I don’t Think There is a Grand Plan — by anyone.
Boehner has a small plan: Keeping his job as Speaker. That’s all he ever wanted and probably he’ll save it.
The GOP plan we all know – keep Obama from being re-elected no matter what it takes.
Pelosi just wants to keep the safety net “off the table” at this point. I wish her well. In my opinion she’s been the best of the bunch on the Dem side, but she doesn’t have the strongest hand at the current poker table and Obama has not exactly been very helpful to her.
Reid? I can never figure Reid out. Sometimes I think he flips a coin before deciding what to do.
Obama? I know a lot of people think he plays 11th dimensional chess and is a tactical genius as a politician. Sorry, but I’ve yet to see it. He was a great campaigner. I’m sure he’ll run a great campaign in 2012.
But he is not “The Negotiator.”
Tell me how wrong I am if you like, but I have heard all the arguments in his favor and they just don’t cut it with me. He’s been too compromising with his adversaries and too contentious with his allies. He could have accomplished much more, especially in early 2009 when he had all that momentum from his victory and the GOP was in a funk. He could have used the “bully pulpit” much better.
Instead he hired Wall Street guys (Summers, Geithner) as his economics advisers and Rahm “I never met a Democrat whose balls I wouldn’t threaten to cut off” Emmanuel as his Chief of Staff. He kicked his best people, like Elisabeth Warren, to the curb. He never took a stand when a stand was needed. He was always looking for a deal, not a solution. He preached hope and change but practiced the politics of settling for less. I wanted someone who would be tough and inspirational, and willing to grab for the most he could get because God Knows we needed someone like that. He isn’t that guy, however. I now believe it simply isn’t in his nature.
He’ll probably squeak out re-election for a second term (mostly because the GOP field is so bad) but Democrats will not ride his coattails to recapture the House and there is a better than even chance the Dems will lose the Senate.
He is what he is. I don’t hate the man. I even have some sympathy for him, but to claim he has been a victim of circumstances is only half the story. He created a lot of his own problems, in my opinion. A great leader would have found a way to get single payer, or the public option through the Congress, to prosecute Goldman Sachs and the other Banksters, to push for a larger, more effective stimulus when he had the chance. We needed him to be FDR. Hell, we needed him to just be LBJ. Instead, we got Bill Clinton-lite: a little more eloquent, but a lot less skilled as a political in-fighter.
And that’s a damn shame, because it’s highly likely things will get worse, much worse, both in the short term and in the long term for most of the people in this country. A lot of people will suffer, and frankly I believe it didn’t have to be that way.
Call me an alarmist, a purist, a gloom and doomer or whatever term floats your boat. I frankly don’t care anymore. At this point I am “hoping” that a miracle happens next year and the Dems retake the House, but I don’t expect it. I “hope” that Obama becomes the President and leader he should be and that the country desperately needs. But I’m not betting on it.
Woulda, coulda, shoulda.
Prove me wrong Mr. President. Prove me wrong.
