For President Obama, a progressive blitz was not an option

[jaxx]

By Eugene Robinson
Tuesday, October 26, 2010

Come on down, everybody in our studio audience, and play the exciting new game that may be about to sweep the nation, or at least the Democratic Party: "What If?"

What if President Obama and the Democratic leadership on Capitol Hill had pushed through an authentic, righteous, no-holds-barred progressive agenda, perhaps with a thick overlay of pitchfork populism? How different might the political landscape look? Would predictions for the party's prospects on Election Day still range from gloom all the way to doom? Or would triumphant Democrats be preparing to leave the GOP -- or what remained of it -- dazed and confused?

This question is being asked, in all seriousness, by thoughtful progressives. They argue that the Obama administration's political mistake wasn't pushing its liberal program too hard but not pushing it hard enough. And they contend that the White House seriously misread both the public anger and the national interest when it came to dealing with Wall Street's greedy excesses -- punishing miscreant bankers with love taps rather than cudgel and mace.

<snip> Sorry, but it doesn't wash. The problem is that for all the talk of changing the way Washington works, you still have to get actual legislation through an actual Congress. In the House, Democratic ranks are swollen with Blue Dogs and other moderates, many of them elected in swing districts as part of the 2008 Democratic landslide. The votes for a full-fledged progressive agenda -- single-payer health care, for example -- simply were not there.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/10/25/AR2010102504312.html?wpisrc=nl_cuzhead

[Pab Sungenis]

1. But if we had started with the progressive agenda

we could have negotiated down to a reasonable alternative (like the public option). Instead we started negotiations by giving Republicans all they wanted up front, which led to them demanding more.

To negotiate, you shoot for the stars and settle for the moon. Instead, Obama shot for the ceiling and settled for three inches underground.

[jaxx]

2. Yeah and we could have gotten nothing, just like the others who tried.

The health care act is helping a lot of people who wouldn't have had this help before. Moons and stars are pretty....covering your kid till they're 26 is reality.

[countrydad58]

17. I'm still uninsured

& maybe in 4 years mandated to buy insurance I cant afford that I hope subsidies will cover. Even the pukes paid voucher plan was better than this corporate giveaway shit! Why wait 4 years? Why wasnt the expanded medicaid to low income people made available now?

[joeybee12]

35. News flash...we got worse than nothing...

you don't concede everything you want even before getting to the bargaining table...i would obama and his group would have learned fromt he HRC mess, but DADT tells me they haven't, and never will.

[dionysus]

39. "you don't concede everything you want"... the blue dogs didnt even want a public option, let alone

single payer. jesus, why is that so hard to understand...

[dennis4868]

8. Obama decided early on...

not to take the all or nothing approach to legislation....he takes what he can get with the intention of improving it at a later time....unfortunately, that later time might not ever come if the rethugs take over congress. :-(

[dionysus]

38. but dammit, you have to negotiate from a position that actually had support!

for example the blue dou- er dogs, weren't going to EVER vote for single payer, they wouldn't even vote for a public option.

you can't negiotiate down from a position your own side didnt support...

[Celebration]

3. the proof is in the pudding

Why has not one single person been charged with anything in the mortgage fraud that brought down our economy?

There are a ton of kick ass things he could have done without involving Congress at all, through prosecutions in the Justice Department, and not paying off Goldman Sachs 100% on the dollar for their AIG insurance.

[intheflow]

5. Why hasn't BP been prosecuted to the full extent of the law?

Why hasn't the BFEE been charged with war crimes/crimes against humanity? I agree with you 100%.

[Recursion]

11. Because BP settled and payed 20 billion?

You can't put a company in jail, you know. Investigations are still going on about the rig failure and what individuals might be criminally liable.

[intheflow]

34. You can revoke their ability to do business in the United States.

You could hold them liable to pay for ALL damages, not just cap it as some random number early on before the full extent of the damage is done. You could not put a smiley face on the damage done to the region by letting BP control 99% of the media information about the ongoing environmental and human health degradation.

