I’ll admit that I don’t like the trajectory of the presidential race right now and that it is the opposite of what I wanted and expected and predicted just a few short weeks ago. However, things still look good for an Obama victory and our senate candidates are doing very well. Control of the House is still within our grasp. So, I am willing to engage in a little bit of conjecture about a potential second term for the Obama administration.
But first a word about his first term. Obama sent a message when he decided to retain Robert Gates as his Defense Secretary. He also sent a message when he made Illinois Republican Ray LaHood his Transportation Secretary, offered the Commerce Department to New Hampshire Republican Judd Gregg, and nominated a Republican to run the Army. He wasn’t just making a go at “changing the tone” in Washington DC; he was making it clear that it was okay for moderate Republicans to cross over and support his presidency. The irony is that this helped capture the middle so effectively that it made it much easier for the Republicans to lurch to the far right and start talking about birth certificates and death panels.
Obama hopes to retain enough of the Gates/LaHood/Powell/Hagel/Chafee/Jeffords Republicans to earn himself a second term. In his second term he should aim to lock in this group as a center-right appendage of the Democratic Party. It will be a gift to his successors. One major coup would be if he could get Dick Lugar to agree to be a part of his administration. I would not offer him the State Department. That should go to John Kerry, who has earned it. But Lugar might make a good replacement for Susan Rice as ambassador to the United Nations. I don’t mean that he would be a better ambassador or that his views would be more valuable. But it is probably time for Amb. Rice to find a new challenge anyway, and Lugar would inoculate Obama against the crazy charges he will undoubtedly face on foreign policy. More importantly, Lugar’s mere presence within the administration would send a message to a lot of soft Republicans that it is okay to support the Democrats’ foreign policy.
Another coup would be getting Olympia Snowe to agree to work with the administration. Finding an appropriate role for her would be harder because it would have to carry some degree of prestige in order to be at all attractive to her. Since the Census isn’t coming up until 2020, it would be safe to put a Republican in charge of the Commerce Department. Perhaps that would be enough for Snowe.
As for Lieberman, my inclination is to give him nothing. Keep him in mothballs in case you need him for some bullshit commission on something or other.
There’s a tension within any progressive between wanting to run the most progressive administration possible and building the strongest possible defense against Republican rule. I come down on the side of caution in most instances because I am less worried about coming up short on progress than I am about letting the modern GOP get another sniff of power before they are forced to moderate in the face of demographic change. There are things that a progressive would do a lot better at the United Nations than Dick Lugar and policies that would be better enacted with a progressive in charge of the Transportation or Commerce Departments. But I am willing to trade that for a more robust hold on power in general. Owning the White House is the single most important thing. More specifically, denying the White House to neo-conservative plutocratic socially conservative crooks is the most important thing. Until that changes, I want a strong coalition that includes pillars of the center-right.
Where I’d move in a more progressive direction is in less high-profile posts. Elizabeth Warren is a great example of that. The idea isn’t so much to govern in the center as to make it safe for centrists to help you govern.
I am pretty much down with that, even if not for the same reasons.
Pushing a progressive agenda to the max is not sustainable and will accomplish less in the long run.
Do something with Lugar. He is a decent man and his supporters in INdiana are both reasonable and horrified by the current GOP.
It would be nice to do something with Snowe but I think it will yield fewer dividends, except among sane Republicans in the NE.
Yes, keep Leiberman on an ice flow as an example to others.
The problem with appointing Kerry to State is it risks control of the Senate. (But Rice to State and Lugar to the UN still works.)
As for Snowe, other possibilities (based on her past interests) might include the Small Business Administration or something in the Defense Dept. (not Secretary).
Then there’s the “messing with the Republican 2016 presidential nomination” category. How about Jeb Bush to co-chair an immigration commission? Or Chris Christie for some sort of “religious freedom” policy panel?
P.S. The “making it safe for centrists to govern” on a progressive agenda is an important reminder: both of what’s at stake for the next four years, and of how Pres. Obama has actually governed.
