As the Obama Administration has rolled out its proposals and priorities, I have questioned them in numerous TMV postings. However, I am still willing to give his Administration four years before passing final judgment. But if the first 9 months are a blueprint for the balance of his term, I do not expect any major edifices or landmarks in U.S. history to emerge.
I am not bothered by the plethora of issues being simultaneously addressed by the Obama Administration, because these times require a full-court press on many problems. I do question their lack of policy details, very limited transparency, and timid approaches on many controversial issues.
There have been too many grand yet empty words that everything is important but then everything is still negotiable. The President should be more concerned that he is respected and possibly feared rather than being personally popular. His perpetual efforts to appear too pragmatic, too realistic, and too “cool” are becoming tiresome. Many Presidential critics have correctly pointed out that not every issue can be a major priority. Otherwise the result is that nothing is a priority.
President Obama is first and foremost a gifted politician. For any politician, left, right, liberal, conservative, and even independent, the first and overwhelming priority is to get re-elected. Everything else is secondary. If the President has any core values or principles, no one can say for sure, but they are essentially irrelevant and disposable for most politicians.
In order to win elections in the U.S. during the beginning of the 21st Century, one must raise gobs and gobs of money for political campaigns. Money is the milk, eggs, cheese, meat, grains, fruits, vegetables, and the whole food pyramid of politics. To paraphrase the great professional football coach Vince Lombardy when he described winning, “Money isn’t everything, it’s the only thing.” Spending lots of money frequently ensures winning in American politics.
President Obama and his Administration have decided that in order to get re-elected, they must raise hundreds of millions of dollars in campaign contributions which requires pleasing a large number of very wealthy past and future constituents and contributors. Why limit the obscene wealth and power of the financial sector even if it caused this great recession when it will be the leading campaign contributor to the President and the Democratic Party in 2010 and 2012? Why not protect huge private insurance carriers, large pharmaceutical companies and other private healthcare providers from any meaningful reforms that might benefit the general public when their campaign contributions will be so much more important in 2010 and 2012?
The new kids on the campaign block are the many large international construction, engineering, and equipment supply firms that build large infrastructure projects such as highways, bridges, airports, mass transit and high speed rail. Thus the explanation for the Administration’s and Congress’ bi-partisan support for huge new public works projects.
Fortunately, this shift in priorities has the potential to provide many new well-paying jobs for Americans and it may finally address our country’s glaring lack of global competitiveness vis-à-vis most other developed and developed nations that have made huge investments in their national infrastructures. The political short-term benefits of this national public investment policy will be that these companies will dump millions more in campaign dollars for the President’s re-election campaign with the obvious quid-pro-quo of billions and billions of borrowed dollars for new transportation projects. Members of Congress expect the same campaign largess in their re-election bids. Some money is wasted in many districts where incumbents essentially run unopposed due to creative gerrymandering. I personally support such new spending projects but I must point out the obvious political ramifications as well.
In the big scheme of things, it has never been a battle in this country between the right and left, conservatives and liberals, or even Republicans and Democrats. Instead it is a war between the wealthiest private individuals, businesses, and special interests versus the rest of us. My prior posts of 5/5/09 and 5/24/09 on TMV (linked to several other news and opinion web sites including Real Clear Politics) discussed this sad reality in greater detail.
The U.S. system of political and economic power is essentially an oligarchy or plutocracy. What 90% of us think, believe, want, or hope for is simply irrelevant. Politicians have to give lip service to our public interests, but their overriding goals are to hold onto and expand their political and economic power by every means possible.
Everything that has transpired to date, including every policy decision by this Administration, can be readily understood if one sees they are simply dictated by the only priority that really matters: Get re-elected – which requires lining up your big campaign contributors by doing what they want. The rest is just window dressing to placate the majority of the electorate.
Many political leaders incorrectly confuse political capital with financial capital. The first is a perpetually renewable commodity if used correctly and the latter is always finite no matter how much is amassed. One cannot hoard political capital for some future battle that may or may not come. It grows and shrinks directly as one uses it, and it directly mirrors political fights taken and avoided. Actually winning on certain core issues and major legislative battles helps increase political capital for future use. But not using political capital causes it to dissolve rapidly. Talking too much and never getting anything accomplished is a good recipe to dissipate valuable political capital.
Financial capital appears limitless, but even those with formidable war chests lose campaigns if they do not capture the respect of the electorate. That respect comes from actually using political capital to get things accomplished, and it is never the result of just trying to maintain empty popularity. Politicians grossly overrate financial capital. The constant pursuit of such campaign money corrupts them completely – not that some of them had any core values or principles to begin with.
Perhaps the President and his top advisers will recognize the superficiality of some of their policy choices and political actions to date. It may be sufficient for a political campaign to constantly respond to every meaningless charge from critics while attempting to maintain an aloofness and “coolness” above the fray by expressing few if any core values or principles. These policies may prove to be rather ineffectual in actually governing the country.
Posted by Marc Pascal in Phoenix, AZ.