[Doctor_J]

4. I guarantee you if he had fought Boner and McConnell and Beck

instead of trying to appease them, there would be zero enthusiasm gap on November 2. I f he had stood with Van Jones and shirley Sherrod, and brought single-payer advocates into the health care negotiations, and prosecuted Rove, his voters from 2008 would be flocking to the polls in two weeks. Then after we kicked another group of fascists to the curb, more gains could be made legislatively.

This article is BS for two reasons:

1. He had a mandate for change, not "the way Washington works"

2. George W. Bush

[Recursion]

10. What do you mean by "fought"?

I see talk of "fighting" a lot. How does a President "fight"?

[Doctor_J]

13. If you insist on threatening to filibuster every bill, the DoJ will look

into Cheney Energy Task Force - hard. Go on TV and say, "I will grant Mr. Boner one spending cut of his choice - the only rule is that it has to be something he voted to increase spending for while Mr. bush was in office. That is a long list, so it won't be that hard."

[Recursion]

16. You want the President to use the DoJ to apply political pressure to opponents?

Yeah, that's a great idea :sarcasm:

[Doctor_J]

37. Yes, by all means, let's not play rough with them

that would be so unkind.

[DirkGently]

6. Sorry, Gene, but there was no reason to take Single Payer "off the table."

Dealmaking is part of the legislative process. But you have to do it well. The fact is the administration got snookered on its backroom deals. It accepted the premise that you start negotiating from the "middle," and that the "middle" was most of the way over on the side of Republicans and big business. Then got beaten down from there as though there was no deal at all.

How much louder could the Republicans have screamed? How much more money could the healthcare industry have pumped into lies about deathpanels and "Nazi Marxists?"

We'll never know what might have been achieved had the administration fully leveraged the public's desire for change. Perhaps no more than we got. But if you're going to get a full-fledged, full-throated, absolute opposition, you may as well make the case for the right thing in the first place.

And, IF, unlikely as it may have been, we had actually put Medicare or some other government healthcare card in the hands of even a few Americans, Republicans and their corporate friends would have an even harder time than they have now, trying to jaw about repealing Healthcare Reform-but-not-the-good-parts. They'd be basically arguing to repeal Medicare, which would probably be fun to watch.

Just for example. And yet, after, all of that, and after the insiders and lobbyists appointed, we're still hearing how the great concern is for the administration not to appear so "anti-business?"

There's political realism, and then there's grossly underestimating the American public's desire for change and believing rightwing propaganda that nothing can be done in this country without first, before any other consideration, asking the permission of corporate interests.

Credit where credit's due: If you assume that almost no change is possible, we did very well. The question is why we would accept that assumption in the first place.

[paulk]

12. +1

[ProSense]

14. Single payer was never on the table. Ever!

Hell, Kucinich and Weiner were given an opportunity to put their bills up for a vote and pulled them because they had no chance of passing. Not only that, but Kucinich knew the scoring (cost) was going to be a huge negative.

Also, how many times did Bernie Sanders say the bill would have gotten about nine vote, only to be ignored by its advocates?

The current path to single payer will be through the health care reform bill. Senator Sanders is already pushing for Vermont to take the lead.

[DirkGently]

22. Everything is on the table, until you take it off. No number of (!) will spin that simple fact away

[ProSense]

25. Is privatizing Social Security on the table?

No, because everything is not on the table unless the people making the decisions want it there.

People like to repeat things and believe that repetition makes these things facts.

[Doctor_J]

15. That's it in one post

The call for real change was overwhelming 2 years ago. The president took way too much of it off the table before the dealmaking ever started. What's more, if he'd bashed the teabaggers as much as the "professional left", every last Obama voter from 2008 would be very excited about 2010.

[Recursion]

7. And, there is the "DU split" in a single article NT

[jaxx]

9. No kidding.

It goes from one thing to another without taking a breath.

