Musing About The Enigma Of The Man We Elected President

[Tom Rinaldo]

I start out with the word "Musing" because that is all this is. This is speculative, not factual, and it's completely subjective.

I was in a (large) room with Obama once, it was in 2008 at what was then called Yearly KOS. He impressed me and I liked him intuitively, but I wasn't ready to back him for President over some other Democratic possibilities. Three years have passed now and not that much has changed about those first feelings about Obama. He still impresses me, and I still intuitively like him. I'll support Obama over a Republican for the Presidency in 2012, but with less conviction and greater reservations than I had in 2008 when the decision had narrowed to him or John McCain. He'll have nome of my money next time, and very little of my time.

The Democratic Party accepts Obama as its leader. I accept that Obama is a Democrat. I'm not trying to be coy in saying that. There are some elected Democrats who are Democrats in name only by my standards, but I don't say that about Barack Obama. I accept him as a genuine Democrat who would like to have our nation achieve much of the long time Democratic agenda.

Some people who like myself are troubled by some choices Obama makes, increasingly are calling him essentially a corporate tool, or a front man for ruling class interests. That's far too simplistic in my opinion. I don't believe that Barack Obama is any more a tool or front man than the overwhelming majority of the relatively tiny group of Americans who had any chance of running for President and actually winning during the last 40 or so years.

A lot of you probably don't relate to the title I gave this OP. Enigma is a term that feels right to me while exploring my perceptions of our President. Others I realize are much more emphatic in their assessment of Obama. But I think what I label an enigma is sharply evident in starkly divided feelings about Obama that have surfaced on this forum for years now.

Barack Obama is an inspirational leader to many Democrats who trust in his vision of our nation and the sincerity of his efforts to fulfill it: Democrats who appreciate the difficulty Obama faces seeking solutions for America in the face of a rabidly obstructionist opposition. They watch Obama confront a determined Right wing willing to seize every opportunity to not only thwart him, but to turn Americans against him personally through vile and vicious slander, and they see him rise above that with the dignity of his office preserved, the adult among raucous children.

Our President often is a model of grace under fire, using reason deftly wielded to rebut rhetoric madly flung. There is something deeply likable about someone who can do that. There is a lot that is deeply likable about Barack Obama. I trust that Obama is genuine; that he believes whatever course he takes is what is best for America as a whole under the circumstances he is facing at that time.

I believe that Barack Obama is a man who thinks creatively inside of the box. I think he is willing to turn over every stone necessary to find the best solution possible within the usually unspoken boundaries of what is deemed possible to achieve. Unlike most politicians, I think Obama has been fairly forthright about that. He has always defined his political philosophy as more pragmatic than ideological, and has never been guarded in saying that. In 2004 Obama proclaimed that there wasn't a Red America and a Blue America, but just one America, and a Democratic National Convention gave his a standing ovation. Though his working political agenda has sometimes morphed significantly from earlier campaign promises he made, Obama tended to clear about the approach that he would use in governing, and for the most part he has done so. Pragmatism leaves the door open for virtually any adjustment deemed necessary in pursuit of a larger goal.

I think Obamas larger goal is to make America work again as well as it possibly can: Under the existing circumstance. Preexisting circumstances are part of the box I believe that Obama thinks inside of. It factors in assessments of what is and is not possible, which then rank higher as guiding principles than what theoretically could be better. You can find that for example in Obamas seemingly conflicting comments about single payer health care. As an abstraction he agreed that it is the model that makes the most sense, but in practice, here in America, he deemed it unfeasible to pursue. Sometimes I can visualize him as a super skilled mechanic who knows where all the wires are and the exact limitations of the engine. He is not off in some lab, trying to invent a better car, he is trying to get the one in front of him working as well as it can.

Obama promised us change, and in a real way he has delivered it. After an ideologically driven Presidency under Bush, he is giving us an honestly pragmatic one. The bigger change Obama promised us which I feel he is determined to keep his word on is his willingness to grapple with some of the stickiest big issues in America, ones that previous Presidents showed a preference to kick further down the road for the next guy to worry about. And so he tackled health care insurance, and so too he takes seriously the long term viability of core safety net programs in America if nothing is done to alter the predicted curves of rising costs and falling or stagnant income.

I believe our President's motivations are sincere, well intentioned, and fully consistent with basic values of the Democratic Party. Many of us intuitively realize that about Obama but just can't understand then why he is making some of the choices that he is.

