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  • Mr. Obama isn’t cooperating...

    If you like to follow politics from the macro view, that is, in 25 year cycles, you've probably already noticed that Obama is acting differently these days, and maybe you've wondered what's going on. Why does he seem detached from the struggle unfolding in Congress between the dems and the GOP? Some say he's not providing leadership to his party. The article below takes a different slant.

    In playground terms, he picked up his ball after the last election and went home, leaving all the players with nothing to play with. In political terms that means he's acting uncharacteristically bi-partisan. No more major broadsides at the GOP. The effect is to deprive the GOP of their favorite target which, of course, is himself. With no fighting words to fire back at, the GOP risks alienating the public by continuing to snipe at him.

    This strategy may signal a sea change in politics. It rests on the calculation that Americans are finally fed up with the political bickering that has dominated the political landscape since Reagan left office. If Obama is right, and it did reach a crescendo with last fall's election, then from here on political success will go not to the party that shouts the loudest over the next two years, but to the one that is perceived to have accomplished the most.

    By making a show of patient bipartisanship, Obama hopes to score points for himself no matter which party gets the credit. If he's right, stridency in politics will gradually yield to a more reasonable tone. Candidates who breath fire will find it harder to get elected for some years to come..

    So, has the pendulum begun to swing the other way?


    March 15, 2011, 7:14 am
    Obama Strategy: Share Credit (and Blame?)
    By MICHAEL D. SHEAR

    As they prepare to wage political war against President Obama, the potential 2012 Republican candidates are doing everything they can to draw sharp distinctions with him.

    But Mr. Obama isn’t cooperating.

    Rather than emphasize his differences with potential Oval Office rivals or Republican adversaries on Capitol Hill, the president is taking every opportunity he can to embrace members of the other party as co-conspirators in his efforts to confront the country’s challenges.

    According to Mr. Obama, the two parties have cooperated — or are showing signs of being willing to work together — on education reform, tax cuts, energy security, economic growth and potential changes to an entitlement system that has become a drain on the nation’s budget.

    “I am proud of the commitment by Democrats and Republicans in Congress to fix No Child Left Behind,” Mr. Obama said Monday at a Virginia middle school.

    Two weeks ago, at a fund-raiser in Miami, he noted that “I’m proud that Democrats and Republicans joined forces in December to cut taxes for every American.”

    And at a meeting of the National Governor’s Association, he spoke optimistically about confronting the rising costs of Medicare and Medicaid, saying that “I think that’s something that Democrats and Republicans should be able to agree on.”

    He’s also heaped special praise — tinged with just a bit of sarcasm — on Mitt Romney, the former governor of Massachusetts (for his health care plan) and Jon Huntsman, the former governor of Utah, for serving as Mr. Obama’s ambassador to China. Both men are considering a bid for president in 2012.

    The logic behind Mr. Obama’s approach appears to be rooted in the belief that voters — and especially independents — are looking for evidence that politicians in Washington are working together on problems rather than content to live with an unending stalemate.

    In a cabinet meeting the day after the midterm elections in November, Mr. Obama said that that was the message he had received from the drubbing his party took. Voters, he said, are “concerned about making sure that taxpayer money is not wasted, and they want to change the tone here in Washington, where the two parties are coming together and focusing on the people’s business as opposed to scoring political points.”

    The change in the president’s rhetoric since then has been striking.

    In the weeks before the election, Mr. Obama hardly missed an opportunity to suggest that it was Republicans who had driven the American economy into a ditch. “Have you noticed when you want to go forward, what do you do with your car?” he would repeatedly ask. “You put it in D. When you want to go backwards, what do you do? You put it in R. That’s not a coincidence.”

    Except for one fund-raiser on Nov. 5, Mr. Obama has not said the word “ditch” in public since then.

    In addition to appealing to some voters, the bipartisan rhetoric from Mr. Obama may be an attempt to disarm his potential 2012 rivals and Republicans on Capitol Hill. In Miami this month, Mr. Obama stood shoulder-to-shoulder with Jeb Bush, the former governor of Florida, to promote education reforms.

    “it’s time we came together — just like Jeb and I are doing today — coming from different parties but we come together not as Democrats or Republicans, as Americans, to lift up all of our schools,” he said.

