I guess my timeline is slightly different from the Speaker’s, because I’d say that it’s been about six weeks since the president made it absolutely clear that he’s done trying to forge compromises with a party that won’t compromise. But let’s take a look at John Boehner’s thinking anyway.
“There is nothing that has disappointed me more over the last eight weeks than to watch the President of the United States basically give up on the economy, and give up on the American people, decide he’s going to quit governing, and spend his entire next 14 months campaigning,” Boehner said.
The lead Republican went on to say that the president should try to find more areas of agreement between the two parties. That notion has been one of contention, with the president maintaining that his jobs proposal consisted entirely of ideas previously supported by Republicans.
“If the president is serious, he ought to be up here working with us to find common ground to solve the issues that the American people want us to solve,” Boehner said.
What John Boehner means is that the Democratically-controlled U.S. Senate and the president of the United States should capitulate to whatever the House of Representatives wants to do, even if what the House wants to do has no relationship to what the Democrats promised their constituents they would fight for. What I find ironic, though, is that nothing has disappointed me more than how the activist left pushed Obama to stop compromising with the Republicans and take his case to the people, and then six weeks ago when the president decided to do exactly that, the activist left decided to pour all their energy into the Occupy Movement. I’ve discussed this before, and my thinking has been evolving. It feels like that the precise moment the president gave up on working with the Republicans, the activist left gave up on the congressional process. It’s like something snapped after the debt ceiling fiasco. I think it destroyed hope all around. And people are reacting differently to it depending on their situation.
The one positive thing I am feeling is that I have the sense that the Republican talking points and arguments seem a little more detached from reality and a little more irrelevant or impertinent than they did before the Occupy Movement got started. It’s just a feeling, but if it’s right it might mean that the debate is moving in a more favorable direction. And the movement gives people a way to stay politically involved instead falling into despondency. So, that’s good, too.
I just worry that the left is splintering at a dangerous time.
I feel compelled to remind you all again that a key component of the McConnell Plan of total obstruction is to frustrate the left so that it turns on itself.
The Speaker has entirely left the realm of reality. No interest in what the people want and too busy spending time with lobbyists, golfing and drinking.
Just saw this video of Dem candidates for the House trying to bring him a petition from the 99%. Pathetic staff refuse them entry to his office. Have a look.
One way to minimize splintering of the Left would be for more Democrats to join it.
Snark aside, I don’t doubt that the visibility of OWS contributes to the Administration’s willingness to finally try to better distinguish themselves from Republicans.
John Boehner’s argument looks profoundly silly specifically because of how the President handled the debt ceiling negotiations.
Anyone who isn’t completely and utterly in the tank for the Republicans is quite aware that Obama has offered olive branch after olive branch to try to make deals with Republicans, only to have them slapped away. I can’t believe Boehner is even trying to sell this nonsense.
yes, and I believe we both argued the wisdom of holding the olive branch back then so he could more plausibly pivot now. I just wish we were pivoting together instead of more as shards of glass.
You’ve got me beat there, BooMan.
I recognized the olive branch was a ploy during the debt ceiling debate, but I thought it was mostly a strategy for getting a good outcome in that fight.
If you recognized it as a setup for his reelection campaign, more power to you.
That is what I argued at the time.
Your concern is not unreasonable but I also think that it’s a long way out and that the President has played this generally very well. The Left proper will likely vote for the President in inverse proportion to how far ahead of the GOP candidate he polls.
I don’t blame Nader, for example, for the Supreme Court decision in 2000. Gore won the vote and lost the election through illicit means. That’s on the Right’s list of offenses, not the Left’s.
PBHO was sworn into office on January 20th 2008 (or Jan 21 if you’re a stickler about the initial flub). He started fighting 6 weeks ago by your figures. I don’t know if I qualify as a member of the “activist left” by your lights, as about all I can do from here is contribute financially to candidates I find worthy, but I would have preferred to have seen a whole helluva lot more fight out of this president before 75% of his first term was over. If he finally figured out that the GOP wasn’t going to play nice with him last month, I don’t see how it’s fair to blame the left for taking matters into their own hands.
Again, though, I agree with you, this is an untidy bit of timing. But again, the problem is, if these protests were to happen at a more convenient time, they should have begun earlier rather than later, because from here on out to Super Tuesday ‘012 there’s not going to be a good time for a mass demonstration. This business is basically out of control; we can at least content ourselves with the positive effects of the OWS movement and its offshoots, bc there’s not a damn thing else to be done about it at this point but to jump in and help the effort–it’s come far enough that if it dies now, it’ll marginalize the entire effort.