The Recovery Act is a good example. As Michael Grunwald explains in “The New New Deal”, it was a far larger stimulus and far greater re-working of federal investment priorities than any bill FDR ever signed.
Likewise with the ACA. Obama’s consistent strategy of putting together a center-left governing coalition that would advance a progressive agenda is part of what “allowed” the Nelsons and Liebermans to, in the end, vote for Obamacare.
(Also, ending the Iraq War and DADT.)
As Michael Grunwald explains in “The New New Deal”, it was a far larger stimulus and far greater re-working of federal investment priorities than any bill FDR ever signed.
The dirty little secret of the ACA is that the Republicans’ attacks on it in 2009 – declaring it to be a laundry list of long standing Democratic desires, instead of short-term stimulus – was largely true. High speed rail projects, investment in green tech, basic science research funding – these aren’t WPA projects. They’re major changes in the direction of how this country operates.
Like it or not, the Benghazi goof-up cost Amb. Rice any shot at advancement.
I don’t have any opinion about Ambassador Rice, but the only thing that costs a person a shot at advancement is whether she has allies who are willing to guard her back.
Just look at the cast of characters from the Bush administration who are ready to take back the reigns of foreign policy if Mitt Romney wins re-election. In fact, just look at George W. Bush, whos significantly bigger “goof-up” on 9-11 was recast as proof that “he kept us safe”.
This is the reality-based community.
The question of whether an officeholder has allies willing to have her back is, on our side of the aisle anyway, very much related to their performance.
Tell that to Shirley Sherrod, Joe.
The one who was offered a promotion when the facts of her performance came out?
The one who was condemned based on the perception of her performance, and who was welcomed back in when the truth of her performance came out?
Nice own-goal.
This is completely wrongheaded Booman. Democrats will not win elections by pandering to Republicans. They do not need to “win the center”. They need to govern successfully.
There is a reason that Democrats lead by wide margins in polls of registered voters but not at all among likely voters. Likely voters are people who feel that their vote matters. Democrats need to bring Democratically oriented voters to the polls, and to do that, they need to give those constituencies political influence and power. Needless to say, showering Republicans with more rewards for their hostility is not the way to accomplish that goal.
Obama’s first term should have ended this nonsensical strategy once and for all. He has already tried to reach out to “moderate” Republicans. He has specifically engaged with Snowe and Lugar and lobbied the Senate not to strip Joe Lieberman of his Senate chairmanship. Since then, those Senators have openly attacked him and will do what they can to ensure that Mitt Romney replaces him next January. The result of his efforts was an inadequate stimulus bill overly weighted towards tax cuts, and the decision to pass a health care bill written by the Heritage Foundation. Ask your Republican friends whether those things make them more inclined to vote for the president.
In American politics, “the center” is not where the average voter stands. It’s simply the point between where the Democrats stand and where Republicans stand. Democrats can never capture it. It moves when they move.
I don’t completely disagree with you but…
1 – The impact Collins, Specter and Snowe had on size and shape of the Recovery Act was, in the end, relatively minor. (E.g., it’s not like they cut it in half and demanded it be 90% tax cuts, and Obama caved to that demand.)
2 – Lieberman, in the end, voted for the ACA and voted to end DADT (among other things).
3 – There were never enough votes in the Senate for a public option or single payer health care reform law. Like it or not, the ACA is a pretty typical example of Pres. Obama using conservative means to accomplish progressive ends—which was his record in the Illinois and U.S. senates and was what he campaigned on.
4 – Lugar apparently didn’t do enough attacking of Obama to win a primary fight; Snowe decided to retire rather than fight any more.
Like I said, I’m sympathetic to much of what you say. But I do think Booman has a point: one reason the Republicans swung hard right after Obama’s election is that he effectively eliminated their centrist wing as a political force—a combination of the 2006 and 2008 Congressional election results, the Obama campaign’s ability to secure prominent endorsements by moderate Republicans like Powell, and Obama moving quickly to co-opt the Republicans’ centrist bloc with appointments like the ones Booman mentioned.
