like Geithner, Summers, and Emanuel for your inner circle, but still had hopes that you would not follow them too strictly. Unfortunately – for you and for the country, as well as for me – you disappointed.
From the beginning, it was clear that your top priority was to improve how Washington functioned, to promote bipartisanship. It was an admirable goal, but not one that should have been all-consuming. Very early in your tenure, it became clear that you had no partner, that the Republican Party had shifted even farther right and had no interest in working with you. ‘Compromise’ was not part of their vocabulary. Nevertheless, you kept repeating your futile
attempts to get them to compromise. On top of which, you are a terrible bargainer. (I, too, have lived in Indonesia; you certainly did not learn your bargaining skills there.)
Here’s what I wanted from you – and how your actual decisions have negatively affected your presidency.
Iraq. You emphasized during the campaign that you had opposed this war from the start. Therefore, when you became President, the logical approach was to get us out as quickly as possible: blame Bush and the Republicans
for a bad policy and withdraw all troops within the first six months. Instead, your actions implied that you were wrong during the election campaign, that Iraq really was a good war. Now you are even trying to convince Iraqis to
keep us there beyond 2012; this would be a horrible mistake. You could have saved American lives, saved a lot of money that could have been used elsewhere, been in a stronger position in the Middle East, and had a much better outcome politically.
Economy. I am not an economist, so I don’t know if spending a lot to save Wall Street was necessary, but you could at least have put conditions on their use of our money – like forcing them to lend and limiting top executive remuneration. Instead, you had a series of extremely embarrassing moments when the big financial institutions played you for a fool. Your actions were, perhaps, economically necessary, but nevertheless a political disaster.
Economy II. You kept looking for compromises with the Republicans.
Instead, you could have repeatedly reminded the American people that the
recession was caused by Bush’ policies – not by your attempts to increase jobs. The recession, and the glacially slow job recovery, quickly became your fault. You took on that mantle far too early, and most people have now forgotten that some of the very policies the Republican Party is now pushing are to blame for our economic doldrums. Even now, you ought to be talking about the ‘Bush Recession’ and the ‘Tea Party Debt Limit Crisis’. By bending over backward to be ‘fair’, you get the blame.
Guantanamo. There was no need to procrastinate or to ask Congress anything. You could have/should have Just moved all detainees to US prisons during the first half of 2009 (as you pledged), and only then
announced that Guantanamo was closed. Although the NIMBY factor might have produced some initial opposition, it would not have lasted and most Americans would be proud to see a President who stands up for our values, recognizing the rights of all peoples to fair treatment.
Health care. To me (because I worked in single payer health care systems in developing countries for my entire career), this was the greatest disappointment. During your campaign and afterwards, you admitted on several occasions that single payer would be best if we were starting from scratch to develop a health care system; instead, you wanted marginal improvements because you thought the transition to single payer would
be too difficult. You also apparently drew the conclusion from the Clintons’ earlier failure to pass health care reform that you should leave it up to Congress to come up with a bill. You were very wrong on both accounts.
The conclusion you should have drawn was that we need a simple system. Medicare for All is easy to explain, since most people already know how Medicare works. Health insurance companies would have fought you
bitterly, but in 2009 you could easily have used the bully pulpit to explain
its benefits to the American people. Instead, your approach produced some good, but never addressed the most basic flaw in our system – the unnecessarily large amount of money that goes everywhere except to health care. (Many of the other good things in the law that was so excruciatingly passed really did enjoy bipartisan support, and could have been passed in separate laws.) The chaotic leadup to this bill wasted your political capital and produced the Tea Party. Had you fought strongly for a single payer system, the few reasonable Republicans would either have been convinced or cowed into supporting you, it would have passed, we would now have
a much better health care system, it would have saved a lot of money, and the Tea Party would never have become a factor.
Afghanistan. In 2001, Afghanistan was a ‘good war’. Now it is not. Success in Afghanistan requires a laser-like focus on promoting development and improving governance – not on fighting the Taliban. Our military ought to be protecting those people who are working for development and governance,
blocking the border with Pakistan, searching for the remnants of al Qaeda, and training Afghan forces. Afghans must be convinced that we are only trying to help them – not to kill them. When they are convinced, the Taliban will simply wither away.
I have not arrived at these ideas simply with the advantage of hindsight; they are precisely what I and many progressives advocated before you became President. I could produce other examples where taking a more progressive approach would have been both better for the country, as well as better politically – global warming, union strengthening, immigration, gay rights, etc.
But I am sure you get the point.
Had you been a true Democrat during your first years in office, you would not have lost the 2010 election and you would be a shoe-in for 2012.
Now, presumably, you want to win the 2012 election. To obtain my active support, you need to change. To Change. If you do not, I hope that there will be a true Democrat running in the primaries against you. I will work hard for that person. If you do get the nomination, I will vote for you, but I will not work to convince others to vote for you. If other progressives do the same, you will
lose.
Please CHANGE.