In musing about all this the best that I can come up with is this. We elected a man who is nimble while thinking inside of the box. We elected a hard working President who is focused on ways to keep America as we know now, viable for all Americans at a time when America as we know it is becoming impossible for most of us to prosper or even survive in.

We are at one of those defining times in American history where the box that was constructed with walls of conventional wisdom will soon be suffocating millions of us if that box is not broken out of. We have entered a radical, some would say approaching revolutionary time of a sort last seen here in this country during the Great Depression. There are no solutions left inside the box for the majority of Americans. The box has become the problem.

[Davis_X_Machina]

1. He's arguably the most consistent...

...pre-campaign to actual-governing president of my lifetime. And a lot of things he gets flak for, and that I take issue with, especially on the issue of long-term deficit reform, entitlement reform -- whether, and how -- and taxation and fiscal policy generally -- are pretty much what he promised when he was still just one of several candidates running.

People have a right to be upset, but not to be surprised.

[Tom Rinaldo]

8. Yeah. That didn't jump out at me at first

Partially because the progressive mistique that formed around him as our first African American President seemed at odds with some of his actions, partially because some of his specific actions in office differed from what he said at times on the stump. But when I reran everything through a pragmatism filter I could saw he was being consistent with the way he said he would approach things.

[LWolf]

18. Yes. I haven't been surprised. Appalled, but not surprised.

I was appalled by his nomination, and expected the neoliberal machine of destruction his administration has been.

[izquierdista]

2. Making America work again

He's not going to do that being bi-partisan, or post-partisan, or 'pragmatic'. He's got to realize that what made America work were the Progressives and the New Deal and the Great Society, and return to those principles. Being 'pragmatic' in dealing with a lunatic means accepting lunacy as a possible option. That's what's gotten us to where we are today.

[Tom Rinaldo]

5. I agree that we need ledership with a mindset ressembling New Deal Democrats

...updated to 21sat century American conditions. Even more so than the Great Society, the New Deal openly acknowledged that the power of Capital often worked against the interests of the average citizen. The type of thinking FDR drew on when he used Government to directly confront concentrated Capital's power, and when he made government not only the buyer of last resort, but the employer of last resort with massive New Deal jobs programs, that thinking now falls outside the contemporary political box that mainstream politics works inside of.

Without taking a New Deal tyoe world view seriously to act upon, the field of economic struggle is tightly constrained and the tools that can still be employed to seek economic justice are ineffective at reaching the root of what is going wrong.

[grantcart]

3. very thoughtful - as usual

[Tom Rinaldo]

6. grantcart, it's great to "see" you.

I haven't come across you much of late. Is that because I haven't been aruond much untill recently or have you not been around much yourself? How are you doing? I've been missing your perspective on things.

[hfojvt]

7. here

http://journals.democraticunderground.com/grantcart/332

[cliffordu]

19. His dog had him arrested for parole violations again.

But the good news is they keep sending him to the women's correctional facility up in Lompoc, to the eternal gratitude of his wife.

[grantcart]

30. at the bloc cliffordu is known as the 'Vagina Whisperer'

In the darkness by the light of the moonlight I have written

Ode to the Vagina Whisperer on his New Freedom

Free at last, free at last
Time has come for all fathers to beware
Tomorrow Cliffordu's future will be cast
Keep all of your daughters from his stare
Heffner's protege moves will be fast
His mojo will draw them to his lair
Their will to resist will not last
His power will not make it fair
Cliffordu is now on the hunt
Even twins will fall as a pair
The beast awakes and smells a @#@t
All the prey can do is surrender to his power
and learn to share.

[cliffordu]

31. Aw, shucks, another fan.....

:rofl:


...And, as my guru and mentor used to say:

"Bare it and we'll share it"

[grantcart]

29. while I am no longer an 'active poster' I still support DU and stop by

and try and keep up but frankly work has increased to a point that I can only manage a few minutes a day, hence my tardy reply to your nice reply.

I notice that you are posting more often, a positive outcome for DU.

[Tom Rinaldo]

32. I went and read your "going away" Journal post

I understood wjat you were saying and the decision that made sense for you to make as a result of all of that. I'm sorry it has beem that way here. I'm glad though to know that you still drop in on occaision. Thank you again for all that you gave to DU - and to our world outside of here.