1. Collins, Specter and Snowe were in no position make huge demands. I know it’s been all of 3 years, but do you remember just how desperate the situation was in 2009? Obama was extremely popular. The Republican brand was garbage and it was obvious that something needed to be done, fast. Instead of pushing his advantage not to mention a package advocated by his staff, Obama offered a bill that he thought was a reasonable compromise. Snowe demanded that it be $100 billion less, because that’s compromise.
Obama’s habit of starting negotiations where he believes the center lies, rather than making a case for his policy and allowing the Republicans to counter, has been his most exasperating habit.
Obama spent his first term doing exactly what Booman is arguing here. It hasn’t worked. He hasn’t “won the center” and he has lost support among his own faction. Republicans, including the very people mentioned here, have decided that they cannot work with him under any circumstances. It’s time to start building coalitions with people who will.
Thanks for the reply. Again, I share a lot of your feelings about the past four years.
I do remember early 2009. The Obama administration made a political judgment that cutting a deal with Snowe & Co. to get the Recovery Act passed in February was better than fighting for a better bill that might not pass for weeks…or months. It’s a debatable judgment; but given the increasing Republican intransigence as 2009 went on, it’s not an obviously wrong one.
I’m no fan of Joe Lieberman. I’ll just restate that, in the end, he voted for the ACA…along with several other Obama priorities. If he’d been pushed out of the caucus, then how likely is it that the ACA would have passed…in any form?
Keeping Gates at Defense was a key factor in ending the Iraq War on schedule and in repealing DADT without a revolt of the generals (like the one Powell led when Clinton took office).
I don’t think “picking up Republicans who were rejected by their own party” necessarily increases the odds that Democrats will win Republican votes in the future. (Although Republicans became a majority party in part by signalling in ways big and small that they were open to “Reagan Democrats”.)
As for Zell Miller, he was the tail end of a generation of conservative white southern Democrats who joined the Republican Party. If you look at that group as a whole, they added to the Republicans’ power for many years.
What’s your evidence for the claim that Obama has “lost support among his own faction”. As far as I can tell, most or all of the key constituencies in the liberal wing of the Democratic coalition are backing him at least as solidly as they did in 2008.
I thought the rout in 2010 was pretty good evidence. And I’ll be thrilled to be wrong, but I don’t see anyone predicting that Obama is on track to win by more than 7% against Mitt Romney this year.
But to my original point, Democrats should spend less time trying to win over “moderate” Republicans (most of whom will be quite happy to continue voting for their party) and spend more time motivating Democratic constituencies to get to the polls in the first place. Less than half of eligible Latinos voted in the 2008 election and the number of registered Latinos fell between 2008 and 2010. Young voter turnout dropped significantly as well, and they don’t seem particularly motivated this year. Needless to say, this is the difference between a Democratic victory and a Republican sweep.
Thanks again for the response.
Off-year electorates are typically—as was the case in 2010—smaller, older, whiter and more conservative than electorates in presidential election years. Additionally, the party that holds the White House typically has a harder time gaining or holding Congressional seats in off-year elections.
As best I can tell, the Obama campaign has invested heavily for months in building a strong “ground game” with a major focus on voter registration, education and turnout. The early voting estimates seem to indicate that the campaign’s investment is paying off.
I haven’t expected Obama to win by more than 7% this year, and that’s for a couple of reasons:
1 – the weak economy,
2 – he’s the incumbent,
3 – it’s tough to convey just how full of lies the Romney campaign is.
2010 was not a typical off-year election.
As for off-year elections being typically older, and whiter and more conservative than presidential elections, that’s my original point. Democrats aren’t getting their voters to the polls.
Older, whiter and more conservative constituencies know that their vote counts. Younger, non-white and liberal constituencies don’t. And if Democrats take their victories and decide to dole out perks to a group of old, white, conservative Republican politicians then they’ve proven the point.
