How Obama Can Turn It Around
With the Capitol Hill horror show on hiatus, the President has an opening to power up and start moving Washington toward some semblance of being functional again.
His strength is in a sizable approval advantage over the Congressional clowns who are back home to placate voters for whom incumbent is now a dirty word. With his numbers over 50 percent, he is well ahead of Republicans in hiding who have gained only a few points against the Democratic Gang That Couldn’t Shoot Straight.
As Evan Bayh bows out and John McCain starts to run scared, there is bipartisan panic in the air over November, which will result in Republicans gains no doubt but also put pressure on them to offer angry voters something more than monolithic opposition to everything.
All this liberates the President to flex his muscles from now until then and begin to act unilaterally. “We are reviewing a list of presidential executive orders and directives to get the job done across a front of issues,” Rahm Emanuel says.
A more assertive Obama could gain ground with voters who still admire him but are disappointed in his failure to deliver over Washington gridlock. If he steps up, his approval numbers will rise, and panicky Democrats will grab for his shortened coattails.
Where did he go wrong in a tumultuous first year? His attempts at bipartisanship were doomed–you can’t play tennis with nobody on the other side of the net–but he can’t be faulted for trying. What he might have done, however, after every House Republican and all but three Senators voted against the stimulus in February, is recognize their intractability sooner and start governing with more confidence in his mandate.
He compounded this failure by letting health care turn into a circus…
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19 Responses to “How Obama Can Turn It Around”
“Where did he go wrong in a tumultuous first year?”
If I had to guess it would be trying make the biggest social reform program since Social Security, possibly ever, in the middle of an economic meltdown. In a stable economy it would have been practically impossible to make happen, this last year it was just being stubborn. The results were utterly predicable, forget healthcare reform for now. Get the car running again then we can worry about buying a new stereo system.
I think Obama needs to rally the American people against Congress. We need a Congress that will care more about having a good solution for Americans than whose idea it is. Also, every step politicians make these days seems to be about what impact it will have on their re-election or their party. They need to stop campaigning and start doing their jobs! Find some common ground and make some progress.
They thought they electing Mr. T, and instead they got Pee Wee Herman, for the first year. I feel and hope that he has turned the corner and Mr. T has reappeared.
Obama shouldn't have had any faith in anybody. His party is partly corporatists and partly wonks, while his opponents cannot tolerate the very idea that he is president. He failed the American people by having faith in their ability to actually look at the nature of things rather than the labeling of them.
Obama is un-American; he doesn't understand the power of empty symbols, narratives and patronizing instructing of the public.
Where would we be without Robert Stein's weekly cheerleading of the Charge of the Light Unicorn Brigade? If you took his columns at face value you would think we were heading into a sweep by the Democrats this fall if only Obama flexes his massive biceps.
Hey Bob, McCain isn't worried because of a threat from the Democrats; his threat is from the right. That doesn't create a symmetry with Evan Bayh jumping off a sinking ship. And Obama is barely over 50% on two of ten recent polls, including Gallup which does not even screen for registered voters. I mean, that should bring a few wan smiles to the Democrats but it is hardly a sign of buffed up pectorals ready to own the opposition in mano-a-mano electoral combat.
http://www.realclearpolitics.com/epolls/other/p…
Obama acting through unilateral issuance of Executive Orders may enliven some Democrats but it is likely to further activate the Republican base and bring many fair minded independents to ask, “Aren't these the same folks who were frantically banging on Bush for doing this?”. Issuing EOs because you can't get support from a hostile Congress might at least be understandable, but Obama going this route while the Democrats hold overwhelming majorities in both House and Senate makes it seem incompetent, radical, or both. After all if you can't get one of the Senators in Maine to support your agenda, it's by definition not a moderate one.
They thought they electing Mr. T, and instead they got Pee Wee Herman
The dduck brings the funneh. rofl!
If Obama wants credibility as a bipartisan he needs to jettison the Progressive wing agenda he has and start listening to the Evan Bayhs in his own party and not the Nancy Pelosis.
As for his standing vs Congress, he is actually more vulnerable that 80-90% of Congressmen. People tend to dislike Congress in general but like the guy from their state/district, Obama does not have that luxury and as his poll numbers continue to go down he finds himself in dangerous territory.
Among likely voters he scores above 50% approval only on National security among the major issues, this is a real problem for him and his agenda in other areas.
Scott Brown wasn't elected because Obama wasn't assertive enough, Scott Brown won because Obama's agenda wasn't selling.
“we were heading into a sweep by the Democrats this fall if only Obama flexes his massive biceps.”
It makes me wonder about the office of the Presidency, those who view it as an office for a surrogate parent, and any residual honeymoon swoon that still has Obama confused with FDR as well as with JFK, Martin Luther King, Jesus Christ, and others waiting in line to be elevated to Obama's status.
