Living, as I do, in the progressive online community, I am always wallowing in the internal divisions of the Democratic Party. Yet, patching up the left for next year’s election cycle should be relatively easy. It’s nothing compared to the divisions that are emerging on the right. The most obvious difference is that the Dems already have their presidential candidate. The Republicans don’t, and they’re deeply dissatisfied with their choices. But there are other divisions, as well. The GOP can’t decide how to react to the president’s jobs bill. The presidential candidates are totally dismissive, but the Congressional leaders want to reach some compromise. Yet, tick down the items in the bill and you’ll find the Republicans divided on those, too. Should there be an extension of the payroll tax holiday? Opinions differ. Meanwhile, the Democrats are united behind passing the whole bill.
Things are unlikely to improve for the Republicans on the unity front. They desperately want a presidential candidate who can plausibly run on repealing the Affordable Care Act, but that bill is based on Mitt Romney’s health reforms from when he governed Massachusetts. The Republicans definitely do not want to spend the fall of 2012 trying to defend Rick Perry’s position on Social Security. So, where does that leave them? No one in the third-tier of candidates stands a chance. Santorum? Gingrich? Cain? Paul? Bachmann? Thaddeus McCotter? Huntsman?
At least Huntsman would have a puncher’s chance in the general election, but the rest of them are a bad joke.
We’ve been on the defensive for so long that it’s hard to recognize immediately that the tide has come in and is now going out. It’s time to roll-up the Republicans and demolish their lines.
As far as the Republicans, my money is on Perry lasting a long while but ultimately failing and Romney getting the nomination, which no republican will be truly happy with. Just like last time with McCain. Then Romney will be defeated in the general in all but the most racist (or Mormon) of states. Obama wins in a massive landslide.
That’s my prediction, anyway.
I think Romney would keep it close and potentially win if things took a bad turn at the decisive moment. The rest of the candidates? Blowout City.
You may be right. I would hope that Perry succeeds in the primaries because Obama could easily mop the floor with him in the general.
But even still, if Obama keeps that fightin’ spirit through the election, he WILL win, by a long shot over anyone. If he appears to want to negotiate with the R’s by giving them everything they want, like we are so used to seeing, he will LOSE big time. Soft Leader. No one wants a guy that can’t fight for what he believes in, no matter what that is.
I agree with the basic analysis that the Republicans have some latent divisions that are likely to be exposed in the coming months. But there’s not much we can do about which nominee the Republicans choose.
On the other hand, there’s plenty more we can do to build progressive (and Democratic) power in the coming months.
One of the keys is something Obama touched on at the end of his speech:
“What’s guided us from the start of this crisis hasn’t been the search for a silver bullet. It’s been a commitment to stay at it — to be persistent — to keep trying every new idea that works, and listen to every good proposal, no matter which party comes up with it.”
The organizers Obama learned from would have hammered this point home to him over and over in the few years he worked as a young community organizer: the importance of building power for the long haul, of being “persistent and consistent” in fighting for your values and interests.
IMHO, looking at Obama and seeing “Soft Leader” says more about the looker than the lookee. The guy has a steady and consistent record over the past 15 years as an elected official committed to enacting a progressive agenda by doing the hard work of politics—building power and negotiating compromises.
I think he’s made some mistakes about the economy and the need for economic stimulus, but despite that, look at the record:
1 – the largest and quickest (February 2009) stimulus bill in American history (the $787 billion Recovery Act);
2 – the December 2010 deal-cutting that resulted in another $400 billion in economic stimulus (despite the trouncing Democrats suffered in the November elections); and now,
3 – the proposed American Jobs Act with another $450 billion in economic stimulus—more than almost anyone expected, and enough to make significant economic progress if enacted.
There’s the toughness of the guy who puffs his chest out and talks loud in front of a crowd. Then there’s the toughness of the guy who keeps moving and fighting and just won’t quit. I know which one I want in my corner.
HELL yes.
You’re sounding defensive.
I’m just saying that if he looks like a weak negotiator, he will LOSE. Whether we agree with our leaders (ideologically) or not, we want them to stand up for what they believe in. I am comfortable with where Obama stands on most issues and I understand when political realities make him temper those positions. But whenever he behaves like Eric Cantor’s (or anyone else’s) bitch, allowing himself to be slapped around or allowing us to be held hostage, he is not a “strong leader.” We have just been through a session of this and that’s why his approval ratings are so poor.
Now, this week, we all took notice when he stepped up and demanded action from the R’s. He is going to get alot of respect from the public for that and the R’s are scared. Expect a decent rise in approval ratings if he keeps this attitude up.