My interpretation of both the stimulus and the health care bill is a little different from yours.
But, more importantly, I think you are looking at what I am saying the wrong way.
When the other side kicks its moderates out of their party it’s like they are leaving cash on the table. You can walk away leaving the cash just sitting there or you can pick it up and put it in your pocket.
While you make a good point about how the middle point of American politics is largely defined by where the Democrats are willing to stand, that is not entirely true. Or, it’s not the only factor that determines what is possible to do politically.
Instead of lecturing you on this, though, I’ll give you an assignment. Take a look at the Class II Senators who will be up for reelection in 2014. Now craft me a strategy to preserve our seats in Montana and Alaska and South Dakota and Louisiana and Arkansas and Colorado and New Hampshire and Virginia, while giving us a chance to pick up seats in Tennessee and Georgia and Texas or Wyoming and Idaho and Kansas and Oklahoma or any other deep red states.
If Obama doesn’t do something differently, we will be slaughtered in 2014 in the Senate. What he needs to do is defeat the idea that he is some hard-left ideologue without alienating and demoralizing his base. Obviously, his first debate performance was a massive failure in this respect. It was Romney who played that game much more successfully. But that’s the point. Capturing the center is key to creating a lasting governing coalition, and that means capturing a bigger portion of the center right. It’s the converse of Reagan Democrats. When the Republicans lose them, they lose power. But they certainly don’t govern for the Reagan Democrats’ benefit.
Here’s where we agree. But you’re recommending he do exactly what he did last round. The plan to convert Republicans hasn’t worked out so well, has it.
Obama will always be cast as a hard-left leaning ideologue by the right. Any Democrat will. He could fill his cabinet with Republicans and that would still be true.
I actually think it worked well from an electoral point of view. But your view on what happened with the stimulus and health care is so far different from mine that I doubt you would even understand my point of view.
Obama went all-in for a health care bill and pursued Wall Street reform, a climate change bill, and a broad progressive agenda through the stimulus, consumer protection, credit card reform, college loan reform, etc., with no Republican support. And he got almost all of it done, but the cost was a totally polarized electorate with a fire up opposition and a depressed base that couldn’t understand why obstruction was so effective. Obama did nothing to protect the Blue Dogs and their ranks were decimated.
But he did protect himself. He isn’t really seen as a far-left ideologue by anyone who doesn’t live in FoxNewsLand. He’s ahead in the polls precisely because he succeeded in convincing enough people that he governs from the reasonable center. And his early staffing decisions instrumental to that.
The plan to convert Republicans hasn’t worked out so well, has it.
The plan to convert Republicans got him elected President, and allowed him to preside over the passage of the most extensive legislative agenda of any President, Republican or Democrat, in almost half a century.
So, yeah, it worked out pretty well.
Sure Joe. That had nothing to do with the fact that W. had an approval rating below 30%, due to his incompetence on the economy the disasterous response to hurricane Katrina or Iraq. Or the fact that McCain wanted us to stay there for “10,000 years” and start another war in Iran. Or the many scandals involving abuse of office, perjury, and obstruction of justice. Or legalizing torture and spying on Americans. Or the fact that the banking industry collapsed just 2 months before the election.
And it definitely had nothing to do with record interest in the election, particularly among young voters. Or that Obama was considered the liberal even while he was running against Hillary Clinton.
None of that mattered. Obama won because he “converted” Republicans.
Uh huh. Obama just had the election handed to him. It’s not like he ran a good campaign or anything.
So the central message of his successful election campaign completely refutes you. So he won election while running on a strategy you condemn as futile.
When the facts don’t fit the narrative, just make up some new facts.
Or that Obama was considered the liberal even while he was running against Hillary Clinton.
Considered by whom? Obama was the one who was going to “change the tone in Washington,” the one with the “there are no red states or blue states,” the one with the story about Republicans whispering when they told him they supported him. No, it’s not like the term “post-partisan” was invented to describe him and his political appeal. He was a fire-breathing liberal, pretty much like Kucinich now that I think about it.
eyeroll
Obama won because he “converted” Republicans.
