Obama’s Political Skills, And How They Matter
I’m not the kind of blogger to get furious about things like Obama’s tax cut cave-in (unnecessary and wrong on the merits though it certainly is) very often because my expectations of presidents also tend to be low. I will quibble with Matt on one point: Obama is clearly not “the greatest progressive president in 70 years.” Between his exceptional legislative achievements and being the only Democratic president of the 20th century to nominate nothing but strong liberals to the Supreme Court, LBJ is the clear winner. If he had initiated the Vietnam conflict, Matt might have a case, but JFK gets way less of the blame than he should. (I don’t think anyone who had a chance of being president in 1964 would have handled it much differently.) I also doubt that relative to the status quo of the time his record in civil liberties is significantly worse, and if you consider his federal court appointments it’s probably better. But, still, Obama is #2, and this does tell us something.
To me, the bottom line is that the importance of political skills of presidents is overrated. Obama, in terms of achievements, is probably the third most progressive president of the last eight decades. Not coincidentally, he also entered office with the third-most favorable congressional context. If Bill Clinton had entered office in 2008, he probably would have amassed the same kind of record. JFK underachieved, but didn’t even have a full term either. Carter probably underachieved, but his nominal congressional majorities were particularly nominal even by Democratic standards — a still-large Southern reactionary contingent at war with an unusually intransigent Naderite faction. LBJ is the only post-FDR president to have overachieved (his majorities, in particular, guaranteed nothing when it came to the Civil Rights and Voting Rights Acts, and nothing could have stopped him from appointing a Byron White if he wanted to), and even that came with a steep price — brute force and bridge-burning are limited resources, and he was of course forced to resign from the Democratic primary with a botched attempt to replace Earl Warren and his legislative agenda a shambles.
So when we discuss the political abilities of presidents, we’re working (especially with domestic policy) within a pretty narrow band. Political skills are essentially a constant, but outcomes nevertheless vary greatly even within presidencies. I don’t think any set of presidential tactics could have gotten significantly better outcomes on health care or climate change. But that’s not to say that presidential policy preferences and strategy are irrelevant either. Had he listened to the Mark Penn faction, the outcome om health care could have been even worse. On tax cuts, conversely, there’s no way to defend Obama’s performance.
His Supreme Court misstep was Fortas. Trying to make him the Chief Justice was a serious blunder. Replacing Goldberg with him alone was dubious. Brennan would have had another vote to work with into the 1980s if Goldberg staid on the Court.
Right, although while I could live with muscling Goldberg out trying to make Fortas chief was the real blunder.
LBJ resigned? That’s news to me.
Okay, more seriously, I know what you meant is that he didn’t seek a second term. I always like to point out that that was probably a good thing. Johnson died in January of ’73. Let me rephrase that; retired Johnson, who took it easy and looked after his health carefully in his comfortable ranch while writing his memoirs, died at the exact same point he would have gotten out of a hypothetical second term.
Given the immense pressures of the Presidency, had he won said hypothetical second term he’d have died in office and/or pulled a Wilson. And that would have just been horrible for him, his family, and the country.
On the substantive rankings, I’m going to have to agree with you, but I think for different reasons. ‘He was the best of the pack of bastards who might possible have occupied the same space’ is very, very weak tea when it comes to justifying Johnson’s heinous foreign policy decisions. Whatever his domestic accomplishments (which taken in isolation would render him a titan of liberalism, the second coming of FDR and successful in all the places FDR wasn’t) they can’t erase that stain.
But he’s still number two. Why? Because Obama’s domestic accomplishments are far less substantive and his foreign failures are as bad, or worse, than Johnson’s.
So yeah. FDR, Johnson, Obama, assuming you count Obama as a progressive President.
What “foreign failures” are you talking about here? To clarify.
“his foreign failures are as bad, or worse, than Johnson’s.”
Yeah, we’re going to have to interrogate that. Afghanistan would have to get pretty goddamn bad to approach the devastation caused by post-11/63 escalation in SE Asia. Which isn’t to say that it won’t, of course…
Fair enough.
Obama is, to my eyes, basically staggering around in central asia with no game plan and no end in sight, while failing to disentangle us from Iraq and encouraging, expanding even, unhelpful paradigms of the conflicts he is managing.
A brief laundry list of said paradigms; expanding drone warfare, lack of concern for/deliberate jiggering of civilian casualty counts, lack of concern for the fact that we’re accurately perceived as propping up a puppet kleptocracy (a move right out of the Vietnam playbook) and the recent shift towards upping the ante with conventional warfighting tools like tanks to fight a guerrilla war (a move taken right out of the Soviet playbook).
Oh, and then there’s our shadow war in Yemen. You know. For the cherry.
But!
Having said all that… yeah, I’ve had some time to think, and you know what? I retract my ‘worse than Johnson’ clause, Robert. I’m a very young man, comparatively speaking; Vietnam for me is something that happened in history books, something that even my PARENTS didn’t have visceral experience with, whereas Afghanistan and Iraq have had immediacy for most of my adult life. So I’d forgotten just how much of a hellscape we turned southeast asia into with our inept bumbling and went right for the jugular.
That’s my bad.
You might want to see the documentary “Hearts and Minds”. I think when considering war we should think of the Pentagon. Civil oversight is important, but we don’t want Presidents micromanaging wars and shouldn’t hold them accountable as if they did.
