In Republican Victories a Lesson for President Obama
posted by: Marc Seltzer 21 days ago
What does a master politician learn from defeat?
Republicans are claiming the November election shows a renunciation of Barack Obama’s nine months of leadership.
Democrats are reassured by the Owens victory in New York: The Conservative candidate was too far to the right for mainstream America.
But President Obama must surely be licking his wounds. He, and his party, should have won the Virginia and New Jersey governors’ races.
Candidate Obama won those states forcefully in November 2008. How could they be lost so decisively now?
Mr. Obama has been in office 9 months. The public saw in candidate Obama a fix for the errors of President Bush: Bad wars would be ended; good wars would be fought successfully; special interests would be put in their place; the super rich would pay their taxes; average Joes would find jobs, and decisions on health care, foreign policy, financial regulation and immigration would solve knotty problems of budget woes, and nuclear fears while making humanitarian advances.
Ruling is far different from campaigning. We are three-hundred million people living under the representational leadership of one head-of-state who shares power with 500 or so others representing each and every bit of our union from the Hawaiian Islands to the Eastern seaboard.
Every President suffers in the elections following their inauguration as the public’s hopes are dashed by the realities of governance. What seemed so obvious and positive in a speech during the campaign becomes so complicated and expensive when you face it squarely and manifest it in policy and law.
But is that it? Is it just disappointment with reality?
I don’t think so. It’s more than that.
The President has presided over one of the most remarkable economic events in U.S. history. The financial industry – a core pillar of American and international business -- was brought to the brink of collapse. Democratic and Republican leaders acted quickly and creatively without a playbook to rescue the financial sector. This was not an average recession, but an international crisis of finance that was bigger than the financial system itself. That’s why the government had to step in, but the results will be debated and lessons included in the next generation’s history books.
Possibly fearful of making a mistake, the President has hesitated to explain clearly to the American people just what has happened. Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner and a league of economists in government and academia have spoken to the causes and reform proposals. With all due respect to Secretary Geithner’s intellect and articulateness, President Obama, with his commanding charisma and office of authority, must lead on this issue.
If the nation had plunged into a depression, rather than skirting perilously around the edge, the President would be expected to lead us through. The fact that we may have avoided more catastrophic losses does not obviate the profound need for leadership to speak powerfully to the causes, remedies, and reform. It is not enough that competent leaders work the process through congressional committees and administrative working groups. The President must face the event squarely and communicate to the public about his presidency’s relationship to these historic times. When I think of the Great Depression, I think of Roosevelt telling the nation “the only thing we have to fear is fear itself.” When I think of the bombing of Britain, there is Churchill saying, “I have nothing to offer but blood, toil, tears, and sweat.” But when I think of the financial crisis of 2008-2009, I think of Paul Krugman and Bloomberg Economics.
And this leads back to November 3, 2009. The reason that the Democrats lost in battles against Republicans is that the public is concerned about direction of the government on the economy. What has the President done in 9 months of office? He has addressed the financial crisis and pushed ahead on health care. Both of these programs deal fundamentally with economics (if money grew on trees, we wouldn't bother with insurance reform) and the fiscal state of the nation. Yet the President has not yet done what he is capable of to express a coherent financial plan on either issue. He is, of course, subject to Republican criticism no matter what, but more important than that, he does not have the confidence of the moderate middle of the country who decide close elections.
Bill Clinton lost a great deal of his authority in 1994 when the Republicans retook power in Congress two years into his presidency. President Obama has had a hint of what can happen in the losses in Virginia and New Jersey. A gift in disguise?
Mr. Obama needs to refocus his communication priorities to explain to the American people his short- and long-term economic vision. He needs to include a convincing dose of reality in his message rather than campaign rehtoric -- not just "economic recovery" and "bend the cost curve" but targets for deficit and debt, goals for long term spending and revenue, transition from stimulus to private economic activity. And the President must deliver and stay on the message himself in order to inspire confidence in the majority of Americans.
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Read more: politics, republicans, democrats, president obama, nov. 3
comments
I don't live in America but I agree with what Rex J.and many others said: even though I live in another Country,I was afraid of S. Palin and McCainand I'm still afraid of Republicans in general. I've had enough of Conservatives from all over the world. My Country, Italy, is ruled by a terrific, racist,authoritative Right which is destroying my Country from all points of view, so I'd give one year of my life to have a President like Obama even though he is not perfect, and maybe he could do some more (I'm notr sure, though).
Sorry for my silly rant.
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Lionel Mann..... I respect your opinion, but have you considered that you might be influenced by the same propaganda that Americans have been."..he supported financial institutions that radically undermined the nation's and the world's economic stability, but to have let them fail would have led to even greater disaster".. Read the truth from the Federal Reserves own paper: titled "Facts and Myths about the Financial Crisis of 2008"...... http://www.minneapolisfed.org/research/WP/WP666.pdf
After that, please check opensecrets.org to see where Obama got the cash for his rise to power. It came from Wall Street, especially the Financial Services Corporations. The largest "contributor": Goldman Sachs. Then you could check Obama's voting record. Including his support for the Patriot Act. And why is it that Obama as a Senator voted to fund the Wars in both Iraq and Afghanistan?....