All or nothing....or get what you can and try for more later.

From my point of view I see unrealistic demands that would have left us just where we were...moaning about the status quo.

[AndrewP]

27. I tend to agree with you on the larger point.....

I do wish President Obama would be less concerned about working with Republicans as much as he does. He has to see by now that the bastards have NO intention of working with him at all.

[kentuck]

18. A progressive blitz was called for...

..under the circumstances inherited.

The Republicans were in a weak and vulnerable position when Obama came into office. They would have compromised and called it a "victory".

But the Democrats, and the President, were out of touch with the people and the historical reality of the times. They gave the Repubs time to re-group and to obstruct everything. The compromises, in hopes of bi-partisanship, on the healthcare reform were ill-timed.

The appointment of Timothy Geithner did more damage to Barack Obama than did any Republican Party opposition. It tied the Democratic Party to Wall Street. That is an unnatural alliance and people felt uncomfortable with it from the beginning.

There were a lot of mistakes made but the misreading of the dire economic situations did not help the Party. If they knew it was the most serious economic situation since the Great Depression, they did not govern that way.

[Guy Whitey Corngood]

20. Right on. nt

[zipplewrath]

23. Exactomundo

"There were a lot of mistakes made but the misreading of the dire economic situations did not help the Party. If they knew it was the most serious economic situation since the Great Depression, they did not govern that way."

Exactly. The single biggest mistake, and a harbinger of many of them to come was over estimating the effect of the stimulus, as passed, and over estimating the response of the banks to being bailed out. In both cases they lost alot of credibility and now are left defending their own bad estimates. No one disputes that we wouldn't have gotten everything we would have pursued. It's just that it isn't clear that they are very good prognosticators, either economically or politically. Anyone really believe they expected HCR to take nearly a year? To lose to Scott Brown? That handing the health insurance industry, not to mention Big Pharma huge conscessions would result in them making huge donations to the GOP in the fall?

We are expected to accept the political predictions of a gang that makes lousy predictions. They can't even anticipate the results of their own choices. I'm suppose to buy that they know the outcomes of what other approaches would have achieved?

[Recursion]

24. How does Geithner tie the administration to Wall Street? He never worked on Wall Street.

Geithner never worked on Wall Street. Ever.

He worked for Treasury, the CFR, and the IMF. He turned down a job at Citi to run the NY Federal Reserve.

[kentuck]

26. He was just a common man...

as head of the NY Fed, he was involved or knew about all the things that caused the Great Recession and did not have to work on Wall Street to be close to Wall Street. Make no mistake, those are his people. That is his world. He doesn't understand average working people. He is no Democrat.

[Recursion]

29. He has never worked for Wall Street

"Make no mistake, those are his people."

How? He's never worked for them. He's never made anywhere close to the kind of money they do. He's been a public servant his whole career except for a stint at the CFR, which is a think tank.

[kentuck]

31. Public servant?

Really?

Are the banks tied to Wall Street? Did he work for the banks interest? Are you saying he was working for Main Street, not Wall Street?

Interesting perception, I must say.

[Recursion]

32. Yes, really

Are the banks tied to Wall Street?

When most people say "wall street" they mean the investment banking and finance industry, which is a group of firms (some of which are now owned by banks).

Did he work for the banks interest?

When? The only bank he's ever worked for is the New York Fed, and in that job he helped regulate banks. He also let Bear Sterns and Lehman die (hardly working in their interest) and then saved AIG once it was obvious that just letting the firms die was doing more damage than propping them up would.

Are you saying he was working for Main Street, not Wall Street?

Why is that either/or?

[kentuck]

33. We disagree.

I think those two words, "Tim Geithner", have done a lot of damage to this President. Just my opinion. I do not think Main Street and Wall Street have the same interests. It is "either/or".