We’re winding down in Iraq and soon want have as many troops as we have in Germany. I don’t understand why we’re still in Afghanistan, but do understand why we wouldn’t leave abruptly. However much we may be tired of dealing with it, we have formed alliances with people we should not just abandon.
I’m with (original) Murc. LBJ and JFK made idiotic and disastrous mistakes in Vietnam, but Obama made similar mistakes while being aware of the lessons of Vietnam. Comparing disasters simply in terms of magnitude does NOT fully measure how misguided or mistaken the situations are… I also consider how avoidable/knowable a situation is.
In other words: if the very first time Charlie Brown tries to kick the football he falls and breaks a hip but the 10th time he merely sprains an ankle… there may still be a reasonable case that the 10th time is a more foolish error.
Comparing disasters simply in terms of magnitude does NOT fully measure how misguided or mistaken the situations are… I also consider how avoidable/knowable a situation is.
Yes. Also, I always kind of assumed that while the domino theory is obviously wrong now, it was probably quite plausible in the mid-1960s. I’m wondering if anyone knows if that assumption is reasonable – were there any reasons that the domino theory was obviously wrong then?
What, other than the fact that there were an awful lot of dominos to fall before teh communists got anywhere near any Americans? And that none of those countries had anything to do with America? And that the struggles involved were mostly nationalist more than ideological, until they met with anti-communist resistance? And that lots of clever people at the time thought it was wrong? Should I go on?
It only looked plausible from a position where imperial USA had the right to control the world.
Gotta disagree on the “foreign failures” bit- both inherited wars- but by almost any objective standard Obama’s actions in Iraq and Afghanistan are less disasterous than LBJ’s decisions in Vietnam- now if say Pakistan collapses then said decisions may be comparable but until such a thing occurs its not a close comparison.
Obama’s foreign failure are as bad, or worse, than Johnson?
Not unless he invades Iran.
Well, he’s still got 2 years. Plus, he’d get support from Congressional Republicans, the approval of whom appears to be his lodestar.
Scott –
I remember being at a writer’s conference in Austin a few years back, and going out to dinner with a bunch of leftyish scribes including Bob Draper, JoAnn Wypijewski, and Jim Hightower and discovering, over dinner, how much our opinions of LBJ had changed for the better. (Mine were always gentler, because my mentor in J school George Reedy, who used to work for LBJ, always told me to take a careful second look at all he’d done.) Vietnam was — and is — inexcusable, in part because he abandoned his native political shrewdness to his intellectual insecurity around the Bundys and the rest of those fools, and incalculable damage resulted. (It should be noted that he was really trying to pry us loose in 1967-68, and the efforts were in part sabotaged by the Nixon people. Four more years, indeed.)
But to compare his domestic policy record – and I include in that his work as Senate majority leader — unfavorably to the incumbents is just ahistorical nonsense. The 1965 speech to Congress on the Voting Rights Act remains the greatest speech given by a president in my lifetime.
Yes. And, to be clear, I am absolutely not giving LBJ a pass on Vietnam — he had discretion and used it badly. But JFK has at least as much blood on his hands, and he doesn’t have anything like “the best domestic policy record of any 20th century president” to make up for it.
Yeah, but this debate is between LBJ and Obama. We know JFK sucked. The question is how much does JFK excuse LBJ. And it’s a tough one. I think from a distance, there is very little that JFK did that obliged LBJ to escalate in Vietnam. It’s not like anything actually bad would have happened if he pulled out. But JFK’s actions did set up a framing for the issue that made it very difficult for a mainstream politician in the context of American politics in the late 60s for LBJ to avoid escalation. Ultimately, my view is that although the negative consequences of Vietnam were worse than our continuing engagement in Iraq or Afghanistan (not to mention general security policy where Obama is managing to fail badly in just about every last particular), they reflect a similar level of poor judgment on the part of Obama and LBJ. Conversely, I can’t imagine Obama managing or even desiring to match LBJ domestic achievements.
“It’s what Kennedy would have wanted” is a two edged sword. It allowed Johnson to pass a lot of legislation in Kennedy’s name, but made also it difficult for him to countermand policy JFK originated — such as the Vietnam war. If Kennedy had lived it would have been easier for him than Johnson to deescalate the Vietnam war because he would not have had his own ghost looking over his shoulder.
And it’s worth noting, pace the anti-Kennedy consensus that seems to pervade this and other lefty blogs, that Kennedy, unlike Johnson, had enough confidence in his own grasp of foreign policy to break with his hawkish advisors when he thought that was the right thing to do. If LBJ had been president during the Cuban Missile Crisis there probably would have been a nuclear war.
But to compare his domestic policy record – and I include in that his work as Senate majority leader…
Unfair to Obama. All pro-Obama liberals have sworn an oath to leave his senate performance out of it. I mean, it’s not like a group of determined senators could have filibustered the really bad stuff Bush proposed, right? Surely repeated use of a filibuster would be political suicide!
So it would be completely unfair in the LBJ v Obama debate to mention that Senator Obama affirmatively supported war in Iraq, the Patriot Act, or absurd tax policy.
You also need to consider Richard Nixon.
Not a good president, of course (Watergate was a very serious crime and it was the tip of the iceberg when it came to deception and dirty tricks from that White House).