As usual, you misunderstand. Obama’s post-partisan, aisle-crossing strategy (the one everyone else in the country except you don’t seem to remember when they think about 2008) didn’t bring him victory – both in the election, and in the passage of the MOST EXTENSIVE LEGISLATIVE AGENDA IN OVER FOUR DECADES – by converting Republicans. It brought him victory by convincing people in the middle to support him, because they like to see President who can work across the aisle.
Agreed, Jinchi.
There is no center anymore. The center of R party has become Independant … it’s why the “Independants” have become significantly more conservative than in the ’90s.
I agree with working with and around people like Lugar, Snowe and so forth. But for crying out loud give them dog and pony shows to do. Nothing substantive.
The last thing we need right now is another Bowles-Simpson fiasco.
And as far as Lieberman goes? The only reason to send him on a dog and pony show is to clean up the dog and pony shit. Let the SOB screw with the right wing for a while.
Mitt Romney seems to have moved that line. “Flip-Flopper” is the new “Centrist” in today’s politics because no one seems to be challenging that.
I think it’s okay to work with good moderate Republicans IF and only IF they are willing to renounce their membership in their former party and formally swear allegiance to the Democrats. If that’s too much for them, they’re just playing us for chumps. All this talk of pre-emptive concessions to the opposition party is just more evidence of that.
No one wants to be a member of the chump party.
Lieberman should be the clown that gets shot out of the cannon. Make a real example of him. Make sure he never lands a lobbying job, even. Run him out of town on a rail.
We laugh at Republicans when they make this argument. We should laugh at Democrats who make it, too.
The theater of getting people to perceive Obama as center by having him appoint a lot of GOPers didn’t work very well. Polls are showing that most people perceive Obama to be farther left of center than Romney is right of center. Despite the FACT that Obama’s policies, when evaluated as standalone policies versus being identified as his, are seen as being dead center.
So, if the purpose is to win over the center by appointing GOPers let’s understand that won’t work.
However, appointing a few GOPers does make sense in the long run just for the practicalities of fighting off the far right. But instead of Snowe, who bitched recently that Obama didn’t reach out enough, or Lugar, who is moderate only because all the other moderates are gone, I’d suggest Christine Todd Whitman or Jon Huntsman for a bigger post. True moderates. Almost none of which have an office anymore.
This whole thread is making me sick already. This is what drives good people away from the political process in disgust. And to think we’re entertaining this discussion before we’ve even gotten through the election. Ugh. Is this what we have to look forward to? Why bother.
Don’t look now, but Obama is back up to a 2.5% lead in the TPM poll summary.
Josh Marshall at TPM has suggested a “bitch-slap” theory of centrist politics in which the person who acts as the alpha dog tends to win over the chronically undecided. This was first presented in 2004 after the Kerry-Bush debates. I have always hoped he was wrong but it does explain what we have seen in the aftermath of the last two debates.
Something else that is more than a little scary is how quickly so many people switched positions and now apparently back again. However, that MAY be an artifact of how the polls are done – in that it may exaggerate movement because of the self-selecting nature of respondants. The RAND daily poll, which re-surveys the same sample, 1/7 on each day of the week, showed some movement but never put Romney in the lead. We don’t have enough evidence to know which is correct, as other factors could be involved with the RAND poll (look up the “Hawthorne effect”). But I hope for our so-called democracy that the RAND poll is a better indicator and that people aren’t quite that gullible and easily swayed.
I’d like to know why polls from Gravis marketing are being used at all, much less at full value? Every single poll I’ve seen from them is consistently 1-4 points rightward of Rasmussen.
TPM has a poll-averaging model thar’s a bit too sensitive to the last poll. I never believed Obama was down by the 2-3 points they showed last week, and I doubt there’s been a major swing in the last few days.