    Not everything is sweetness and light, of course. Mr. Obama and the Capitol Hill Republicans remain at loggerheads over the current year’s budget. And there’s no clear indication of how the two sides are going to reach agreement on raising the nation’s debt ceiling later this year.

    The president will also need to shift into a more adversarial mode as the election grows closer. Even as his campaign preached hope and optimism in 2008, Mr. Obama’s victory against Senator John McCain of Arizona was built on drawing a clear contrast between the two men.

    It may be that Mr. Obama can put off that kind of sharp-edged campaign rhetoric for several months. It seems unlikely he will have a serious primary challenger, and that will allow him to appear somewhat above the fray while the Republicans battle among themselves.

    But already, his campaign operatives are beginning to travel the country, hat-in-hand, looking for donations from wealthy supporters. And his finance operation will soon be asking for donations from the millions of less-wealthy supporters who contributed a few dollars in 2008.

    Both groups will be looking for contrasts, not just mushy expressions of cooperation.

    Obama Strategy: Share Credit (and Blame?) - NYTimes.com
    Last edited by JAD_333; 16 Mar 11,, 07:57.
    To be Truly ignorant, Man requires an Education - Plato

  • #2
    Interesting possibility. While that may be the electoral logic behind it, I think the political reason is that he knows only conservative legislation will pass until at least 2012. Given that there is probably some conservative-leaning legislation he would like to see passed, better to cooperate with the House than get nothing done. If he somehow got a Democratic House in 2012 then he can go back to liberal priorities.

    As for the pendulum...I'm not so sure it exists. There is always a yearning for some golden age of civility that probably didn't exist. People thought the 1988 campaign was brutal at the time. Hell, the Lincoln-Douglas debates were considered to be uncivilized political bickering at the time.
    Last edited by ZFBoxcar; 16 Mar 11,, 14:00.

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    • #3
      The simple answer is often the most useful: the adults are back in charge.
      Trust me?
      I'm an economist!

      Comment


      • #4
        Do not underestimate Obama. Right now, he is in re-election mode. He may seem to be laying low for now, but if he gets re-elected, he will consider that his mandate to move his agenda further.

        Comment


        • #5
          julie,

          but if he gets re-elected, he will consider that his mandate to move his agenda further.
          not really different from any other president...
          There is a cult of ignorance in the United States, and there has always been. The strain of anti-intellectualism has been a constant thread winding its way through our political and cultural life, nurtured by the false notion that democracy means that "My ignorance is just as good as your knowledge."- Isaac Asimov

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          • #6
            Originally posted by astralis View Post
            julie,



            not really different from any other president...
            Exactly my point. Two points for you. :)

            Comment


            • #7
              from this article, it seems that there's been some short-term success with this tactic (if this is actually what he intends to do).

              The public agrees with Dems, but they don’t know it - The Plum Line - The Washington Post

              Far more think that Republicans have been not willing enough to compromise on the deficit (71 percent) , than think the same about Obama (52 percent) or Democrats (56 percent).

              * The public trusts Obama over the GOP to handle the deficit by nine points, 45-36, even though Republicans are widely presumed by commentators to be the ones more deserving of the mantle of “fiscal hawk,” as it has been arbitrarily defined.
              There is a cult of ignorance in the United States, and there has always been. The strain of anti-intellectualism has been a constant thread winding its way through our political and cultural life, nurtured by the false notion that democracy means that "My ignorance is just as good as your knowledge."- Isaac Asimov

              Comment


              • #8
                Then what explains the past November elections? Voters wanted more "fiscal hawks"?

                Comment


                • #9
                  The only voter mandates are in the minds of those who get elected. Did ANY republican talk about mandates when they were voted out of the WH, the house and the senate at the same time? Now they hold a slim margin in the house and its a voter mandate? get real. Voters are fickle and they continue to swing this way or the other way simply because their lives suck and they want change. What voters fail to understand is that whenever the republicans or the democrats are in charge...its business as usual and the countries general direction is down the toilet.
                  Removing a single turd from the cesspool doesn't make any difference.

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                  • #10
                    Hard to say that voters wanted much that they didn't already have. The Tea Party and some of the Fox pundits keep referring to the 2010 election as "Historic" But there was nothing special about it. 87% of incumbents that ran in the House were reelected. 84% in the Senate.