But in terms of actual, domestic policy achievements, I believe Tricky Dick is #3 behind (if far behind) FDR and LBJ on the list of progressive presidents of the last eight decades.
I agree that Obama has a more progressive record of accomplishment than Ford, Carter, Reagan, Bush, Clinton, or Bush….but that’s really not saying much.
(Incidentally, the cases of Ike and Truman are more complicated–especially given the former’s appointment of Warren to the SCOTUS–though I’d probably give Obama the nod over them.)
I thought someone might bring up Nixon. It’s true that some good progressive laws passed during his tenure, but there’s a difference between acquiescing in policies put forward by Congress and pushing them. It’s not as if Obama has obstructed good environmental policies passed by Congress or anything. And then there’s Nixon’s SC appointments — I’m no Kagan fan, but she ain’t Rehnquist or Burger, and while Blackmun ended up being OK that was a fluke (and in his first decade he was reliably conservative on the issues Nixon actually cared about.)
Nixon/Ike is interesting, but I have to put Obama ahead of both.
Not to overpraise Nixon (and I truly hate the guy for all the obvious reasons), but his domestic policies weren’t simply acquiescing to Congressional Democrats (though there was some of that).
Nixon didn’t much care about domestic matters and often crafted domestic policies in order to score political points. For example, he started federal affirmative action in order to create a wedge issue that could be used against the Democrats.
But precisely because he didn’t have strong ideological commitments on many domestic matters, his policies were a real mixed bag. And given the severe, rightward winds in American politics over the next few decades, Nixon’s mixed bag is very progressive by today’s standards.
Certainly his healthcare plan–proposed largely to score political points and rejected by Congress–would have been far superior to what Obama signed into law earlier this year.
I agree, of course, about his SCOTUS appointees, which were a huge bone he threw to the right. Still, largely because of Blackmun, they were far less bad than Reagan’s or Dubya’s appointees, if clearly worse than Obama’s and Clinton’s.
Certainly his healthcare plan–proposed largely to score political points and rejected by Congress–would have been far superior to what Obama signed into law earlier this year.
Yeah, but in this context I don’t think he deserves credit for this — we’re talking about accomplishments here. Obama’s record wouldn’t be improved if he had sent a single-payer bill to Congress to see if it could get 5 votes in the Senate. So the fact that Nixon cynically proposed decent health care reform that didn’t pass is neither here nor there.
He’d be a bloggy cynosure, thought. And isn’t that what really matters, at the end of the day.
a bloggy cynosure
I think I had one of those removed last week.
Yabbut, if the reason for watering down the healthcare bill was so it could 60 votes, once it couldn’t get 60 I’d think a progressive who was trying to get the best he could would have then pivoted to passing the most liberal thing he could 50 senators and a Biden behind. Obama didn’t do anything like that.
That’s the thing that never gets talked about with the healthcare deal.
One enjoyable side effect of this approach is that it tends to reignite stalled negotiations, and the brink is never reached.
However, my theory on what is never talked about with the health care deal… if we are going to pretend like this is a progressive accomplishment, why weren’t progressives screaming bloody murder when Clinton turned down something very similar in 1997?
Well, my argument for it being a progressive accomplishment is that it gets the federal government into the healthcare business. When this system fails to much lower healthcare costs for the average person, there will be sort of an expectation that Congress will “Do something.”
And, in hindsight, Clinton should have taken that deal. The Republicans have only gotten crazier.
After Brown was elected the situation was incredibly delicate. In particular, the initiative at that point lay with the House.
IIRC, the vote in the house on the Senate bill was extremely close, and only somewhat less close on the amendments. I don’t think it’s at all clear that trying to pass more liberal amendments would have gotten through the House.
Plus, just in general, it was an unbelievable achievement getting both House and Senate to agree not to just run away from health care reform entirely after Brown won. I really find it hard to grasp the idea that Obama left anything on the table there.
In the days after Brown was elected even people like Anthony Weiner and Barney Frank went on tv to talk about how Democrats had just been too liberal. We can certainly talk about what should’ve happened before – and it should’ve – but once Brown got in it’s a miracle any HCR passed at all.
But, bottom line, to the degree he was open to reasonable domestic policies given it wasn’t his concern, he had a Democratic Congress that was willing to support them. That’s Scott’s point, right?
In fact, given that, he was open to some good policies. Obama faces quite a different situation.
I actually agree: I think the most meaningful measure is what a president actually accomplishes.
My point about Nixon was simply that his progressive policies were not simply the result of having his hand forced.
And, further, I think you need to give him credit for even those policies that were the result of his having his hand forced, unless they were passed over his veto: Nixon obviously gets no credit for the War Powers Resolution.
Whoops! I’m responding to Scott (with whom I agree about measuring presidents on what they actually accomplish).
Hunter Thompson didn’t call the Supremes “Nixon’s pus-filled legacy” for nuthin.
Seconded. Definitely the greatest progressive President of the 20th Century who wasn’t a Democrat.
Disagree. TR wins that award, I think.
It’s also important to clarify what one means.
“Greatest progressive president” is a little different from “most progressive president.”
Richard Nixon was one of the two or three worst presidents of the twentieth century. So he can’t really be the greatest anything president.
But even in the “most progressive Republican” category, I think TR wins.
