We’ve had two years since the end of the Bush regime. What have we learned about ourselves and our politicians, left, right and those who claim to be in the center. Here are my thoughts for those who are interested.
Obama was not the magic bullet to change America.
I know this seems like stating the obvious to a lot of people, but Barack Obama, while he has passed more of his legislative agenda in the last 2 years than any President since LBJ, did not bring about the radical shift in our politics that many (though not all) had predicted or hoped. He made a number of rookie mistakes:
1. Trying for too long to play nice with the National Republican leadership. The National republicans never had any interest in compromise on health care, the economy, job creation, climate change legislation or financial reform. And why should they have? Any legislative successes would go to the benefit of the Democrats, and any failures would have to have been shared by both parties. He should have realized sooner that an aggressive posture and a full out campaign mode blitz to win favor for his proposals was the better way to go.
Instead he left himself and his Democratic colleagues wide open to the tactics that the Republicans employed so effectively against Bill Clinton in the run-up to the 1994 mid-term elections, only magnified by a factor of 10: Total obstructionism in Congress, astro-turf generated opposition to his agenda (i.e. the “Tea Party”), orchestrated thuggish behavior directed against his party’s elected officials at town hall meetings, outrageous lies and distortions regarding health care, the economic stimulus, etc. and personal ad hominem attacks against himself and his party that encouraged fear and back-peddling by the more weak minded and conservative Democrats in Congress.
It was not like this “bad behavior” by the GOP and conservatives should have been unexpected. It was there for all to see based on the campaign republicans ran against him in the Fall and the stories they spread about him even before his inauguration.
2. Following poor poltical advice. His deliberate distancing of himself and his policies from the progressive left that played such as huge part in his success demoralized his base supporters, the ones who volunteer. Whether this was his own policy or a decision taken on the advice of his political advisers, it led to news cycles in which he was portrayed as out of touch and waffling to his most fervent supporters. It gave the appearance of a President and an administration that cared more about what the Washington punditocracy thought of them than their own supporters.
Whatever Bush’s faults, he never fell into that trap. Bu making a point never to alienate his base on the religious right and by touting his policies and “values” at every opportunity he deliberately ignored what the Beltway press was saying about him and thus was able to take advantage of 9/11 to neuter the beltway elites and promote his agenda.
This served him well in 2004 when he was reeling from his numerous failures and scandals regarding Iraq, torture, corruption and a sluggish job situation and was extremely vulnerable. An election that he and his party should have lost he managed to win, and much of the credit for that went to his outreach to his base supporters who turned out both as volunteers for Republican campaigns and to vote for him and fellow Republicans.
3. Re-nominatiing the inept (at best) Ben Bernanke as Chair of the Federal Reserve and appointing Wall Street insiders Tim Geithner (Treasury Secretary) and Larry Summers (Director of National Economic Council) as his chief economic messages. They have been consistently wrong in their predictions of what the policies they advanced would actually accomplish. Their appointment to these high positions of influence may have soothed the Investment Bankers and the markets in the short term, but it also placed large roadblocks against anyone advocating for economic policies to increase demand for goods and services, stimulate job creation, financial regulation and consumer protection.
If the Democrats lose the House or Senate, it will be primarily the failure to “go big” on economic programs that would have actually benefited most Americans rather than the large financial institutions that have emerged even more powerful and profitable than when the collapse of the housing market bubble began.
Instead the half measures adopted by the administration often were watered down even further by timid conservative democrats and the administration’s failed attempts to win anymore than token support from a few vulnerable Republicans. In short, Obama and his economic team was often negotiating against themselves.
Some of this was not all Obama’s fault. He couldn’t control the economic mess he was presented with on January 2009 by the outgoing Bush administration. He had also had a loose confederation of conservative Democrats in Congress with which to contend as well as Republicans determined to see him fail.
However, his own political missteps were also largely responsible our current economic stagnation, especially his failure to use the “bully pulpit” to vigorously push for a larger and better targeted economic stimulus. In other words, he should have employed campaign style advocacy — as Bush did for the Iraq war for example — for the most radical progressive economic policies so that when the compromises in Congress are done he still would have gotten most of what was needed.
Instead, his approach to curry favor with Republicans and conservative Democrats was his most significant domestic mistake. It contributed to less economic growth, particularly in the job sector, than I believe was reasonably possible had he adopted a more confrontational strategy on domestic affairs.
