Obama’s Warren Attacks Backfire
Obama’s Warren attacks backfire
By Mike Lillis and Jordan Fabian - 05/14/15 06:00 AM EDT
President Obama’s sharp rebuke of Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D) over his ambitious trade agenda is backfiring in the House, where the personal attacks are alienating the same Democrats the president is courting for votes.
Warren, a freshman liberal from Massachusetts, has emerged as among the fiercest and most visible opponents of Obama’s trade wish list, which includes deals with countries in Asia and Europe the president is hoping to make a legacy of his White House tenure.
The tough tenor was designed to rally the backing of more Democrats, particularly in the House, where GOP leaders are struggling to find the 217 votes needed to pass the fast-track bill aimed at facilitating those pacts.
Instead, Obama’s rhetoric — he said his critics were “just wrong” in an interview with Yahoo published Saturday — seems to have exacerbated tensions between Democrats and the White House, which could make it tougher to move one of the president’s top legislative priorities through Congress this year.
“You and I can disagree about policy, but I can’t call you a bad person or impugn your motives or anything else — except at great risk,” Rep. Jim McDermott (Wash.), a liberal Democrat who’s undecided but leaning against the trade bill, said Wednesday.
“Civility in this business is important, because tomorrow I have to work with you, tomorrow I may need you badly,” he added. “A lot of people are standing around saying, ‘You know something, this is getting to be a personal thing, and that’s not the way we want to go here.’ ... He went quite a ways with her and I think probably he won’t go that far again.”
Appearing Wednesday on C-SPAN’s “Washington Journal” program, Rep. Keith Ellison (D-Minn.) offered a similar critique, saying he was “disappointed” that Obama adopted an “insulting” tone toward Warren, while “acting like she has no legitimate point of view.”
“If I was trying to persuade a friend, I wouldn’t start out by saying how deficient they were,” said Ellison, a long-time opponent of trade deals who heads the Congressional Progressive Caucus. “If you want your friends to go for something, meet their concerns as opposed to putting them down.”
The tensions underlying the trade debate have highlighted a long-standing problem for the president: namely, his penchant for negotiating legislation in ways that leave even his closest allies on Capitol Hill feeling excluded from the process.
“We’re the children at the kids’ table during the negotiations,” Rep. Mark Pocan (D-Wis.), an opponent of the trade legislation, said Wednesday.
“We’ve had the president’s back over and over and over again — and I can disagree with the president and still have his back — [but] it’d be nice if the approach was reciprocal,” Pocan added. “Elizabeth Warren agrees with Barack Obama on 98-99 percent of issues, and to decide to take her to task on the 1 percent is just a very ineffective way to gain friends.”
MORE AT:
http://thehill.com/homenews/house/242037-obamas-attacks-on-warren-backfire
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