There’s a strong case to be made that TR basically founded (or at least legitimated) the modern political tradition of progressivism at the national level. People forget that FDR represented merely the first full flowering of the tree his cousin planted; the very NAME of the New Deal was designed to remind the public of Teddy’s Square Deal, which they loved.
The notions of appropriate robust, vigorous government intervention in the marketplace for the good of the common man that kicked off the great debate over the entire role of government that raged until FDR won it (although arguing against the paradigm he solidified is coming back into fashion today)? Yeah. Also TR.
I am happy to argue that Taft was as progressive as Roosevelt in actual policy decisions, but without the self-promoting publicity machine. Taft–more land conserved, more trusts busted, at least as much other progressive legislation signed.
I generally agree with your point. Obama is undoubtedly not as subjectively left wing as most of the people commenting here, but even if he were, there isn’t much more he could do to advance left wing goals in areas where he needs Congressional support. He accomplished a lot in the last two years, and of course the left is way better off with him as a break on a Republican Congress than they would be with a GOP president.
The vast majority of liberal voters realize this, and like Obama. The Internet gives a very distorted view of where liberal opinion is.
But I don’t understand what surrender you are talking about? If all the Bush tax cuts expire, that’s great. If the Republicans bring that about, that’s even better.
Even much more left-wing social democratic governments freeze public sector salaries when they can get away with it. All governments of any stripe want to use whatever room for public spending they have for their own priorities, not for government workers. Frankly, in the midst of a deflationary recession with mass unemployment, it would be irresponsible not to freeze federal salaries. The only reason not to do this, from Obama’s point of view, would be if the public sector unions would punish him. Of course they won’t because the Republicans are infinitely more scary.
This is remarkably, even impressively, diametrically opposed to the truth. All that freezing federal salaries achieves, qua the overall economy, is to reduce demand in a situation where there’s a trillion-dollar shortfall in demand. It has the added effect of reducing the effectiveness of the civil service; I’m not sure what the upside of that is.
A new Era of Good Feelings in DC, right?
Indeed — if we was going to do that, great! Instead, it looks like he will fully extend the upper-class tax cuts.
Frankly, in the midst of a deflationary recession with mass unemployment, it would be irresponsible not to freeze federal salaries.
Wow, you have no idea whatsoever how economics works.
Let me break it down for you. In order for deflation and mass unemployment to be reversed, there must be economic activity. It has ben demonstrated conclusively that the way to bring this about is to put money in the hands of the people who are most likely to spend all of it. This is not the upper class, but is instead the working class. By freezing salaries of those who need every dime they can get their hands on, and who are more likely to spend more of that money, Obama is instead acting against the interests of economic recovery.
You – and people like you, who have opinions on economics without actually understanding it – are a part of the problem.
Unfortunately, from the moral perspective of those who think federal employees are overpaid bums, the exact opposite policy makes much more sense. And more broadly, isn’t that how it goes? When in recent years has the US Govt taken a decision for economic reasons?
Unfortunately, from the moral perspective of those who think federal employees are overpaid bums, the exact opposite policy makes much more sense.
Nobody will say to themselves in 2012 “Well, the economy sucks, but Obama did cut people’s pay back in 2010, so I’ll vote for him.” This is bad economic policy, and gains nothing politically.
My problem with Obama is that he attempts to minimize losses by not taking firm stands on issues. I actually think he does himself a disservice doing this because the corporate media will spin any number of perceived positions into multiple losses.
Also illuminating Republican intransigence is an important, if difficult, task. I think START would be a great issue to highlight this, if only for the fact that security establishment types might be more amenable to nuclear weapons controls(we can hope), and nuclear arms control is an issue where it is clear Obama has a real interest.
BTW, where does Obama’s progressive ranking go thanks to his tireless efforts to, if not destroy Social Security, at least decouple its continued existence from the Democratic Party? He’s spent 3 years undermining the greatest progressive achievement of the Bush Era, and he’s not done yet.
I don’t want to preempt those who are actually defending Obama’s record, but it seems that, if some policy of the Obama administration is insufficiently progressive, he either had to do it or there’s no way we could have had a president who’d have done better.
So here’s my guess as to what the argument will be:
Social Security was, somehow, doomed by the Zeitgeist, so it’s not Obama’s fault at all.
In my case, I’m going to wait until he actually does something to attack Social Security to criticize him for it.
Appointing the Catfood Commision not having been enough yet.
hey don’t forget the payroll tax holiday. That has a greater likelihood to destroy SS than the catfood commission
“tireless efforts” say what- like I guess putting together basically the exact same deficit commission the last Democratic President put together and then ignoring it much as Clinton did?
As far back as 2007 he was attacking HRC for failing to call Social Security a “crisis.” Let’s be clear: this was a debunked lie. This would be attacking someone for failing to call Saddam an existential threat to the US. This is a very, very bad place to start.
He has not “ignored” the Catfood Commission: even after it failed, he continued to talk up its merits, and emphasize that the fundamental lesson – that SS is in crisis – was correct.
He keeps putting “entitlement reform” on the table. If you think that Obama has no personal interest in “reforming” SS, then you need to explain why he won’t shut up about it. And you also need to explain why the greatest progressive President in galactic history is obsessed with destroying the greatest progressive achievement of them all.