Americans (the majority, anyway) want a “strong leader who doesn’t take shit from nobody.” I’d much rather have a strong liberal Obama than a strong asshole Perry. But if you come off as a wimp, as Obama did during the Debt Ceiling negotiations, you’re toast.
He needs to keep up with the Strong Leader stuff if he wants to keep his job. That’s just reality.
Yes, but remember it was just last week that progressives were all up in arms about Obama looking “weak” in the face of Boehner insisting he change the date of the speech. He got the date he wanted, and had an audience of 31 million people, a night after Rick Perry made himself unelectable. My point is that he comes on stronger than you expect when HE thinks it will be most effective, often late in the game. Likewise, he’s willing to appear to appear not to be “strong” far more often than armchair quarterbacks can wrap their minds around, almost always with some strategic purpose. So for example Boehner’s ” I got 98% of what I wanted” line, was a result of the Beltway’s initial sense that he’d “won” when in fact he’d been maneuvered into what seems tone permanent irrelevance. I think you have to watch Obama when he chooses not to overtly fight as closely as you do when he’s the aggressor.
I know all that. And the kerfuffle over the date of the address was brilliance on the part of the White House. They made Boner look like a fool for rejecting him (knowing he would regardless) when being on before the football game was actually preferable. Even I didn’t see that coming. But I don’t think I called him “weak” for that. I just thought Boner was being an asshole and completely disrespectful to the POTUS.
That wasn’t my point though. It was simply that Obama can’t afford to be looking like a weakling anymore for the next 14 months if he wants to win. People will forget about alot of the weakness displayed while being the “adult in the room” and they will just remember him as the responsible one during the maddening times and also the one who stood firm on the important things like JOBS.
He’s doing things well right now but he has to keep it up. For a while it seemed like he was caught in the Presidential Bubble and lost any sense of the Real World.
I am not disagreeing with anyone here, really. Just stating what seems obvious.
RandyH, thanks for this, and for your other comments. You’ve both clarified your own views to the rest of us and helped stimulate a thoughtful and thought-provoking thread.
The “kerfuffle over the date” may have been “brilliance on the part of the White House” (I have no knowledge of what they were thinking or what actually happened behind closed doors), but I think it’s more likely a fairly typical example of how Obama operates politically to create “win-win” situations for himself.
Win #1: Boehner acts like every other Speaker in the history of the US and agrees to the date requested. Obama delivers his speech, sets the fall agenda for Congress (and the political media), and overshadows the Republican debate.
Win #2: Boehner asserts the privileges of the House and forces the president to accept a different date. Obama agrees to the next night, before the NFL season opener starts leaving no real time for a “Republican response”, sets the fall agenda for Congress (and the political media), and implicitly draws a contrast between himself and the Republicans debating the night before.
Win #3: Boehner refuses to allow Obama to address a joint session of Congress at all. Boehner looks bad, Obama delivers his speech in a different setting (Oval Office, high school gym in Boehner’s district, college campus in Cantor’s district with members of Congress invited), sets the fall agenda for Congress (and the political media), and everyone forgets about the Republican presidential race for the time being.
It’s not a question of whether Obama is going to win something from the fight; it’s a question of what and how and when he’s going to win it.
I expect Obama and his staff do this kind of gaming out of different scenarios on a regular basis. I also expect that after most major (and even minor) actions, Obama and his staff conduct some sort of evaluation—what went well, what went badly, what do we learn from this, what next.
I expect that of him because that’s what senior organizers at networks like Gamaliel (and PICO and DART and IAF) did, and taught junior organizers (like Obama) to do in the 1980s (and still do today).
Education reformer Deborah Meier would call them “habits of mind”. Former (and current) leaders and organizers in these, and similar, organizing networks often find those “habits of mind” stay with them and prove helpful as they move into other arenas of life (as Obama has done).
Again, I have no way of knowing this for sure. But based on my observations over time of how Obama acts, I think it’s a factor.
He is more interested in building an expanding circle of trust in his leadership by staying unflappable and reasonable than by the sort of hijinks Republicans have pulled for the last 16 years.
The aggressive tone of the speech tells me that Obama senses he has the trust now to push back hard on Republican nonsense. Charlie Cook maintains that the battle over the debt ceiling in which Republicans came close to forcing the possibility of default had the same sort of traumatic effect on the public that the Iran hostage crisis had. And that the narrative is open to be shifted in a way that it hasn’t been since the collapse of the economy in 2008.
That would indicate that the Republicans are going to have to moderate their positions very quickly in order to stay in the game. Obama has provided them their first opportunity to do that. The worst case scenario for Democrats right now is Republicans rushing to pass the American Jobs Act so that they can claim a share of it. This is really a test of how strategically blind the Republicans have become as a result of their 2010 victories.