After that you might check the Huffington Post for details on Obama's deals with big Pharma that sold out Americans on the current Health Care Bill. These sources are not subject to the spin that infects the "information" America and the World gets from the Corporate and Politically dominated media.
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The general public is notoriously fickle. To judge a president on what he has done or not managed to do in less than a quarter of his term of office is ridiculous. Give him a chance; he inherited a disgusting shambles.
Yes, it looks bad that he has supported financial institutions that radically undermined the nation's and the world's economic stability, but to have let them fail would have led to even greater disaster. Now he must impose stricter regulation. Will he have the courage to oppose the warmongers and to withdraw from Iraq and Afghanistan? Let's see what he can do, given time.
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Ladies and Gentlemen, Our president does not need to find a better method to convey his economic vision for the nation. He needs an economic vision for the nation that serves all Americans, not just the rich. His administration has overseen a huge transfer of funds to BANKS, private organizations that do not need it (and news reports of the past nine months support that) while doing nothing to correct the injustices of his predecessor. His entire campaign was based on the nations, nay, the worlds desire for change...and President Obama has let us down. The recent loses suffered by his party and colleges were not a wake up call...they were a back lash.
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Here's something to think about. Those people complaining about Obama they are the same ones who think McCain and Palin would have done better at fixing this recession. Their ideas were to let the banks fail, let GM and Crysler fail, and for a stymulus, $450 billion in tax cuts. And we sit here fighting with these intellects. MCCain who said the fundamentals of they economy are strong and Palin when asked what newspapers she reads to get her information from couldn't think of a single one so she said "all of them". We argue with these people. Anyway when we hear these poor souls ranting on about Obama just think how bad it could have been if John McNothing and Wailin' Palin had won.
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Previous administrations are being blamed for the current economic mess we are in, but we are forgetting that Congress is the legislative branch of the government and the White House is Administrative branch of the government. Congress is just as responsible for our financial mess as past Presidential Administrations, since they have to legislate the laws and regulations before they are signed by the President. I see no change in the current way the congress is doing buisiness. The party in power throws their weight around and the minority party fights back, tooth and nail. As many earmarks are being tacked on to bills passed by the current congress as when the Republicans were in control of congress and the President has yet to keep his campaign promise of using his Line-item-veto powers to cut government spending. He even adopted BWB's budget for 2009, when GWB ignored a balanced budget from the Clinton administration and came up with their own (they should have stayed with Clinton's budget). Instead of redoing GWB's 2009 budget, Democrats and the White House just blamed the 1.9 TRILLION dollar deficit budget on GWB and did nothing about it. Easier to blame the past administation than to fix the problem. I'm a moderate, and it's time to stop blaming previous White House administrations for our problems and fix the problems in congress with both parties.
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Barack Who's Sane Obama, OUR Nobel Laureate President, took office in January of this year, and already people are pronouncing what a consummate failure he is. Do we need any further proof as to what an impatient lot we Americans are?
Too bad if his opponents say they're tired of hearing about "the mess he inherited". It was and still is a monumental mess of gigantic proportions. (Sorry about the redundancy, but it can't be overstated what a humongous (oops, there I go again) mess his predecessorS left him).
My faith in him has never been shaken. I have every confidence that he will make his way through this and we will be the better for it, for having voted him into office.
Get a little TRUE GRIT, you people who were behind him in 08, and are beginning to abandon him now. Sure we've got hard times right now. He never said the solutions to them were gonna be easy.
The lesson in the last elections MAY be that the young people didn't show up at the polls like they did for Obama in 08.
As for Obama, he's the right man for the job, and we're lucky to have him.
Mary
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Politicians are very dissapointing. However Obama is one man not God. People need to remmeber all this mess did not happen in a day. it has accumulated over the years and was powered by greed and money. Apparently not much has changed. Greed and money will be the death of us I am afraid.
In any case whether we love him or hate him Obama needs our prayers he is dealing with an horrendous mess from previous administrations that were greedy and money hungry.
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"Fetished Rape Porn that is Atlas Shrugged."
Where?
Lord of the Rings might be a good economic primer, I'll have to ponder that. One group that wants to take liberty, power, and goods by force and another that wants to defend it. That might actually work. That and the hobbits who want to garden organically and smoke pipe weed would have difficulty with a Monsanto guy heading the Dept of Agriculture and the new administration banning flavored tobacco. Wonder if the hobbits could smoke today? Cant remember if their pipes had cloves, vanilla, peach, etc., in it.
As far as connection to reality, if you mean the one we are in now, probably an accurate statement. I realize your comment was not addressed to me, but you did slam Atlas Shrugged and it is, at least currently, an open forum?
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Also, Ann, anyone who glorifies that idiotic tale of a mythical world of fetishized rape Porn that is Atlas Shrugged surely has no connection to reality. You might as well worship the Lord of the Rings as an economic guide book.
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