Certainly there's no surprise about the hypocrisy of those who scream about the “imperial Presidency” when a Republican is in the White House.
Of course, it might also be more ping-pong reaching out of disappointment to desperation by the farther left (“moderates” on this site), looking alternatively at Congress, then the President, for “progress.”
“Evan Bayh jumping off a sinking ship”
This was no reason for him to leave, unless he was incredibly short-sighted and truly panicked, which makes no sense. (This is, or maybe now was, a guy prepetually at least in the wings or “on deck” to run for the Presidency.) The Dems have mired themselves badly, but remain almost 100% in power in Washington, and should recover before November.
Panic, no. I wondered if he were among the pioneers to leave before the crowd does, as Social Security starts to fail. (It should begin running deficits in 2016. Our negligent electorate and politicians probably won't make Social Security a campaign issue in 2012. 2014 or 2016 should see the politicians starting their mass rush to leave elected federal office.)
It could be just greed, or opportunity (and opportunism). Health care reform is inevitable, and the insurers' days were numbered, but if and when they would remain part of the system (relied on for cost-shifting as well as for much of the dirty and mundane work the feds could dump on them, as well as provide much needed skill the feds are lacking) the insurers can fight to maintain their diminishing role and get all the money they still can. Hence lobbying is good, and the Dems need to get in there before the Republicans eventually displace them. Ron Beasley on this site noted a connection Bayh has with the industry, and this was one real-world, substantial and likely significant fact that may explain why Bayh is leaving.
“If Obama wants credibility as a bipartisan he needs to jettison the Progressive wing agenda he has”
Examples of these far-left agenda items? No, the reform isn't left-wing, and you know as well as I do that TARP, the stimulus and the bail-outs weren't very ideological (but flawed). Environmental legislation is important, as is repealing DADT. What is it that gets you so riled?
The closed doors of the administration and the Democrats in congress. This was the same major complaint I had about the GOP during the Bush/Delay/Hastert years. Its the same problem just on the other side of the aisle now.
Anyhow, it seems the GOP is continuing to win the latest healthcare debate, at least according to a new poll
Poll: Most Americans think Congress should start over on healthcare
http://thehill.com/blogs/blog-briefing-room/new…
Obama is un-American”
Once again, you choose your words sloppily. Even you, are not un-American being the royal ove-user of hyperbole.
So how exactly does one overuse hyperbole, I for one think he is using exactly the correct amount, huge quanties of it. I mean that is what hyperbole is about, right?
=P
So how exactly does one overuse hyperbole”
Well, he uses it 11.9 times as much as anyone else on this blog. According to the AHF (American Hyperbole Federation), that is overuse in relation to fellow commenters.
And, as the American Institute for Statistics in Politics points out, 85.4% of statistics are made up on the spot.
Obama not only spoke in a sane (rather than eco-crazy) manner about nuclear energy in his State of the Union speech, but he is announcing a loan guarantee for a new plant in Georgia, and even, of all people Carol Browner (who is notorious) has expressed approval or support of this.
We have to ask why, and if it's really an example of how Obama can recover from his current predicament.
Is this actually sane-energy, sane-for-the-environment reform measure? Or is it playing with big money (taxpayer money, with government strings attached and federal intervention possibly behind it) in nuclear ower and energy (electricity generation) and exerting more control over energy? (Carol Browner actually supports it?)
Isn't a better indication, more like the failed farther-left silliness (including anti-nuclear pathology) of the lib Dems, revealed by Obama's decision to have the FRC withdraw support for the Yucca Mountain site? (Among smarter people in Nevada, isn't that likely to worsen rather than improve Harry Reid's chances? And among the rest, will NIMBYism on this issue really salvage his seat?)
Even though Obama is aiding the power plant construction,
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB100014240527487…
he is showing activism in his budget, as a political tool or weapon,
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB100014240527487…
and closing down Yucca Mountain* is probably indicative of his real stance on nuclear power — and even parties in Nevada (Reid's state) aren't happy about it.
http://www.lvrj.com/news/breaking_news/utility-…
* Is this also a short-sighted political move? Deferring a nuclear waste site or solution is similar to the deferral of reform of Social Security and Medicare until later, when they inevitably would fail, which scores cheap easy political points among the many suited voters.
“The closed doors of the administration and the Democrats in congress”
They let plenty of republicans in on committees and all of the ideas in the bill are approved by a majority of Americans. Are you stuck whining about C-Span? What about the QnA session? What about the fact that nothing in the bill is more left-wing than what Obama spoke of during the election?
Stop licking Bayh's feet: http://www.google.com/reader/view/feed/http%3A%…