These are not the same people. Polls have margins-of-error of several percent. Swings inside the MoE are completely normal.
Keep in mind the polls are measuring enthusiasm as much as anything else.
Mitt Romney had lost basically every news cycle from the Republican convention onward, through the Democratic convention, through Libya, through “47%.” I don’t recall too many candidates undergoing such a bad stretch for so long.
Republican enthusiasm before debate #1 was at an all time low, and I bet many borderline Republicans were saying to pollsters that they were not going to bother voting.
The debate shifted the narrative dramatically, both by firing up Republicans AND depressing Democrats. I think you’re now seeing a recovery (Reps not quite as fired up, Dems not as despondent), and the polls are reflecting that.
This is a long way of saying that I doubt the debate actually made more than a very small number of people change their mind; it more likely changed people’s odds of voting.
Ok to Lugar
HELL NO to Snowe.
And, I don’t think Susan Rice needs to go anywhere
I’d much rather have Olympia Snowe as part of some commission than a dick like Alan Simpson. I’m not sure why you are so opposed to her. Dick Lugar has a MUCH worse voting record.
Ambassador Rice should stay if she wants to, but my guess is that her stay as UN ambassador has pretty much run its course.
and I want someone to explain it to me like I’m in first grade…
all this election season, we have been told that a Candidate couldn’t win if they couldn’t at least MATCH McCain’s 31% with Latinos.
Willard is in the LOW 20’S.
Have you seen his numbers with Latinos in the states like CO, AZ, NV?
And, I’ve also been told that Willard needed 61% of the White Vote.
Where are the polls telling me that he has that.
See, until you can explain this to me, in plain English..
I’m not buying it..
that this race is close
I do not think putting in people like Olympia Snowe or Dick Lugar would “insulate” Obama from Republican attacks.
Many of us are fed up with Obama’s constant attempt to make nice with the opposition. To the point where he appears willing to sacrifice key Democratic programs (Social Security) just so that he can have a Grand Bargain.
I want a partisan Democratic president who fights for things. Enough with the “adult in the room” nonsense.
A follow-up. Nobody cares about Olympia Snowe. Nobody.
And if, as Booman asserts, Obama has “capture[d] the middle so effectively”, then why is this election so close?
Final thought: I wouldn’t give John Kerry anything. I don’t see how he has “earned it” at all.
John Kerry’s endorsement of Obama was very important. He was disappointed to get passed over for State and have it given to the person he didn’t endorse. His consolation prize was the gavel of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, which further credentialed him for a position at State. He’s pretty much in Ed Muskie’s position now. Running State will be the fulfillment of his career. He’s done the work and he’s prepared. There is no one else in line for the job who has the same level of expertise with the State Department or who has more of a claim to Obama’s nomination. He also would probably have no difficulty being confirmed.
As for Lugar, the two of them have headed the Foreign Relations committee for four years now, and Lugar has chaired it or been the ranking member for at least a decade. To peel him off and have him work under Kerry at the United Nations would be a real coup. Lugar is a rare Republican who is really respected abroad, particularly in Russia and Europe. He would pay dividends with our allies and blunt any criticism like what we’re seeing over Benghazi right now with Ambassador Rice.
I might fantasize about U.S. foreign policy being crafted by some real progressives, but it’s not clear to me who those people would be or why they’d be bumped over someone like Kerry or, in many cases, how they could be confirmed.
Also, don’t forget that it was Kerry who gave Obama the 2004 convention keynote slot that launched him to national prominence.
envios a venezuela
I do not think putting in people like Olympia Snowe or Dick Lugar would “insulate” Obama from Republican attacks.
The goal is not to prevent Republicans from making the attacks. The goal is to cause people who might be persuaded by such attacks to reject them. Of course the Republicans are going to trash Obama as a partisan radical, no matter what. The question is, are people in the middle going to believe them?
Many of us…
No, a small fraction of “us” feels that way. You can get a very skewed idea of what liberals think from the comment threads of political blogs.