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Yes We Can … What?
Team Obama is in full campaign mode, firing off e-mails and organizing events to push ahead for health care reform, but nobody knows exactly where the goal line is.
According to the Washington Post, “President Obama’s supporters hope to recapture the energy of last year’s triumphant election campaign in a bid to regain control of the health-care debate, planning more than 2,000 house parties, rallies and town hall meetings across the country over the next two weeks.”
The trouble with such exertion is that the object is not pulling the lever in a presidential election or urging a simple affirmative Congressional vote but influencing thousands of pages of still-shifting legislation in both Houses.
Yes, we can…what?
In the morass of issues involved, only the public option has come into focus to be distorted by lobbyists and loons into a future of government control and death panels, Big Lies that have to be answered with long and convoluted explanations
The demagoguery level is so high that Paul Krugman today resorts to nostalgia for the Unindicted Co-Conspirator, arguing that “Nixon’s proposal for health care reform looks a lot like Democratic proposals today. In fact, in some ways it was stronger.”
On the other side of the ideological divide, George Will asserts, with some justice, that on health care reform “our ubiquitous president became the nation’s elevator music, always out and about, heard but not really listened to, like audible wallpaper.”
8 Responses to “Yes We Can … What?”
But everyone loves house parties!
If they'd present a real concrete plan then maybe these would work.
It's the old truism “when all you have is a hammer, the whole world looks like a nail”. Obama is a great campaigner, so when faced with a challenge he'll go out and campaign. The problem is when you're campaigning you can get away with generalities and vague promises, when you're governing you cannot.
I've listened to several of Obama's town hall meetings and they sound a lot like his campaign rallies. At some point though he has to stand for something concrete. He seems to take a hands-off approach to most issues and is more concerned about maintaining image than creating policy.
The “campaign” behavior promptly became old and added to intelligent suspicion the second time it was undertaken after Obama took office, if or when not the first. It adds to the pathetic position of the Dems. And it re-raises speculation about how out of touch with real people, real world his people are.
“At some point though he has to stand for something concrete.”
So far, nothing but superficialities, generalities, and Feeling Good. (But consider the target audience.)
DLS
Still batting a 1000, I see.
I suppose the campaigns for legislative passage that Reagan and both Bushs is lost on you. Oh yeah, I remember now, only one side of the coin is worth your blistering analysis.
Hemm D., keep trying and perhaps you'll be a one-hundred hitter sometime.
Meanwhile,
“I've listened to several of Obama's town hall meetings and they sound a lot like his campaign rallies.”
Same kind of audience, same approach, same likely staging.
Obama never left campaign mode, he can't stop even without a serious goal.
In fairness, all Presidents “campaign” all the time in office. A big part of the Presidency is using the moral authority of the office – the bully pulpit – to convince members of the co-equal Legislative Branch to pass the President's agenda. Clinton did it. Both Bushes did it. Reagan did it. Carter did it. Nixon did it. And so on.
There is no “campaign mode” separate from “governing mode” when you are President.
Now, there are different KINDS of campaigning that are more appropriate in different scenarios. Face-to-face negotiations with Congressional leaders is a sort of campaigning.
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