I think the Republicans lost when they walked away from the offer Obama made in the debt crisis fiasco. Because they walked away Obama was able to define the Republicans as only interested in the interests of the rich, willing to risk further destruction of our economy. On top of this and the other tea party shenanigans, the GOP has become, instead of the other political choice, the enemy. This is just like when in the primary Obama let Hillary go until she ran out of funds and was unable to recover. Obama has run the Republicans out of creditability for them to become the enemy of our economy. Obama did this to not only win the argument but to define it in a way impossible for the GOP to answer.
If Obama can keep the jobs bill in one piece as take it or leave it and it passes, the effect will be an improved economy for a big Obama win. If the Republicans obstruct again Obama can beat them over the head with it until they lose everything. If the later happens, we could win in places we now think are all but impossible. I hope we can get good candidates ready in those places.
He was also able to make the argument credibly that they wouldn’t accept their own proposals when he was the one proposing them. That also is the whip in the American Jobs Act. He can cite all the Republicans who have voted for similar legislation in the past.
Do you have a blog of your own? I don’t see a link on your profile page. I’d want to subscribe.
I’d read it daily–2nd read of the day.
No blog of my own.
Get on it.
Didn’t you know? Booman has THD chained in his basement, hands manacled to a computer keyboard whose sole connection is to the comment section of the B-Tribune’s stories. How else to ensure that we keep clicking in in search of THD’s brilliant contributions?
Free THD, Booman! Free THD!
Perhaps Booman should make TarheelDem a front-pager. We could use another about now. I’ve been reading for many years and the front-pagers come and go. TD offers some interesting insights and it would probably be some good reading.
we have a new front-pager. Probably starting tomorrow.
I guess I must wait and see who that is. But it’s about time. While I love your commentary, I like a little variety. Thanks Booman.
RandyH: I agree completely with your comment. In fact I pasted your post into the White House comments page.
Look – we prefer Romney’s politics to Bachman & Perry, right? But because he’s such a wimp, we don’t respect or trust him. That’s why Romney can’t win. Even people who agree with him have no respect for him.
This is precisely the problem with Obama. He’s trying to triangulate towards the center but he’s turning off the people in the center by being such a spineless and pathetic negotiator. No one likes a whining coward.
Beyond that – everything he said in that speech was completely drowned out in my mind by his attack on Medicare. That’s all I hear from Obama – dog whistle attacks on social security and medicare. He fits them into everything he says and does. That’s not lost on the independents he needs to win. Defending social security and medicare is THE winning issue and Obama really FEELS wrong on those issues. He exudes it from every pore. People get that. That’s why his approval is in the toilet across the board.
And beyond THAT – has anyone else noticed that the Latinos are mad as hell at Obama? I don’t even know what S-COMM is but I know it’s killing Obama with the Latino vote, without which you can kiss CO, NM, NV etc. goodbye.
Google is your friend.
Secure Communities (S-Comm)
It is killing Obama with the Latino vote because it is being run aggressively and stupidly, yanking good student out of universities, dividing families, and so on.
It is an inherited law that Obama is obligated to enforce and expand. The Bush administration had a pilot of it in 2008 beginning in Houston.
I don’t know how to get Obama out of that box with this Congress.
Anything done with Medicare will not have practical effect before 2021 or so because it phases in any increase in the eligibility age. My sense is it’s a way for Obama to kick the can down the road and out of the reach of the current Congress. The major issue is provider payments, which as a result of ACA have turned the corner on cost increases.
The key showdown on Social Security and Medicare will be the joint select committee on deficits/debt. All of the Republican Senators are beyond immediate political pressure: Kyl is retiring, the other two were just elected. Republican House members are Jeb Hensaerling, from a rural district southeast of Dallas; Fred Upton from Kalamazoo-Benton Harbor area of Michigan; and Dave Camp, from the Big Rapids-Charlevoix part of Michigan.
If you have friends, family, or co-workers who trust your judgment and live in those guys’ districts, send them this and ask them to start a calling campaign to preserve Medicare. Putting pressure on the Republicans will stiffen the spine of the Democrats:
Medicare is not “bankrupt”
Nailing the cuts in spending after January 2013 is the first objectives; making sure they are timed to kick in when the recovery is likely to turn into another bubble economy is the long-term goal. That is just practical Keynes. It is, after all a 10-year plan.
Positioning Medicare so that it has lower costs without reducing benefits (there is lot of oligopolistic pricing in the healthcare industry) is the first objective. That makes it easier to transition to Medicare for all. It also sets an benchmark for private insurers to cut provider payment inflation as well.