[Taverner]

4. How DARE you make a reasoned, eloquent and nuanced post!!!

:hi:

[Tom Rinaldo]

17. Well I realized that it was nuanced when I almost lost my point a few times while writing it.

Honestly when I wsa done I did a basic spell check and just hit send, with absolutley no clue what type reactions it might bring. I thought I might have found a way to piss everyone off, pro and anti Obama folks alike.

[hfojvt]

9. What IS possible though?

Is it possible, for example, to "fix" social security by raising the cap? Or do we need to just think inside the Republican controlled box of "no tax increases on the rich"?

Well, it might take a lot of work to convince the public to either elect people or to pressure the people they elected to support an increase in the cap, but how do we know if it's possible until we at least try and try and try again.

There was a big dead elm on my property that I wanted to firewood. Was it possible for me to get it? Not without taking many many many swings with my axe. I could take ten swings and then give up as though it was impossible, or even a hundred swings, but why should anybody give me credit for anything but defeatism if I give up without even taking a single swing?

The other thing that this giving up without much effort does, it seems to harden the opposition. By caving in on the Bush tax cuts, weakems the position for budget negotiations. Even further than that, on that issue, Obama started with a reasonable compromise position - reverse them for incomes above $250,000. Myself, I would have like to see them reversed for incomes over $75,000, but $250,000 is much easier to sell to the selfish voters who make more than $75,000. So I could pragmatically settle for that, but if you don't even fight for $250,000 then you get nothing. If, instead, he had fought for $70,000, he might have finished at $250,000, or maybe, if one can dream, at $175,000.

Now, the bar has been lowered, seemingly to where our end goal is a mere $250,000 threshold. A threshold that really sucks, and still provides most of its benefits to the rich.

[Tom Rinaldo]

11. I believe things are possible that are commonly considered unfeasable

To varying degrees, at least on the national level, they would require a sea change in thinking to occurr. Creating that is never easy, especially when the forces that line up against it have bottomless wallets and a chokehold over most mass media. It's even harder if they are shameless about exploiting hot button issues arising from cultural friction by injecting them out of context into important decisions that have very little or nothing to do with those hot buttens.

Power quickly entrenches itself, using that power to weave itself deeper into the fabric of common assumptions about what is and is not possible to change. To my mind though achieving the "fix" that you mention is far from being beyond our shortr term reach, though we should not underestimat3e the power of entrenched interests to make night seem like day and vice versa - we've been watching them do just that bu propping up "the Tea Party".

Sometimes I have to remember that co-existing with slavery in America was at one time inside the box thinking. And recall there was a time when it was unimagining that mostly poor and powerless immigrants who didn't even speak the same languages could somehow come together in Unions powerful enough to take everything the elites could throw at them and ans still win great labor victories. It wsan't that long ago to most of us over 30 that the full legal acceptance of gay marriage was a concept way outside the box of what was considered possible in our lifetimes.

[JDPriestly]

23. Obama just smiles big for the cameras and does absolutely

awful things like keeping troops in Iraq instead of keeping kids in good schools in America.

He has just made too many errors in judgment for me.

Letting Cheney and Bush off the hook, continuing to wiretap our communications, increasing absurd, draconian airport security measures while not doing much at all about careless oil drilling or faulty nuclear reactors.

I am extremely unimpressed with Obama's appointments up and down the list. Holder in Justice has done an abominable job, focused on all the wrong things. His record is deplorable.

Guantanamo is still in opNotieration and not a whit more open in terms of providing information about the prisoners and their lives. Are we at all trying to rehabilitate these people, many of whom were extremely young when they went to Guantanamo? What is going on there?

And then the so-called stimulus - mostly tax breaks.

When will Obama catch on and alert the American people to the fact that the rich take their tax cuts and invest them in countries with cheap labor and no running water? That's not what Americans need.

I think that Obama is a total loser as a president.

And that question, "Are you better off now than you were in December 2008 is going to win or lose the election?"

We need to ask it now? And we need to have some pretty convincing answers ready. Because that is the big question for 2012. Nothing else matters.

Personally, I think we are better off in some areas, but Obama is not emphasizing them.

[Cresent City Kid]

10. Nicely done

I agree he's trying to work inside the system, but unfortunately, the system is designed to screw us with the screw speeding up of late.

[MadMaddie]

14. I think the Republicans are trying to break the system so

President Obama has the potential to fail. They move the goal posts from what would have been the norm just 3 years ago.