This is out of our hands; no good complaining about the details, hasn’t been since the beginning.
2009.
And it’s not about fighting vs. non-fighting. It’s about trying to move the legislative process in the traditional way and giving up on doing that and going to the people and making it a political mud-fight.
Obama would be a truly failed president if he hadn’t been able to enact anything in the first two years because he had alienated the other side to a degree that he couldn’t even get two or three senators to vote with him.
Remember, he had 60 votes for a mere four months. And that was used up fighting over health care. And he couldn’t easily hold 60 because conservative Dems wanted some cover for their votes.
2009, oy, of course.
I don’t think Obama ever truly had 60 votes in the Senate to begin with. I simply believe he could have done more to point out what was being done after the GOP obstruction strategy became abundantly clear to anybody following politics. I believe in rope-a-dope, but he gave the GOP way too much rope to the point that it’s unclear who the dope will be next year.
The traditional way of moving the legislative process died about the same time Tom Coburn joined the Senate, from what I can tell. He was the first to unabashedly use the Senate rules to obstruct every damn thing, again, as far as I know.
I find it impossible to believe that a man about 500x smarter than myself (Obama) could fail to see the obvious GOP stategy from the beginning and point it out in terms the public at large could easily understand. I guess he didn’t want to, or felt he didn’t need to, or it wasn’t the appropriate choice or whatever, but again if I follow that road too far I end up in the cul-de-sac positing that PBHO is much smarter and better informed than I. It may be that I’ll be eating a crow sandwich next electoral season, but hey, I’ll be eating something, and my rent will be paid. If I didn’t have that guarantee, I don’t know that I’d be paying all that much attention in places like this speculating on inside baseball.
So whatever. I don’t want to detract from his accomplishments, but at the same time, I think starting about 8-10 months ago he could have begun swinging the hammer against the GOP for their outrageous behavior t better effect. It’s just what I think, I’m not married to it and I don’t doubt the intelligence or intentions of anyone here who disagrees with my opinion.
It’s amusing to me how many people are determined to pretend that Obama didn’t campaign hard against the Republicans before the 2010 elections – just as hard as he’s doing now, using much the same message – or that he didn’t spend 2009-2010 arguing loudly for the superiority of the Democrats activist, Keynesian jobs and stimulus policy.
If you’re talking to me specifically, I think Obama is a great campaigner, I just think his points would have a lot more punch if he could bring himself to utter the word “republicans” more often in place of “congress.” But I already said that, didn’t I? It’s gratifying at least to know that I’m bringing some amusement to somebody out there, I suppose.
What’s the saying?
“I’m not a part of any party, I’m a democrat.”
nuff said!
I look at it like every day the OWS or a related social force is around is a day the Republicans lose. Because they can’t possibly embrace OWS and they can’t possibly have a better message.
The right is ideologically bankrupt. Their candidates are a bunch of clowns, full of sound and fury, etc. Their “message” has no appeal accept to the base. They can only survive in a media world with no substance. Which is certainly the default mode of the media, so they have a big advantage there. But as soon as they have to talk about something real instead of their cherished fantasies, they lose. Does anyone think Mittens can deliver an ounce of substance as a candidate? He’s the default choice because he has done so well at convincing the media that behind the flirtation with the extremist rhetoric favored by the base he’s really just a nice dependable nothing, a perfect suit. If the election is about 99% vs. 1%, the GOP loses. Big time.
I have no anxieties about this. Obama is pushing hard, advocating progress on a real jobs bill and running against Republican congressmen held hostage by the Tea Party.
OWS every day is pointing out the injustice of income and wealth inequity. This issue is going to be alive and well by Nov 2012 if OWS has enough discipline to not get dragged into distractions.
Both these issues are in the spotlight and both help Dems. The fact that they started around the same time is not a problem. I don’t think they splinter the left. I think they are complementary.
I don’t think OWS is drawing too many resources away from OFA. I don’t think OWS is drawing a lot of resources away from important state election battles. I think a fair number of people are involved in more than one vehicle for action.
I wish more Democrat Reps and Senators had adopted the wealth inequity battle cry a year ago. I thought it was THE winning meme for them in 2012 after I read Robert Reich’s “Aftershock”.
