I’ll admit that I don’t like the trajectory of the presidential race right now and that it is the opposite of what I wanted and expected and predicted just a few short weeks ago. However, things still look good for an Obama victory and our senate candidates are doing very well. Control of the House is still within our grasp. So, I am willing to engage in a little bit of conjecture about a potential second term for the Obama administration.
But first a word about his first term. Obama sent a message when he decided to retain Robert Gates as his Defense Secretary. He also sent a message when he made Illinois Republican Ray LaHood his Transportation Secretary, offered the Commerce Department to New Hampshire Republican Judd Gregg, and nominated a Republican to run the Army. He wasn’t just making a go at “changing the tone” in Washington DC; he was making it clear that it was okay for moderate Republicans to cross over and support his presidency. The irony is that this helped capture the middle so effectively that it made it much easier for the Republicans to lurch to the far right and start talking about birth certificates and death panels.
Obama hopes to retain enough of the Gates/LaHood/Powell/Hagel/Chafee/Jeffords Republicans to earn himself a second term. In his second term he should aim to lock in this group as a center-right appendage of the Democratic Party. It will be a gift to his successors. One major coup would be if he could get Dick Lugar to agree to be a part of his administration. I would not offer him the State Department. That should go to John Kerry, who has earned it. But Lugar might make a good replacement for Susan Rice as ambassador to the United Nations. I don’t mean that he would be a better ambassador or that his views would be more valuable. But it is probably time for Amb. Rice to find a new challenge anyway, and Lugar would inoculate Obama against the crazy charges he will undoubtedly face on foreign policy. More importantly, Lugar’s mere presence within the administration would send a message to a lot of soft Republicans that it is okay to support the Democrats’ foreign policy.
Another coup would be getting Olympia Snowe to agree to work with the administration. Finding an appropriate role for her would be harder because it would have to carry some degree of prestige in order to be at all attractive to her. Since the Census isn’t coming up until 2020, it would be safe to put a Republican in charge of the Commerce Department. Perhaps that would be enough for Snowe.
As for Lieberman, my inclination is to give him nothing. Keep him in mothballs in case you need him for some bullshit commission on something or other.
There’s a tension within any progressive between wanting to run the most progressive administration possible and building the strongest possible defense against Republican rule. I come down on the side of caution in most instances because I am less worried about coming up short on progress than I am about letting the modern GOP get another sniff of power before they are forced to moderate in the face of demographic change. There are things that a progressive would do a lot better at the United Nations than Dick Lugar and policies that would be better enacted with a progressive in charge of the Transportation or Commerce Departments. But I am willing to trade that for a more robust hold on power in general. Owning the White House is the single most important thing. More specifically, denying the White House to neo-conservative plutocratic socially conservative crooks is the most important thing. Until that changes, I want a strong coalition that includes pillars of the center-right.
Where I’d move in a more progressive direction is in less high-profile posts. Elizabeth Warren is a great example of that. The idea isn’t so much to govern in the center as to make it safe for centrists to help you govern.