I don’t see wimp in Obama. I see astonishing strength to keep his head in his situation, given with whom he’s dealing. My politics are considerably to the left of Obama’s but realistically he’s shifted things a hell of a lot further left in his lifetime than I have in mine. I don’t suggest one thing or another for how Black people ought to respond when they face racism: getting mad is a rational response. That said, given the hideous racism the President faces every day, for him to continue to show up and be willing to work with anyone who will work with him is downright radical.
Well put. You know, Obama is famously a student of the Civil Rights movement, particularly during his lonely “reading period” when he was going to school and working in New York City. Obama has many times stated that he stands on the shoulders of that generation. As indeed he does. Now I could be wrong about this, but my hunch is that when he thinks about the racism he faces as a black pioneer, and then compares it to what the earlier generations had to endure, his overriding feeling is “It’s not that bad for me.” I think he draws great strength from that.
I think the Latinos will come around in the end. They will witness some severe racism directed directly at them when the Teabaggers get desperate. They will be reminded of just who their friends are at that point.
Hopefully Obama and Reid will run a bill sometime between now and the 2012 election that involves Mexican immigration policies in some way to put the R’s attitudes toward Latinos in the spotlight. The bill will likely fail this year, but it will make headlines, put politicians on record and reinforce which side for Latinos to be on. Most of them know anyway, at least the ones near me do.
I just wish we could get more of them registered to vote. And I’d love to see more bilingual Latino volunteers getting people registered and pressing their neighbors to get out the vote. We’ve got lots of them, but never enough.
The Latinos may get angry with Obama from time to time, just like white liberals do, but they know who cares about them. We often look at race as a big factor when socio-economic class is probably the biggest, at least when it comes to non-whites.
I’d rather they stopped lumping us in with whites on the damn census forms.
I think the only people who see the President as a suck-up to Cantor are a section of the progressive-blogosphere, so-called, who represent a small, though not totally insignificant, portion of the electorate. Most of his support, I would think comes from people who think, “Cantor=dick, Obama=not a dick.” There are a lot more people in that category, and they’re basically right about things. I imagine that will carry the election for Obama, swapping out Cantor for the GOP nominee.
I agree with you.
One of the most intelligent comments I’ve read in some time. Thanks!
I wish he had thought that way when he sent Kaine to ruin DNC.
Mitt flier in Florida http://www.politico.com/2012-election/
Perry wants to kill SS
They have less to fight over, so they fight amongst themselves all the more viciously.
Glad you are optimistic Boo. But if the economy still sucks a year from now Obamas is in deep doo doo, whatever the cause, thanks to ‘low-information’ citizens who vote their pocket-books. I expect the repugs to do everything they can to make it so. It worked well for them in 2010, why not in 2012?
“Should there be an extension of the payroll tax holiday? Opinions differ.”
Really? Should any halfway decent Democrat give a fuck?
Hell no!!!!
This is my first time making a comment on this webpage. A little back ground on me. I am a United States citizen originally from the Midwest and I voted for Obama but I am not happy about that at this moment. I consider myself a pragmatic liberal what ever that means and I am convinced that the republicans will win in 2012. This is not my wish and is in fact is a reoccurring nightmare, but i must face facts. I work in a very conservative environment, construction. I can tell you that of all the people i work with and around not one of them will vote for anybody but a republican. And many of them have a lot of respect and are supporters of Palin, Bachman and Perry. The crazier the republican candidates sound the more my coworkers love them. Like you said you are wrapped up in the progressive community and are to an extent are preaching to the choir. Most Americans are conservative. Obama at this stage will loose which is my worst nigthmare
limulu, welcome and thanks for your comments both here and below.
I think you’re right about the economy. Absent growth in personal income and shrinking unemployment in the coming year, it’s going to be very tough for Obama to get reelected.
We could debate whether “most Americans are conservative” and what that means. I’ll just say that there’s a decent chance that Obama’s “conservatism”—his respect for the Constitution, his willingness to compromise, his ability to “disagree without being disagreeable”, his personal life, his support for a mixed economy, his commitment to governing on the issues that got him elected—will help him win reelection, particularly if his Republican opponent ends up being seen as more radical than conservative.
We will see. If Obama can get some infrastucture projects going, and can take the credit, we might see some of blue-collar idiots voting for their economics, not all this “save the babies and shoot the coyotes” SHIT which the lower classes vote for.
If Obama will kick some ass and take some fucking names, he might get a few to respect him. As such, he is such a fucking pussy most of the time, no self-respecting man could respect him. And I say that as a supporter.