[DirkGently]

36. And given the choice between Wall Street Dems & Wall Street Republicans ...

Everyone used to know if you wanted Wall Street to run things, you voted Republican. In theory, if you wanted something else, you had the Dems. But for some reason, we have a surfeit of Dems eager to show they're not to be confused with people who actually oppose doing business that way. That they're not "anti-business."

Have the courage of your convictions, or don't bother. The bar for liberalism has been relocated to ankle height, and independent voters are unimpressed. They like their coffee black, and their corporate evil undiluted by sweet talk. You have to give independents a clear choice between ways of doing things. New Coke liberalism is impressing no one.

[Skittles]

41. CORRECT

[Enrique]

19. and when he signs the Bush tax cuts extension

people will be telling us it is his only option. There will be some reason why it's impossible for him to veto it, or for the senate dems to filibuster it.

[COLGATE4]

21. That has been the half-assed explanation we've been handed for

every time that Obama has 'compromised' with the Rethugs. He always starts off from a position of weakness even when he had demonstrable strength, and is an expert at negotiating against himself. So then when we wind up with a grain of something or a kernel of something else we are chastised and told to 'be happy with what you got - otherwise you would have gotten nothing'. Hard to tell what we would or wouldn't have gotten if Obama has shown a set of balls from the beginning, but let's not pretend that in this pile of crap there's really a pony somewhere.

[Enrique]

44. not only "be happy with what you've got"

but if you're not happy, they come out and talk all kinds of crap about you. You're retarded, you're on drugs, you want to eliminate the Pentagon, etc.

[ProSense]

28. And when he doesn't, people will move to some other hypothetical

He vetoed the foreclosure bill. Was that because Republicans wanted him to do it?

[great white snark]

30. Gotta love the armchair quarterbacks in this thread.

Who don't give a fuck about the facts.

[Skittles]

42. yes, just like the author of the OP

[woo me with science]

40. Eugene Robinson did a live Q&A on this column with Washington Post readers today.

Here's the link:

http://live.washingtonpost.com/eugene-robinson-10-26.html#question-1

And a sample of the chat:

Q.

Thanks for your good column today; as always, I enjoyed it. But let me ask another "what if": what if he had tried to connect with us? I have rooted for Obama since before 2004. About three months into office, I noticed that 1) I was seeing more of him when I didn't need to; 2) I wasn't seeing him when I wanted to; and 3) He had stopped surprising me with his good ideas and actions. I know it's not always possible to govern as you campaign. But it wasn't just the compromises that bothered me: it was the absence of that feeling that he knew where we ought to go. In short, he stopped connecting. Your thoughts?


October 26, 2010 12:02 PM


A.
Eugene Robinson writes:

That's a good question, and I'm not sure I have a good answer. It's true that the magical connection that President Obama had with many Americans at the beginning was quickly broken. I think the administration missed some opportunities to set a different tone in the early days. I also think that for whatever reason, it took the president longer than I would have expected to find his presidential voice, as opposed to his presidential-candidate voice.

[andym]

43. Obama's mistake was not going populist in rhetoric against Wall Street

at the beginning. And following this up be giving Bernacke the boot. That would have set up the perception that "reform" had come to Washington.
He didn't need a progressive blitz, but just the aura of reform.

As for his actual programs, he got more passed into law than I might expected him to. Much of it in the progressive direction (for example, extending health care access to more people is progressive from the perspective of increasing "equality")

The single-payer argument is a red herring. Single-payer had no hope because the political groundwork has not yet been laid{ even during the primaries when appeals are being made to progressives it was off the table. Anti-big government sentiment from Reagan still dominates in the minds of a majority of Americans (government as inefficient, etc) and this sentiment can be dialed up by the GOP propagandists at a minute's notice. Suggesting tax increases (which are required for single-payer) has been political suicide since the Mondale-Reagan debates and GW Bush. Even if Congress were not laden with conservative Dems, the ability to mock a government-run single-payer plan would have finished it very quickly.

[damonm]

45. There goes Robinson AGAIN, bein' all REASONABLE & shit...