I would say that President Obama is fluid.....within the box, he is able to adapt as the original post notes. He doesn't over react and I don't think he under reacts.

[Kind of Blue]

12. Well said, Tom Rinaldo.

"...he is trying to get the one in front of him working as well as it can." So easy to crash and burn but rebuilding from ashes is a monumental task that I do not expect any Democrat in his shoes to get right every single time. He's the right man for terrible times. And I will savor every single victory big and small our President beats out of his heinous adversaries.

Thanks for your well reasoned analysis. :kick:

[starroute]

13. That explains a lot, but not everything

It doesn't explain why his Department of Justice has been so ineffective, or why he's left so many of the Bush people in place there.

I think you have to add a couple of more pieces to the analysis to cover some of the other big questions. One is that he's been fixated on bipartisanship at a time when the political landscape is becoming increasingly polarized. This gives him the appearance of stubbornly denying reality, rather than working effectively and pragmatically in the old Lyndon Johnson style. And it also means that he has appeased the GOP over and over again while chasing a will-o'-the-wisp.

And another, I think, is that he decided very early on that he was going to pick the fights he thought he could win, and this had led him to avoid the kinds of fights that are unwinnable at the time but are also crucial for setting the future direction of the nation. His coddling of the CIA would be the strongest example of that.

What makes me nuts about Obama is that his actions aren't at all covert or inexplicable. They're very consistent, very carefully thought through -- but at every possible junction they err on the side of caution and choosing the most modest and attainable objectives. And I can't help feeling that the last thing our country needs at this moment is a rational pragmatist.

[Tom Rinaldo]

16. One thing that I didn't expand on as much as I could in talking about "the Box"

Is that the box is not simply defined by conventional wisdom, that CW is held in place by powerful forces with definite strong agendas. In further musing (because like I said this is my speculation only - I am not pretending to have a bullet proof objective analysis here) I suspect one reason why Obama is so skilled at thinking inside the box is because he accepts that the basic box is so deeply entrenched that it would take tremendous marshalling of counter forces to alter it beyond a superficial level, with no certainty of success even with that type of sustained effort. So instead he devotes his energy to making productive tweaks, and whenever possible, to identifying what people call "win win" situations, where most Americans will gain something from them without the agenda of the forces that define the box being seriously challenged, and if possible, where those forces get something out of it also.

I guess that could be another way of describing what you called "picking the fights he thought he could win." I see Obama more willing than most politicians to confront important problems facing America and I don't think that's a contradiction. They are matters that he believes will only get worse if something isn't done about them. Rather than just duck them on his watch he uses inside the box thinking to propose something that could be done about them now - but even then he is pragmatic. If, like you say, it starts looking like there will be powerful opposition to aspects of his Plan A to address that problem, he is open to finding a Plan B way forward facing less resistance.

Insider politics involves horse trading and building shifting coalitions of votes that will back you on one important priority of yours if you back off on pushing another priority of yours that they are strongly opposed to. At root that could be the reason behind a lot of Obama's decisions not to press some matters that otherwise make no seeming sense. I am left with the impression sometimes that Obama consciously makes some choices to reassure the box definers that he has no intention of confronting their power head on.

I think Obama is trying to get across that they don't have to knee jerk oppose everything he attempts in order to destroy him, that it is possible to work with him to find ways forward on problems that they would be able to live with also. He may have a strategy to ride out the storm of instant intense opposition to him that his election triggered off in opposing camps, by always appearing as the adult in the room who is willing to be reasonable, until that storm starts to partially dissipate and reach truces on some fronts become more possible.

What is so especially frustrating to me is that Obama rode into power riding a wave of idealism and populist renewal fortified by a increasingly battle tested grass roots core of progressive activists who had been honing their skills and influence over the preceeding 6 years by fighting in the treches for other Democrats, culminating in restoring the Democratic party to power in Washington. When the worst economic crisis in America since the Great Depression hit, Obama had the tools needed on hand to effectively challange the box, but he decided against that course.

[KoKo]

24. Tom, that's a thoughtful, interesting read. But, you nail his biggest problem...

for those of us who are older Democrats who worked hard for Dem candidates their whole lives and particularly those young and old Dems who got really active after Stolen Election 2000 to re-energize the party and build the Netroots of the Dems to counteract the Repug Fox Machine, Talk Radio and RW Spin Mongering Think Tanks who ruled the roost for a couple of decades.