He needs to stand up, kick some Repukeliscum butt, and tell them in no uncertain terms, “If you don’t like it, you can kiss my ass, mofo”.
It’s a respect thing, and it’s a fear thing. Nobody fears Obama, and that is a problem for him.
In fact, most Americans are not conservative. If they were, it would not be necessary for corporations and wealthy individuals to spend billions of dollars on a propaganda machine that reaches into every precinct, is a major industry in a weak economy, and runs 24/7/365.
And in the areas that are conservative, people who are not conservative will say they are conservative because of social pressure.
So, are you saying that construction workers would rather pay down the deficit than have jobs? Because that’s the consequences of their conservative attitudes.
Well if you think Obama will lose and that’s your worst nightmare, the rational thing to do is to sign on in a last ditch effort in your area to get an Obama victory in an improbable place. Knowing that you are not alone (and if you look at a precinct-by-precinct tally of votes for President in 2008, there is no precinct in which there were not several Obama voters) can help restore some optimism.
Republican strategy is to have Democrats paralyzed by fear, anger, uncertainty, and doubt.
So your coworkers won’t vote for Obama in 2012, but how many of them voted for him in 2008? Given your description of them, I’d say few to none. You tell us we need to look outside our progressive cocoon; I’d say you need to look outside your right-wingnut cocoon to get a better sense of the electorate as a whole, because the subsegment you describe is far from representative.
Madison County, Idaho, is the reddest county in the US in the 2008 election. The population is 27,467. It went for McCain 85.2% to Obama’s 12.5%. And yet if you lived there, you would have 1627 potential Obama-supporting friends.
Madison County, Idaho demographics:
To most of the people i talk with and work around Obama is perceived as weak and indecisive. People will not vote for such a candidate. I am very unhappy about Obama caving into the republicans. Unless he shows some strength and shows the ability to stand up the republicans he will loose. You would be surprised how most of my coworkers feel about the republican candidates. They love them from Palin on down. None of these people care about all the absurd things that the republicans say are the attack on social security and medic. to my coworkers the republicans are never going to take these things away from the real Americans. It makes no difference to them, my co workers that Bachman rails against government handouts and then takes farm subsidies. she is a real American in their eyes and that is okay what is wrong is giving money to the poor. My coworkers are engineers, construction workers, managers and I am talking about 600 people are more and i bet you that I am one of the very few people who would vote democratic. Obama will loose at this rate
Welcome to the pond. I have to say, though, that personal anecdotal evidence isn’t worth squat in politics. Even if it’s 600 people’s worth of personal anecdotal evidence.
Keep your chin up and go find a Democratic club in your area.
It’s a fear thing, and it’s a fascist thing. People like that respect strength and resolve. They respect a person who can make others fear them.
The money quote is “It takes a strong man to kill an innocent person”.
If you can get into the heads of those who would say that, you might understand “What’s the matter with Kansas”. If you don’t understand this quote, you will never understand Kansas.
We need Obama to kick some ass, take some names, and get some fucking respect.
http://campaign2012.washingtonexaminer.com/blogs/beltway-confidential/bachmann-plans-hit-perry-socia
l-security
First Romney now Bachmann take on Perry and SS
Infighting I hope they destroy each other
I do believe there are centrist Democrats devoted to sandbagging Obama’s election chances.
I’m a big skeptic of the WaPo; take this as Washington gossip. But one Presidential aspirant keeps popping up in every action to undercut the President: Mark Warner. And one independent seems always to be with him: Joe Lieberman.
Senators meet privately on urging broad debt-reduction plan from supercommittee
By the way, this is the buried lede:
Lieberman and Corker are quoted. And then there’s this:
(btw, there’s one senior Democratic aide who needs to be immediately fired on two counts — idiocy and lack of discretion)
Did you understand that? There are Democrats who want to move cuts into the current time frame. That is suicidal.
So you folks getting bent out of shape over what the President is doing, start understanding that there are Senators working in the Senate behind his back to frustrate progressive or even moderately liberal or even sensible policies.
The article says that “more than two dozens Senators from both parties” were involved. That does not mean half and half. If you hear that Dick Durbin was one of them, don’t be surprised; I read that as his keeping the leadership up with what is going on. Any public statements he makes have to reinforce that role.
So if any of the following are your Democratic Senators, call their staff and ask (1) were they there, and (2) are they suicidal (no, do they really intend to cut Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid an not pass the President’s jobs bill):
Mark Warner
Kent Conrad
Ben Nelson
Bill Nelson
Dianne Feinstein
Mary Landrieu
Mark Pryor
Bob Casey
Jim Webb
Kay Hagen
If you think of any other ones, add them to the list.