State election battles in 2012 are hugely important and will be a solid motivator to get many people to the polls.
Also at some point, even some liberals deeply disappointed with Obama will realize that, in the words of Ron Daniels, “we are one conservative Supreme Court appointment away from a repeal of Roe v. Wade”.
Or they will be able to see the Republican pressing to keep oil industry subsidies while fighting Obama’s support for solar and other green industries.
I agree with Jeff L.
The OWS protests serve the function of preparing the ground for Obama’s messaging. They are creating an atmosphere that helps Obama’s campaign, and those of other non-conservative Democrats, while harming that of the Republicans, and eclipsing the Tea Party’s claim on populism. In this light, even the OWS movement’s refusal to put forward a political program – that is, their focus on criticism and highlighting problems, instead of pushing for solutions – is helpful.
Don’t worry, BooMan; Barack Obama and David Plouffe are big boys. They’re going to do just fine in selling their jobs message. There is more than one activist left.
Unless one party turns on the other, the relationship between OWS and the Obama campaign is symbiotic.
The only reason Obama has a backbone now is because of OWS. He said so early in his presidency in a reference to FDR’s famous quote (paraphrased): “You have my support. Now make me do it.” And it goes back to the Alinskyesque, Chicago-school of community organizing that Obama taught in his earlier days as well.
Unless there is an equivalent countervailing force to the Tea Party movement on the left, the President cannot confront alone and must engage in an exchange strategy instead of a coercive one. Now that there is such a force in the Occupy movement, the President’s clout and negotiating position has increased because he now has a credible threat to prevail in a conflict between the Tea Party and the OWS.
This plays out all the time in union-management negotiations for which the Chicago approach to organizing is famous. The union reps go into a meeting with management and return to their constituents with the offer. If the union reps get abused and beat up by their own union and have to walk back into the meeting with a counter-offer, management knows they’ll have to deal because they know the reps aren’t bluffing. If the union reps don’t get beat up first by the members, management knows that it’s the reps leading and not the membership, and they’ll refuse to concede to the union’s demands.
The only reason Obama has a backbone now is because of OWS.
This is just not true. Obama began this push before OWS even began. In August, the White House was putting out the message that it was going to start selling his jobs/stimulus program after Labor Day.
He gave his big speech at the bridge over the Ohio River on September 22. The first people started O-ing WS on September 17, and didn’t get any press for a week or two after that.
A mere, DOA 450 billion dollar jobs proposal (when it would have had to be over a trillion to actually matter) does not a confrontation make. Refusing to concede on the default threat by minting 2, $1 trillion dollar platinum coins and depositing the money at the Fed to pay the bills, as Krugman suggested at the time, would have been the confrontation strategy, which Obama refused to do.
If it weren’t for the OWS, the jobs proposal, already voted down in the House, would be dead. With Occupy movements in the streets, Democrats now have the cover to not concede in the budget committee negotiations. Without it, concessions would have already been forthcoming for the simple reason that none of the constituents had been speaking up for the Democratic position. Now they are, and Obama has his back covered, and Cantor is reining in his talk as well. That’s how power works in the real world.
A mere, DOA 450 billion dollar jobs proposal (when it would have had to be over a trillion to actually matter) does not a confrontation make.
If it weren’t for the OWS, the jobs proposal, already voted down in the House, would be dead.
The jobs proposal is dead. It has always been dead. There is no possibility that the Party of No will allow anything that will help the economy to pass Congress. This is a political maneuver.
I do agree with you, though, about the salutary effect of the protests on national politics.
Agreed. OWS action is indirectly supporting the President now, but that first sentence didn’t make sense. OWS is clearly not the “only reason” Obama “has a backbone now”.
Aug. 20 – President pre-announces jobs plan
Sept 8 – President before a joint session of Congress details plan.
Sept 9 – President speaks in Eric Cantor’s home district to push plan
Sept 16 – First protest in New York of OWS. (might have been 15th – not sure.)
In my book, confronting a Rep house leader by choosing his district as the first place to speak against his inaction takes some backbone.
Except that the jobs plan, according virtually all economists, was too lame to actually have an effect on unemployment. Before OWS Obama was just playing rhetorical games. Important ones, but not really a confrontation of the kind that Cantor and the GOP has been doing. Now Obama has the ammunition and the cover to force and prevail in an institutional crisis, something only the tea-party backed Eric Cantor had before.