                    In cases where the incumbent did not run/retired, the Senate had a 73% Party retention rate. The House was 64%.

                    Seems like the voters wanted more of the same. Even if all we heard was "Kick them all out". We may hate Congress but we love our own Congressman
                    Last edited by Gun Grape; 17 Mar 11,, 01:50.

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                    • #11
                      I don't know why it's a surprise. The right hates him for being a socialist and the far left for being like Clinton and too moderate. The truth is He is and has always been a pragmatist.
                      Where free unions and collective bargaining are forbidden, freedom is lost.”
                      ~Ronald Reagan

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                      • #12
                        Originally posted by Julie View Post
                        Then what explains the past November elections? Voters wanted more "fiscal hawks"?
                        A friend of mine, a die-hard GOPer, said in late October, "The Democrats are going to get hammered in the [2010] elections for the simple reason that unemployment is high. It happened to Reagan in 1982 and to everyone else in a similar situation. There's nothing anyone can do about it."

                        I agree. Even though the weekly unemployment claims have fallen, under Mr Obama, faster than under any other president since records were first kept back in 1967, they are still high. When you start at 700,000 a week, improvement to 400,000 a week is dramatic, but still higher than usual.
                        Trust me?
                        I'm an economist!

                        Comment


                        • #13
                          Originally posted by ZFBoxcar View Post
                          Interesting possibility. While that may be the electoral logic behind it, I think the political reason is that he knows only conservative legislation will pass until at least 2012.
                          It's probably not possible to separate electoral logic from politics. But as for Obama's political reasoning, if it is, as it appears to be, to skim some of the credit for any popular measures the GOP passes during this Congress without taking any of the blame for the unpopular ones, then the 2012 election is very much on his mind. His bi-partisan strategy won't sway many Republican voters, but it may sway just enough of the independents and conservative Democrats who abandonned him to give the GOP a majority in the House last election.



                          As for the pendulum...I'm not so sure it exists. There is always a yearning for some golden age of civility that probably didn't exist. People thought the 1988 campaign was brutal at the time. Hell, the Lincoln-Douglas debates were considered to be uncivilized political bickering at the time.
                          lol...I agree the idea of a golden age of civility is a myth. Perhaps we can just agree that the hounds bark less in some periods than others.

                          Still, pendulum seems like an apt term to descibe the big picture shifts in political tastes. Nothing ever being perfect means one party will always get the blame for any imperfections observed during its watch, and the voters, being hopeless optimists, will always turn to the party in the wings to in hopes it will make things perfect. We know where that ends up swinging. That's what I love about a constituent democracy: the people will invariably throw out one set of bastards and replace them with another.

                          ps : welcome back
                          To be Truly ignorant, Man requires an Education - Plato

                          Comment


                          • #14
                            Originally posted by Gun Grape View Post
                            Hard to say that voters wanted much that they didn't already have. The Tea Party and some of the Fox pundits keep referring to the 2010 election as "Historic" But there was nothing special about it. 87% of incumbents that ran in the House were reelected. 84% in the Senate.

                            In cases where the incumbent did not run/retired, the Senate had a 73% Party retention rate. The House was 64%.
                            GG:

                            All of the House was up for reelection but only a third of the Senate. That makes the GOP gains in the Senate more impressive and equally significant--no more super majority.

                            The GOP definitely got a mandate from the voters last fall. A change that sweeping is not an accident. I think part of it was widespread dissatisfaction with the heath care package and the way the dems rammed it through the House. Here you have to give the GOP credit for convincing voters that the dems are running roughshod over the political process. The subliminal picture they created of dems hiding even more costly measures up their sleeve with no one to stop them was powerful.

                            But even that amounts to a mandate to get spending under control, or at least prevent more of it. That's where the GOP has to be careful; holding down spending is not the same as cutting programs to shreds.
                            Last edited by JAD_333; 17 Mar 11,, 08:17.
                            To be Truly ignorant, Man requires an Education - Plato

                            Comment


                            • #15
                              Originally posted by Roosveltrepub View Post
                              I don't know why it's a surprise. The right hates him for being a socialist and the far left for being like Clinton and too moderate. The truth is He is and has always been a pragmatist.
                              More like flip-flopper come lately.
                              "Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other." - John Adams

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