Michael Tomasky’s a terrific writer, an interesting thinker and I agree with lots of what he writes. But he’s either thinking too much or too little in response to President Obama’s opening proposal for dealing with the “Gentle Fiscal Incline” coming at the end of the year:
“Nothing validates a politician’s sense of self like being reelected. Once could have been a fluke, the pol secretly thinks to himself. Especially for Obama, especially under 2008’s highly unique circumstances. Did I, he had to wonder sometimes at 3 am, just somehow pull the wool over people’s eyes?
But then the people had four years to take his measure, four years during which the other side threw everything it had at him. Then came a campaign against an opponent who looked central-casting presidential, was obviously qualified, was well-financed, and ran a pretty good campaign all in all. And Obama beat him clearly and decisively.
That can make a fella say, “All right. The people want me. They want my agenda and my ideas. So let’s roll.””
You know what else getting reelected does? It gives a politician more power.
That’s especially true if you’re the first president in a half century to win over 50% of the popular vote in both races, and your party gained seats in the House and Senate.
Then add in the fact that Barack Obama is a gifted political counterpuncher who spent the past two years staging tactical retreats and taking body blows from his opponents, all the while setting up precisely the scenario we know face: massive tax hikes on the wealthiest Americans combined with significant defense spending cuts while Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid are held harmless unless Republicans in Congress now compromise with him.
In The New New Deal Michael Grunwald recounts with some amazement the degree to which the Obama administration did not politicize the 2009 Recovery Act—instead leaving much of the drafting of the bill and structuring of the programs it funded to policy wonks and technocrats. Grunwald also concludes that most of the mistakes Obama and his team made were political mistakes—underestimating and fundamentally misunderstanding the degree to which Republicans were unalterably opposed to anything and everything Obama proposed.
After the 2010 election in which Republicans retook the House, Speaker Boehner and his caucus used their newly won power and their ideological unity to force—and win—a series of showdowns with President Obama in the spring and summer of 2011.
The young Barack Obama’s community organizing mentors in the 1980s would have taught him the importance of making evaluation a habit—every meeting he had, every action he and his leaders took, Obama would have learned to reflect dispassionately on the emotions generated by that encounter, and the lessons to be learned from it. What went well? What didn’t? What did we win or lose? Why? What do I do differently next time?
Using the razor of that great Franciscan friar William of Ockham, the simpler explanation for what Tomasky sees as Obama’s newfound confidence and assertiveness is not a change in the president’s self-understanding, but 1) a change in his political power and 2) the political growth in someone new to executive power but with 25 years of using the mental habit of evaluation to improve his performance.
Crossposted at: http://masscommons.wordpress.com/