Most sincerely,
Donald Chauls
Christopher says
…is you make it sound as though the President has not drawn down in Iraq.
Charley on the MTA says
Otherwise a good case, but my God people have to get over this. If your position was single payer or nothing, then we would have gotten nothing. Duh.
Christopher says
Do you honestly not favor single-payer on the merits or are you just that cynical? I see nothing in the letter above that indicates the writer wants single-payer or nothing. Obama himself said that single-payer was ideal, but didn’t propose it, didn’t put the weight of the WH behind HR 676, and didn’t even fight for the public option. If the WH had started by fighting for single-payer maybe in the end we could have gotten the public option and/or reducing the Medicare age to 55 as the compromise. This is a more than valid criticism of the President, especially when it fits the pattern of surrendering without much of a fight (see also stimulus, tax increases, debt ceiling, etc).
mizjones says
No where in his post does Donald say that Obama should have taken an all-or-nothing approach. His point is that Obama didn’t even talk about Medicare for all. I would add that Obama deliberately shut single payer advocates out of the discussions.
It is well known that Obama made a deal behind closed doors with big pharma and the hospital lobby that there would be no public option. He did this before negotiations even started, while single payer or, that failing, a public option had wide public support. When the lobbyists were alarmed about his public option campaign rhetoric, his minions quietly told them not to worry, it was only campaign rhetoric.
Charley, I often agree with your views but shifting the debate to an all-or-nothing position ignores the important fact that Obama didn’t lift a finger to promote even a small public option. It is not accurate to explain this away as simply a concession to “political reality”. I’m sure you’re aware of the wide support enjoyed by single payer/public option and of the tactics Obama could have chosen to use.
The choice to kill the public option and limit more serious reform was Obama’s. The reason is obvious. Obama’s loyalty was and is to a small number of big donors. He places them above his more numerous small donors, campaign volunteers, and people who voted for him. I am not “getting over” this. Obama will probably have my vote, but nothing more.
glosta-dem says
When Bernie Mayer said he would vote for the health care bill I sat up and took notice. If it was good enough for Bernie, I could swallow it too. The law allows states to adopt single payer. Just as the Canadian plan started in one province, ours will start in one, low-population state. If Obama had come out fighting for Medicare for all, we would have ended up with exactly nothing. I think his strategy was brilliant and has set us on the right course.
mizjones says
What evidence can you present for that? How does starting a negotiation with a stronger demand ensure that you will end up with less?
The votes were there for the public option. Obama dithered it away to please his big donors.
Charley on the MTA says
Joe Lieberman didn’t want to vote for the public option. So he didn’t. No 60 votes. Game over.
I swear, this stuff is based on so much fantasy and wish-projection … it’s all Matt Taibbi’s fault for writing that ridiculous uninformed crap article.
Reality-based I remain.
mizjones says
The public option had the support of a majority. It could have passed via reconciliation, which is exactly how the final bill was handled.
Christopher says
…is this 60-vote nonsense. The Senators, with an assist from VP Biden representing the administration, could have forced a parliamentary battle on that too. Plus, nobody knows if Liebermann could have been persuaded with political pressure to vote for it because it wasn’t even tried.
sabutai says
Reid isn’t the toughest guy, but he figured out a while ago that Obama wouldn’t back him in taking the fight to the Republicans. This was worth ejected an antiquated rule, but Obama didn’t want to hurt the elephants’ feelings.
Christopher says
He would have gotten compromise. Negotiation 101 – you aim high knowing you won’t get it all, but you’ll get closer to what you can live with than if you start with concessions.
dle777 says
you’re right, hew ould have gotten less than nothing.
Negotiations rules, 101 or otherwise, do not apply to Congressional activity. It’s about public perception and re-election concerns. The public optin was never going to fly.
As it stands, the whole bill is in shambles. He could have gotten agreement on the salient points (portability etc.) and hit the cost side of the equation hard on the Medicare/aid side, instead of ramming it down the throats of the GOP/public.
The distraction meant he waited 3+ years for a “jobs” speech, and he is more vulnerable than ever.
Christopher says
…except for all those pesky polls showing not only was it popular, but the bill was MORE popular WITH the public option than without it. Therefore, if re-election were the consideration it would stand to reason that doing the popular thing would help achieve that goal. Negotiation 101 in the political context also includes popular leverage. The President could have mobilized his OFA email list to bombard Congress with letters and calls of support, but I for one don’t recall seeing that request from his people.
dle777 says
I’m sure he’ll review carefully and get right back to you.
Did you honestly believe he would carry out his promises? Intentions aside, he forgot there was a little gathering called Congress.
dchauls says
I happen to believe that Obama could have gotten a Medicare for All bill passed, if he had pushed it hard from day one. But, obviously, I can’t prove it…But that’s only an example, not my major point. The sad thing is that he never came out strongly for anything, always looked for compromise positions on every issue, and repeatedly ignored the obvious fact that Republicans had no interest in working with him.