Obama did not support those activities. And, he threw away the power the Democratic Party (Netroots/Dem Activists and budding organizations for change) could have achieved built on our growing strength over the Bush/Cheney abuses. His campaign went at it alone (for Obama) and then he cut loose his netroots organizers after the election. Anyway...I could go on but here's what you say that is the crux (as many of us see it) of why Obama has a problem being the leader this country needed at this time:

Quote from you:

"What is so especially frustrating to me is that Obama rode into power riding a wave of idealism and populist renewal fortified by a increasingly battle tested grass roots core of progressive activists who had been honing their skills and influence over the preceeding 6 years by fighting in the treches for other Democrats, culminating in restoring the Democratic party to power in Washington. When the worst economic crisis in America since the Great Depression hit, Obama had the tools needed on hand to effectively challange the box, but he decided against that course."

[Tom Rinaldo]

26. Essentially Obama demobilized the movement that paved the way for his eloection once he moved to DC

All the signals shifted. Instead if continuing "Yes we can", it became more like "Thank you, I've got it covered now" which got followed by some fairly overt left baiting whenever progressives continued to speak out about issues.

[Name removed]

27. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. 
[link:www.democraticunderground.com/forums/rules.html|Click
here] to review the message board rules.

[KoKo]

28. It will be some factor in Obama's re-election. Probably not a major one

because Progressive/Activist Democrats (of the Old School FDR Types) will have left him...but the gap filled by Indies and Repugs who were so afraid of the RW Crazies that they did a protest vote.

But, whatever way you look at it..Progressive Dems were told "Under the Bus With You!"...You are "CRAP POS"..by Rahm Emmanuel very early on in the Obama Administration.

Those of us who are more Radical Progressives will have the "broom at our backs" going forward.

[JDPriestly]

21. Excellent analysis, great post, Starroute

[Bobbie Jo]

15. Thoughtful post.

Recommended.

[JDPriestly]

20. Tom, what do you think of the fact that Obama picked

Timothy Geithner for Secretary of the Treasury? Timothy Geithner was appointed to the Fed job by a committee headed by Pete Peterson, an arch-conservative.

Timothy Geithner was a Republican before he became an Independent. Does Timothy Geithner even purport to be a Democrat? If not, why is he the Secretary of the Treasury in a Democratic administration?

And finally, how would you personally answer the question that Americans will be silently asking in 2012?

Am I better off today than I was in December 2008?

I'd like to know your answers.

[Tom Rinaldo]

25. It seems he chose nuanced continuity prioritizing stability over change there

Granted there was the smell of real fear in the air at the time that threatened to become full blown panic over the collapsing economy. Picking someone who appeared to have the experience to know what he was dealing with seemed to have been reassuring to many at the moment.

Why was he S of T in a Democratic Administration? You know how when a political arrangement blows up in other nations sometimes how there are calls for the Prime Minister to appoint a transition caretaker cabinet composed of knowledgable techocrats rather than partisan ideologues? I suppose Geithner is the kind of guy who gets sold as being a technocrat, perfectly consistent with thinking inside the box. He predictably wouldn't pose a challenge to acceptable boundaries of financial thinking.

I suspect noone closer to progressive than a status quo oriented centrist can be tapped for that post in America today without alarms going off on Wall Street flashing DANGER DANGER DANGER. It's not Obama's MO to intentionally set those off.

My answer about the 2008 comparison would probably be "better than we would have been had Republicans won that election." It's true but unsatisfying.

[JDPriestly]

34. Thanks. Geithner has had far too much influence on Obama.

Obama is jumping to Wall Street's tune. He should be paying more attention to what labor is asking for. When working people have money and are confident, they buy and create demand. That is what is missing.

Wall Street says it doesn't have confidence. It can't have confidence because there is too little demand for innovation, products and services. It all goes back to consumer (worker) demand. That is missing.

Also, we need different trade agreements. Our balance of payment problem is enormous.

[Inuca]

22. I wish more of the discussion

here and elsewhere in the left blogosphere would raise to this level of thoughtfulness. Thanks Tom!

[Whisp]

33. nice writing and thinking. I did open your thread only peeking at it through my fingers

which covered my eyes.

wasn't sure if it was another Bash Bash Slash Barack the corporate stooge liar crap. :)