Oh, wait, I know why: because Hillary would be even worse. It’s a non sequitur (one that isn’t true), but fortunately it’s one that answers every argument.
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/12/01/us/politics/01bai.html?_r=1
JRoth is right about this–Obama’s rhetoric about “entitlement reform” sets up a feedback loop in the Conservative direction.
As bad as Mark Penn’s advice was (and Soliz-Doyle’s advice), now that Hillary has power in the State Dept, she’s moved to give LGBT diplomats’ partners the same benefits that straight diplomat’s partners get.
It’s a strawman double-header!
And you also need to explain why the greatest progressive President in galactic history
An intriguing interpretation of a post in which I argue that he isn’t even the most progressive of the last 4 Democratic presidents.
Oh, wait, I know why: because Hillary would be even worse.
I assume you’re again referring to the previous post in which I specifically argued that (the assertions of the numbnuts she hired to run her campaign notwithstanding) she wouldn’t be worse.
Oh, sorry Scott. I don’t know how anyone could read
But while the sheer awfulness of Clinton’s top non-brain trust underscores that it is extremely unlikely that she would have been a more progressive president than Obama, I also don’t believe Mr. Menn when he claims that she would have been much worse.[emph added]
as a suggestion that HRC would be less progressive than Obama. No, the logical conclusion is that, as different people with different temperaments, personal histories, and constituencies, they would have governed identically. Obviously.
he isn’t even the most progressive of the last 4 Democratic presidents.
Or the second-most of the last 70 years. Whichever argument you feel like emphasizing at the moment.
Or the second-most of the last 70 years. Whichever argument you feel like emphasizing at the moment.
Which adds in less than a term of JFK and Truman. Your point being? It’s still an idiotic strawman. But, you know, if you can point to JFK’s many progressive achievements, feel free.
On the first point, as I wrote I do in fact think that the policy outcomes of Clinton and Obama presidencies would be extremely similar, which seems logical given that they ran on very similar platforms (and on the biggest point of difference Obama adopted Clinton’s preferred policy.) You, conversely, like to imply that Clinton would have been much better than Obama without providing any evidence, which isn’t surprising because there isn’t any.
like I guess putting together basically the exact same deficit commission the last Democratic President put together and then ignoring it much as Clinton did?
What a load of crap. Clinton’s Commission had 2 recommendations: budget over a 10 year, not a 5 year window (which was done), and “restore balance to our Social Security trust fund and strengthen the confidence of all Americans that Social Security will endure on a sound footing.“To be clear, this Commission could not reach agreement on the details of a plan to achieve our objective.”
Whereas Obama’s Commission said they couldn’t fix the deficit, but that SS should be eviscerated regardless. And Obama praised their work.
On the other hand, Clinton actually expressed a willingness to consider private accounts — which really would have destroyed Social Security — while Obama has done no such thing.
That might be because “Lehman Brothers will do a better job of managing your retirement funds than the government” seemed like a more plausible claim in 1992 than 2008. I’m not sure that Obama deserves extra credit here.
I don’t think any set of presidential tactics could have gotten significantly better outcomes on health care or climate change.
I need a stronger term than “claim without a warrant” for remarks like this. How about “claim without possibility of a warrant”? Mr. Lemieux could be in luck here, though, because the number of counter-factuals that must be considered to assess these kinds of claims might be only countably infinite.
Scott’s argument for each is pretty simple- HCR was attempted by literally every single Democratic President since FDR- and only Obama got it through, Climate Change as an emerging issue is less tested but I would point to the failure of the Senate to ratify Kyoto- and the fact that many Democrats hail from resource extraction dependent states (2 from 1 WV, 2 from MT, 1 from PA, 1 from AK, 1 from LA, etc) and thus would almost certainly kill a Climate Change bill (hell just look at Manchin’s ad campaign in WV where he shoots the thing with a rifle).
You have failed to consider sufficient counter-factuals to prove much of anything. I am reluctant to engage with your argument because I fear we have fundamental disagreements about what will suffice as a warrant to prove Scott’s claim.
Any attempt to prove Scott’s claim begins with a complete list of the set of presidential tactics, and examines what we know about them, and then move on to discussing how the tactics may be combined into hybrid approaches; then it would discuss how every single approach could be applied to every single important decision point. And then must consider every possible combination of applying any particular presidential tactic to various combination of decision points. (And I’m letting you off easy, really you should have to consider performing all combinations of presidential tactics at every single moment of Obama’s term.) See why this is a claim without the possibility of a warrant?
None of the presidents you mention, for example, tried many unconventional presidential tactics on HCR (with the possible exception of Bill asking Hillary to front for it).
=========
You might be enlightened if you meditated on what Scott really meant to say.
(For example, no one fought a duel over HCR to my knowledge — or is that just a vice-presidential tactic?)
What does “get it done” mean in this context?
Obama signed something into law (something which was a modest improvement on the status quo, in fact, so I supported it).
But even Obama called it Health Insurance Reform.
It certainly didn’t achieve universal access to quality healthcare.
It seems to me to be a much more minor step forward than, say, Medicare or Medicaid.
So to say that, e.g., LBJ tried HCR and failed while Obama succeeded is to give Obama way too much credit for shooting low.
But on your view, Medicare and Medicaid aren’t healthCARE reform either…this is just a pretty silly semantic point.