“the jobs plan, according virtually all economists, was too lame to actually have an effect on unemployment.”
There are several economists that say it would improve employment. There is one well published Bloomberg survey that says even the average response indicates a small improvement.
So I have no idea who these “virtually all economists” are.
Yes, I should have been more specific. The economists all agree that it won’t move the unemployment rate enough to matter for Obama’s reelection prospects. It won’t achieve an unemployment rate of below 7%.
Your observation about the effect of the bill is not only inaccurate, but it’s utterly irrelevant to the question of whether it, and Obama’s campaign selling it, mean that he is taking a confrontation approach to the Republicans.
It’s entirely relevant to the confrontation argument (and it is entirely accurate) because proposing a jobs bill that is neither particularly bold nor likely to be passed is not confronting anything — it’s merely discourse, not coercion. OWS is a coercive stratagy. So would have been invoking a constitutional crisis to pay the debt and social security without congressional action. So is threatening to not pay the debt, as the GOP is doing. Proposing a jobs bill is just another dialogue going on.
Now you’ve moved the goalposts from “confrontation” to “coercion.”
“Just another dialogue going on” is exactly what you spent the summer demanding from Obama. Let me refresh your memory: Overton Window, Austerity, Keynesian, not meeting in the middle…does any of this ring a bell?
And, surprise surprise, as soon as you got it from this President, it utterly ceased to matter to you.
Don’t know what you’re talking about there. I’m not attacking the President. I’m defending the Occupy protestors — the people who are helping the President by providing Democrats with the same kind of backbone that the Tea Party provided to the GOP.
No. He is strictly in campaign mode now. That’s all this is about—getting re elected. He’s on the stump, speechifying. His support is down, he needs to get back the young, the unions and the indies. But in private he’s still making sucky non progressive decisions and hoping our lame stream media doesn’t pick up on it. I mean, doesn’t anyone think it’s just a little STRANGE that right now, after 3 years, he decides to pull completely out of Iraq?
Come ON. Don’t get me wrong, love the guy but am one of the disenfranchised dems.
CAMPAIGN mode folks for the next year. He’s gotta get us off the couch and back in his oorner. I’ll vote only because a rethug prez would signal pretty much the end for us 99%.
Just sayin’.
He’s getting out of Iraq on a timetable that was negotiated by George W. Bush. The only surprise is that he’s not leaving much in the way of residual forces.
yup. it wasn’t playing well to leave a bunch of our folks behind in the hellhole. So politically, now that he needs a big progressive move, it’s a win win. But we still have that zillion dollar embassy that has to be staffed. Now next up is Afghanistan. We gotta get the h out of there too. I figure that is next.
I mean, doesn’t anyone think it’s just a little STRANGE that right now, after 3 years, he decides to pull completely out of Iraq?
What are you talking about? He campaigned on doing exactly this in 2008, announced immediately upon taking office that he would be doing this, and then reaffirmed it numerous times throughout his presidency, including when the combat mission ended last July.
Exactly – there’s nothing strange at all about the timing. Obama had certainly made the promise during the campaign, and even the previous administration had agreed to withdraw troops by the end of this calendar year. It’s a done deal, and as skeptical as I am of Obama generally, I’ll give credit where it is due. Of course I still have concerns about the several thousand private contractors (i.e. mercenaries) remaining. But that is a whole different discussion for another thread.
This past week has been very odd for me, watching people (in October of 2011) come to terms with the fact that we’re withdrawing from Iraq.
You know, maybe this explains a lot of the incomprehensible lack of enthusiasm for Obama from certain people. I certainly wouldn’t have liked him as much if I had thought he was going to keep us there.
I heartily agree with the rest of your comment, though. These OWS protests do help Obama’s messaging and give him political hand.
I don’t want to argue that Obama isn’t leading here. He is, and he did start taking the arguments to the public before the OWS movement really took off. I just don’t think the OWS is anything but a positive for Obama right now. It’s not a distraction at all, and I hope he takes full advantage of it.
Well said.
yeh but has Obama endorsed the OWS movement? His Wall St. buddies are ALREADY holding back the campaign contributions. Has he said one word in support of either the 99%-except for taxing the rich, which he has commented on or the reasons for OWS?
Hell, I would have liked him to show up in Wisconsin or at least support the recall effort of the governor. I realize the POS probably should not get in involved in state politics, but Wisconsin has galvanized the left quite a bit. And he sure needs us now. He really needs the unions too-they are lukewarm toward him pretty much.