IB–if you have a specific set of actions that could have caused Nelson, Bayh,Lieberman et al. to vote for nationalized medicine, I’d love to hear it. Until then, I’m sticking with my analysis.
I don’t see how any analysis of what was passed this year makes it more significant–or closer to HCR, whatever that is– than what LBJ achieved.
There’s also enormous ground between what passed and “nationalized medicine” (talk about a straw man!)…ground which includes a number of other ways to achieve universal coverage.
Finally, the way to do real HCR last year involved reconciliation and ignoring Democratic Senate votes 51 to 60 entirely.
but you were disdaining “health insurance reform.” What, other than nationalization, would qualify?
Also, with (at least) Feingold out, there almost certainly weren’t 50 votes to pass a public option with reconciliation, leaving aside that not all of the bill could have passed under it anyway.
Assuming that this is true (really, senate? There aren’t 50 or you who aren’t terrible politicians?) why did the bill seem not to change between ‘Oh, we can’t get 60′ and passage? That’s been the under-discussed part to me.
I was not disdaining HIR….except to say that it simply does nit represent something that No Other President has done. Like Medicare, Part D, it’s an expensive alteration of our healthcare delivery system.
What would have made it fundamentally different from earlier such reforms–worthy of saying that Democratic Presidents had tried to do this for six decades and finally one did–would be actual, guaranteed universal access to affordable, quality healthcare.
And you know as well as I do, Scott, that that can be accomplished many ways. Nationalization is, of course, one…but nobody, really nobody, was arguing for it. To call it a red herring in this discussion is unfair to red herrings. Other methods include single payer. Or the German system, in which heavily regulated private companies provide truly universal, guaranteed insurance. When we achieve any system that guarantees universal, affordable, healthcare, I’ll credit the president who accomplishes it with doing something others have failed to do.
As it turns out, the HIR that Obama signed into law (and which I supported and support as a modest improvement on the status quo ante) doesn’t even provide a pathway to such a system. That was the importance of killing off the PO.
As for whether there were 50 Senate votes for PO under reconciliation, I think we’ll never know. Had Obama made it a priority and started twisting arms early, there might have been.
But as someone who thoroughly believes that Obama and his faults are the product of a broken political system and a broken political party, I’m perfectly willing to believe that, despite support for a PO from a majority of Americans, the Democrats would have been unwilling and/or unable to find 50 votes for it…though I have no doubt they would have very dutifully produced 49.
Also: Obama negotiated away reimportation, which otherwise could have passed.
Horrible, but survivable. Presidents have died in office before and the country has gone on. (I think it unlikely that LBJ would have survived disabled, like Wilson.) It is disruptive but not necessarily disastrous. Humphrey, the Vice President presumptive, would have been a perfectly respectable replacement, and goodness knows HHH would have deserved it after all the kickback he took from LBJ. Mrs. Johnson was a lady of spirit and toughness who would certainly not fall apart even under such trying circumstances.
Johnson also would have known the odds no matter how well he was taking care of himself – and he wasn’t – he couldn’t or wouldn’t stop smoking, for example. The Johnson men fell over like tenpins from massive heart attacks in their sixties. Happened like clockwork. Under those circumstances you could argue he shouldn’t have had a second term anyway, but there’s no reason to believe that Johnson’s chances of survival were better because he was out of office, and if he had chosen to roll the dice as FDR did and run again I’d not condemn that choice. I can’t think of worse medicine for a man like LBJ than sitting on the sidelines.
And if he passed, away, HHH becomes president and runs as an incumbent — fine with me.
Horrible, but survivable.
As zombie or mummy?
Oh, I absolutely agree with that but… basically, I think if you were to tell Johnson ‘If you don’t run again, the country will get two and a quarter terms of Tricky Dick and the Democratic Party will shred itself to pieces in 68 and again in 72′ he’d have tried to forestall that.
I was more speaking about the human cost. Whatever Johnson’s shortcomings, and the evil he enabled or perpetrated abroad, I don’t think he deserved to work himself to death, probably reducing the already too-short timespan he had with his wife, family, and friends. It would have been a moderately bad thing for the country to go through as well. That’s kind of the angle I was coming at it from, although I confess I could maybe develop the thought more.
I think Scott is pretty much correct here, but I left a post at another cite that I would add to his perspective (I think I can remember most of it).
Over there they were all lamenting that Obama had not stood tall for progressive causes, no matter what the political results. “Where’s his principles? What does he stand for? Can’t he move the rhetoric in our direction?” and similar stuff. I said:
It sounds like you people want a liberal George Bush.
You want a “decider” who will stand tall for his base and do anything he can politically to win the day or, at least, make intense partisans on his side feel good about losing. I know what Obama would say to that. He’d get that slightly quizzical look on his face, smile, and say:
“No.”
“The last thing this country needs is another president who spends most of his time throwing raw meat to his side. We need someone to start acting like an adult who can govern. That’s going to be difficult, I know; the other side has given up on even trying to run the country responsibility and the public has gotten used to it. But, dammit, somebody has to start modeling good behavior around here and it looks like its going to be me.”
“So don’t expect me to go claw and paw against the Pubs and don’t expect me to go for a good loss instead of a decent win. I’m here for the long term and I intend to deliver, not talk.”
Basically, I think he’s a solid progressive at heart, but that he likes winning and knows that most legislative change in the US is incremental. That means that he’s going to disappoint at times. But, given the situation he inherited, I’m pretty sure the Savior himself would be disappointing some of us. If he wins in 2012 – which I expect – I would guess we will see more FDR; political capital, you know. That’s why the Pubs are so scared of him; they know what’s coming.
You’re right. I mean, it’s not like anyone is dying from bad policies, or becoming homeless, or going without vitally necessary medical care…oh, hell, why am I even trying?
Not a game. No points for sportsmanship. Too many lives at stake. Astounding that I should have to point that out.
This.
To say nothing of all the totally unwarranted speculation that Obama in his heart of hearts is really a true progressive.
Obama. Great president, or the greatest president?
Geez, just give him a Nobel prize while you’re at it.
Oh, wait.
To be fair, they gave it with high expectations.
the totally unwarranted speculation that Obama in his heart of hearts is really a true progressive.
I’ve never understood this.
I mean, in 2008 it was a totally understandable expectation, given that Obama himself had subtly cultivated this perception of himself and his policy preferences. But jeez louise, it’s been two years now – even my dog learns faster than that.
Yes. Exactly.
Yup, this. If your problem with George W. Bush was that he tried to win politically and was sometimes disgusting in how he did it. I think we saw a different eight years.
My problem with Bush starts with the fact that his actions killed a million Iraqis and thousands of Americans for insane reasons. It continues to the fact that he reduced the civil liberties I enjoy. He tortured people (and is proud of it, apparently).
I don’t want Obama to do any of those things or anything like them. I want him to do his upmost to enact the platform he ran on and I voted for.
Or being wrongfully imprisoned in an offshore facility, or tortured. Or kicked out of the military for essentially arbitrary reasons. Or– but why go on? It’s true that Obama hasn’t done a lot of the things we projected on to him, but the main thing is that he had his foot on the throat of the Republican Party and he let it up. He failed to mobilize the population behind the reforms and changes that could have been accomplished, and that he was uniquely equipped to advocate for. As a result we are blithering over tax cuts and the deficit while continuing to wage two pointless and expensive wars with an economy that is in a shambles.
“But, given the situation he inherited, I’m pretty sure the Savior himself would be disappointing some of us.”
Let’s see what the Savior Himself would has to say here:
Let’s not just not mention the Sermon on the Mount.
If Obama did nothing but quote the bible for the next two years, his rhetoric would be a hell of a lot more impressive than it has been so far. I don’t know why all these Christians immediately forget the the Gospel when trying to defend liberal policies.
Did you originally post that at a David Broder impersonation site?
The conflation of “adult” and “center” is almost as exquisite as the false equivalence.
Shouldn’t the second-best post-war progressive have maybe tried to find out and/or expose things like ordering torture and other war crimes, rather than participate in what amounts to a cover-up that has covered up nothing, but merely failed to punish genuine evil?
The man is failing to prosecute torture. Know, obvious torture, that the whole world knows about.
Since we’ve already quoted the Bible, how’s this:
A hundred years from now, will historians remember marginal health insurance reforms, or the continued cover-up of torture?
Obama did not need Congressional approval to open up executive-branch records, or to order Justice to open an inquiry. He just chose not to.
Indeed. I am considerably less convinced about and impressed by Obama’s progressive credentials than others here. Then again I tend to admire politicians, like LBJ, who stand up and fight for something.
“Then again I tend to admire politicians, like LBJ, who stand up and fight for something.”
If I knew what that meant, I’d be pretty damn inspired. Is Obama supposed to punch someone?
Shouldn’t the second-best post-war progressive
The majority of commenters seem to have very bizarre ideas about previous Democratic presidents. “More progressive than Clinton or Carter” isn’t exactly comparing him to Eugene Debs.
He pushed, prodded, and twisted arms to get the Civil Rights Act, against a lot of opposition in the Democratic Party. It actually cost him the Presidency and he knew it would, but it was the right thing to do and he did not settle for some watered down half measure or compromise with himself.
Vietnam cost LBJ the Presidency.
And if you have any “pushes” or “prods” that Obama could have used to pass a better healthcare bill, please let me know what they are.
Shockingly, it might be the case that the kinds of backroom negotiations and good-old-boy dealing was easier before the Southern strategy and the consequent ideological polarization of the parties. Sometimes, political circumstances are different and that explains why people behave differently.
P.S. I also think people don’t really realize the extent to which Obama’s race limits his ability to get tough, but meh.
P.S. I also think people don’t really realize the extent to which Obama’s race limits his ability to get tough, but meh.
How did Obama’s race limit his ability to ask Justice to investigate torture?
Vietnam cost LBJ the Presidency.
Right. Which is why Nixon immediately withdrew all the troops and did not actually draft me in 1971. It also explains why the Southern Strategy was such an abysmal failure and why the anti-war pro-civil rights McGovern won by a landslide in 1972 (my first exercise in electoral futility). The war was divisive, but not nearly as much as desegregation which cost him the conservative Southern Democrats and permanently fractured the existing Democratic coalition (a major factor in Republican dominance in the past 40 years).