As I said, it’s all about campaigning but his speeches are ringing hollow.
yeh but has Obama endorsed the OWS movement?
Have they endorsed him? And, to follow up, who cares? Something that should have been obvious to you, given all of the attention that the “Now make me,” quote gets, is that the mutually-beneficial relationship doesn’t depend upon coordination or mutual endorsements.
His Wall St. buddies are ALREADY holding back the campaign contributions.
“His Wall St. buddies” started holding back the campaign contributions in the middle of 2009. By the fall of 2010, they were going 5:1 to Republicans. Where have you been? You think this is a novel development?
Hell, I would have liked him to show up in Wisconsin or at least support the recall effort of the governor.
I’m sure you would. The actual activists who led that campaign, on the other hand, did everything they could to prevent the Republicans from being able to cast that effort as a fight between the parties, but rather as a fight between the people and the government, and they had no intention of allowing it to be identified with Washington Democrats.
Actually, I think it would be bad strategy for Obama to endorse OWS. He should do as Fed Chairman Bernanke and many others have done and say he understands their sentiments. In politics, it’s often best to let others “carry the water,” as they say on the Hill, and Obama should let the OWS do its coercive damage to the GOP by itself and stay above it all. The issue is whether WE should be supporting OWS, both as an end in itself and in order to help Democrats and Obama, and I think we should.
I suspect after a couple decades of disappointment with the legislative process (from NAFTA to welfare “reform” to “grand compromises” leading to possible decimation of what’s left of our safety net, etc.), one might expect a certain degree of suspicion and hostility. The reality is that the Democratic Party is not a “left” party. There may be left-ish elements within the party, but it has essentially embraced the same corporatism as the GOP/Tea Party, minus the overt nationalistic and racist rhetoric of the latter.
That aside, is there any evidence – polls, etc. – available yet to suggest that #OWS is composed primarily of disaffected Obama supporters or Democrats? The reason I ask is that from the ones I have encountered in my particular locality, the distinct impression I get is that few if any of them would have ever touched the Democratic Party’s candidates with a ten foot pole. This seems like a bunch of folks who have actually felt disenfranchised for a while who apparently have finally decided not to suffer in silence any longer. Now if the Democratic Party wants to win these folks over, it’s going to be a very hard sell. One can like that or dislike that, I suppose.
So are you saying they’ve been non-voters?
We only have 60% participation on average. There’s a 40% contingent that simply doesn’t vote in the GE’s. And then you have off-year’s, with only 40% participation. That’s a large swath of voters to reach; I suspect many of them are poor who believe voting never changes their situation.
Good question. I wouldn’t be surprised if a large proportion are nonvoters. Let’s just say it’s a testable hypothesis. 🙂
Not long after my initial comment and your reply, it looks like someone has presented some preliminary data about the politics of the OWS movement – at least within NYC. Although I do strongly suspect the sample was a convenience sample rather than a random sample (and hence I question its generalizability), it does offer some food for thought. At bare minimum, it looks like a fair proportion of them voted for Obama in 2008 (about 60%) and the rest either didn’t vote or voted third party. A very small handful voted for McCain (2%). They’re not too keen on Obama currently (27% approval), but they give Congress a 3% approval rating (basically the clap and leprosy are more popular than Congress these days). What I’m guessing is that the Dems could conceivably make some inroads with this group, BUT they’d have to be willing to offer something other than warmed over neoliberalism – in other words, talk of deficit reductions, free trade agreements, austerity, and “grand compromises” needs to stop ASAP. And since a fair number of these folks feel burned after promises of hope and change last go-around, the party would have to offer them their proverbial pound of flesh in order get their support a second time around. Whether or not the party is even remotely capable of such a tall order is questionable at best, in my opinion.
That sounds pretty accurate to me, actually. In my head and based on my own intuition, I was thinking maybe 60-70% voted for Obama, and then the rest vote third party/Ron Paul supporters who sat out/people who sit out all the time.
The thing I am also noticing is that the Ron Paul contingent, while probably small, tends to be disproportionately vocal in my locality. I’m a bit concerned that they want to sort of shout down anyone else.
I keep seeing OWS supporters and participants fret about being “coopted,” but then I see the Paulites trying to organize “Occupy the Fed,” and everyone just nods along.