As to what Obama “could have done”, anything is better than the nothing he actually did. I agree with Scott that we should not over estimate the power of presidents, but actually deploying even limited power is more effective than not deploying it. One important piece of presidential power is the bully pulpit to shape public opinion, which Obama has never effectively used. I do not “know” how much difference it would have made had Obama aggressively promoted stronger positions, but neither does anyone else. As to the race issue, I would argue that works against him more in the backroom dealing than in the public deployment of influence.
One important piece of presidential power is the bully pulpit to shape public opinion, which Obama has never effectively used.
This is not, in fact, an important presidential power. The ability of presidential speeches to affect public opinion is a myth. Presidents have very real agenda-setting power, but that’s different.
I will accept that distinction, but Obama has done neither, so my point remains.
This discussion misses the point. With Bush/Cheney, we came very close to a de facto coup d’etat that would have installed an explicitly corporatist one-party state for a generation or more, backed by the power of a corrupt criminal-justice system, the use of surveillance and torture against domestic opposition, and a press-=turned-propaganda machine. What we needed from this president was someone to purge the system, repair the damage, and bring the country back from the brink. He hasn’t done that. Whether it’s cowardice, fecklessless, or corruption, we are still right at the edge of the cliff. One more Republican administration, and over we’ll go.
Really? A coup d’etat? What saved us?
Li’l George’s short attention span.
That, and Obama’s campaign promise not to prosecute. At least he kept one promise.
A few weeks ago, I was reminded of some of Clinton’s Third Way policies. When I thought them through, I kinda shuddered.
I don’t know about LBJ and Carter and all that, but Obama is infinitely preferable to Clinton. There are some bad Clintonian policies still ongoing that are still hurting the country.
As for LBJ? Different era. Different congress. Different elite consensus about the sustainability of Jim Crow in the face of the Cold War.
I regard Clinton as the president most faithful to the (explicit) conservative agenda in the modern period. Welfare reform, crime bill, DADT, balanced the budget, airstrikes in middle east, etc.
And Republicans hated him.
The old saw about Clinton is that he was the best Republican President since Eisenhower.
I’ve never really taken that view myself, or at least not wholeheartedly, but there’s a whole discussion to be had about the splintering, collapse, re-alignment, and rebuilding of the Democratic Party from 1968 to 1992 that resulted in Clinton.
Exactly.
You forgot the War on (Certain Clases of People Who Use Certain) Drugs.
Clinton was pro-choice, however, which was a–perhaps the only–major difference between his goals and the explicit agenda of conservatives.
Why debate Obama’s political skills or progressive record at this point? It’s over. He’s done.
Indeed, he should resign for the good of the country.
Well, first he should pressure Biden to resign, so that he can appoint Michelle Bachmann as V-P.
Yes, throw out the specter of Sarah Palin. That will shut me up.
I’ll be more grateful for the crumbs thrown our way in the future.
With the ACA bill, it seems to me every post war Dem president could have passed this bill (assuming they could have kept most of the Democratic votes and made it a priority). so, while it’s true Obama did sign the bill, how much extra credit (over the previous Presidents) he should get for this seems open to question.
Well, I had him pretty much exactly, didn’t I? He basically said what I did last night and he was right.
This may not seem to be a game to many of you–and God knows the stakes are high–but:
It’s played by rules and it favors incremental change;
Most of the country doesn’t agree with many of the initiatives we would like to pass;
As president, Obama has to work with what he’s got and win what he can;
It really is a long term proposition to turn the oil tanker around and there’s a long way to go to do it; and, more then anything else,
Whining about lost opportunities that were never there in the first place and forming circular firing squads over unrealizable goals is for losers.
Most of the country doesn’t agree with many of the initiatives we would like to pass;
On the tax cut issue, most agreed that they should expire for the rich.
Unfortunately, only 41 Americans have votes that count on that one. National polls don’t count for them; only the ones in their states.
That might not have been the case if the Dems in Congress had lined up behind Obama when he literally handed them this issue awhile back. Unfortunately (again) those pesky state voters led many moderate/conservative Dems to think that this would be the kiss of death, not knowing that he had already smooched them.
A methods note: poll numbers like this are a lot less final then they look. Most of the time the survey questions don’t allow responses that give the respondents a chance to balance the opportunity costs of different policy decisions. See:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3gMcZic1d4U
That’s what it’s usually like.
Unfortunately, only 41 Americans have votes that count on that one.
Yes. If 41 Democrats agree with the rest of the country, the tax cuts expire. This is the point you keep overlooking – if a filibuster happens, the cuts expire. If a bill fails to pass, the cuts expire. If Harry Reid refuses to schedule a vote, the cuts expire. Why are you ignoring how easy it is for these cuts to expire?
Uh, because no one in their right mind wants to raise taxes in the worst recession since 1932?
Look, letting the tax cuts expire across the board is irresponsible under present conditions. There is zero (that’s nada, none, zip, a null set) chance that a deal can be reached to get what we’d all want: the separate tax brackets for the wealthy. This would not have been the case if there had been a little more spine among mod/con Dems earlier, but that ship has sailed. So take the deal on the table; at least that avoids the adverse impact of tax increases.
One caveat: I do feel that something on the debt ceiling should get attached. I think that’s important and I also think it would have the votes. But this story is far from over.
Uh, because no one in their right mind wants to raise taxes in the worst recession since 1932?
I believe our host disagrees, as does a certain Nobel prize winner: