From change agent to dealmaker
This kos diary by brooklynbadboy is probably the best Obama diary I’ve read since the election. The set up is worth reading, but I’ll cut to the chase.
President Obama is a good man in a bad system. Despite his best campaign wishes, the Washington that he came to change has gotten the better of him. Even before his inauguration, he chose to be a part of the very system he told us was broken. Appointing their Brahmans to important positions within his administration. Negotiating with their lobbyists. Appeasing their media. But the insider game isn’t played for the people he came to address in that conference room four years ago. It is played for the people who sat quietly in that hall last week. Once you become part of a broken system, you too will be broken. He may have thought that he could make this system work for common folks, being the institutionalist that he is. Unfortunately, it won’t. If you don’t break it, it will break you.
Instead of being the public leader, the transformational leader, that many of us expected, the leader he campaigned to be, he’s shrunk. He’s just become another Washington insider playing the insider game. The insider game has him making choices between shutting down the government and stepping on the poor. The insider game has him choosing between tax cuts for the wealthy or declaring war on the unemployed middle class. The insider game has convinced him there is almost nothing he can do about the housing crisis. The insider game has him appointing a corporate CEO who ships jobs overseas as the head of his domestic jobs council. The insider game has him appointing the very same people who ran the economy into the ground as his principal economic advisers. He told us of a Washington that was broken, but he was quite mistaken. Washington works just fine. Just not for regular people.
Perhaps we should be grateful for what he has delivered, for the crises he’s averted. As presidents go, in spite of the systemic problems in Washington, he’s done some good. As a manager, he’s run a relatively clean government with no major scandals. He’s kept the country safe from foreign invasion or attack. He’s gotten up every day, done the job. In his speech this year, he noted many of these accomplishments. All of them were politely applauded. I don’t think a single person in the room, including myself, would deny him his due on the good he’s done given the circumstances.
But somehow, there is sense that this whole thing was supposed to be…bigger. He was the one who said changes he was seeking were akin to the American Revolution, women’s suffrage, and the civil rights movement. He was the one who likened his ascent to a fundamental, realigning, meaningful, transformative event. Instead, he has been mainly tinkering with the establishment, except when the establishment fights back hard and demands no tinkering. We have had nothing akin to any of the major historical events listed above. We instead have a sort of work-a-day, normal, caretaker president. Doing the job, managing the status quo. There is no capital letter movement in this administration.
We approach an election where Barack Obama’s name will be on the ballot for the last time. I believe everyone in that room, including me, is going to vote for him. He’s been okay as far as presidents go. Considering what came before him or what could come after him, we should probably be grateful he’s even choosing to bother. But still, watching him up on the stage made realize how different this event could have been had he only decided that small-ball insider dealmaking isn’t how you make fundamental change. If only he realized that the system he’s working within isn’t designed to work for regular people. That his whole project as a leader wasn’t about passing bills and administrating departments, but leading people to change how they think about this country, their government, and each other. Larger in scope. Deeper in meaning. Historic in proportion. That is what this presidency should have, and could have been.
Robert Reich has a good column today.
“When I was a small boy I was bullied more than most, mainly because I was a foot shorter than everyone else. They demanded the cupcake my mother had packed in my lunchbox, or, they said, they’d beat me up. After a close call in the boy’s room, I paid up. Weeks later, they demanded half my sandwich as well. I gave in to that one, too. But I could see what was coming next. They’d demand everything else. Somewhere along the line I decided I’d have a take a stand. The fight wasn’t pleasant. But the bullies stopped their bullying.
I hope the president decides he has to take a stand, and the sooner the better. Last December he caved in to Republican demands that the Bush tax cut be extended to wealthier Americans for two more years, at a cost of more than $60 billion. That was only the beginning — the equivalent of my cupcake.
Last night he gave away more than half the sandwich — $39 billion less than was budgeted for 2010, $79 billion less than he originally requested. Non-defense discretionary spending — basically, everything from roads and bridges to schools and innumerable programs for the poor — has been slashed.
The right-wing bullies are emboldened. They will hold the nation hostage again and again.
In a few weeks the debt ceiling has to be raised. After that, next year’s budget has to be decided on. House Budget Chair Paul Ryan has already put forward proposals to turn Medicare into vouchers that funnel money to private insurance companies, turn Medicaid and Food Stamps into block grants that give states discretion to shift them to the non-poor, and give even more big tax cuts to the rich.
There will also be Republican votes to defund the new health care law.
“Americans of different beliefs came together,” the president announced after agreement was reached. It was the “largest spending cut in our history.” He sounded triumphant. In fact, he’s encouraging the bullies onward.
All the while, he and the Democratic leadership in Congress refuse to refute the Republicans’ big lie — that spending cuts will lead to more jobs. In fact, spending cuts now will lead to fewer jobs. They’ll slow down an already-anemic recovery. That will cause immense and unnecessary suffering for millions of Americans.
The president continues to legitimize the Republican claim that too much government spending caused the economy to tank, and that by cutting back spending we’ll get the economy going again.
Even before the bullies began hammering him his deficit commission already recommended $3 of spending cuts for every dollar of tax increase. Then the President froze non-defense domestic spending and froze federal pay. And he continues to draw the false analogy between a family’s budget and the national budget.
He is losing the war of ideas because he won’t tell the American public the truth: That we need more government spending now — not less — in order to get out of the gravitational pull of the Great Recession.
That we got into the Great Recession because Wall Street went bonkers and government failed to do its job at regulating financial markets. And that much of the current deficit comes from the necessary response to that financial crisis.
That the only ways to deal with the long-term budget problem is to demand that the rich pay their fair share of taxes, and to slow down soaring health-care costs.
And that, at a deeper level, the increasingly lopsided distribution of income and wealth has robbed the vast working middle class of the purchasing power they need to keep the economy going at full capacity.
“We preserved the investments we need to win the future,” he said last night. That’s not true. The budget he just approved will cut Pell grants to poor kids, while states continue massive cutbacks in school spending — firing tens of thousands of teachers and raising fees at public universities. The budget he approved is cruel to the nation’s working class and poor.
It is impossible to fight bullies merely by saying they’re going too far.”
This post originally appeared at RobertReich.org.
Once again the President and the Democrats LOSE in allowing the BLUNT-SKULLS to control the narrative.
I hear loud and clear the frustration that those who supported Obama in 2008 feel with the path that we have gone down in the past 2+ years. Indeed there are many forks in the road where we did not go down the path we’d like (Guantanamo was one of the first).
I offer two thoughts.
First, admit that while there is no question that Obama’s campaign portrayed him as the agent of Change, he also was clearly a deal-maker, more than an ideologue. I know of Dems who supported Hillary and Edwards over Obama early on due to Obama’s lack of support for single-payer health care. It really shouldn’t shock anyone that Obama’s nature is to make deals to move the ball down the field.
Second, identify your purpose in a discussion. If it is to help define the Overton Window, to strive to push the administration to the left, then that’s fine. But realize that there are limits to this, and there are times to back off on that. Working on that window 100% of the time ultimately weakens the elected official. Obama can be viewed as too moderate for Democrats and too revolutionary for the Republicans, and we can end up with a Republican president in 2012. There is a time and place (many times, many places) to help define the Overton Window. But there are also times and places to stop adjusting the window frame and help celebrate the view we have.
“Perhaps we should be grateful for what he has delivered, for the crises he’s averted.” This is an incredible understatement. There is zero question in my mind that if McCain was elected we would be in deep sh*t economically. There is no “perhaps” in my statement: ‘I am very grateful for what Obama has delivered, for the crises he’s averted.’
I am very proud that we elected Obama as President of the United States, and I look forward to helping him be re-elected next year.
In my notes from last week’s PDD meeting I note “Matt Denn was followed by Mike D’Armi, the Delaware State Director of OFA, Organizing for America, which will be leading the efforts in Delaware to have President Obama re-elected next year. He encouraged attendees to reach out to him (darmim@dnc.org) with questions and constructive suggestions, and to find out how you can help.” I consider this a good opportunity to work on that Window, providing additional voice to the Hope that Obama can deliver more on the change that we seek. However, the day will come where we all need to come together and push for Obama’s re-election.”
Hear, hear Paul
Ok, here’s one suggestion Mr.PBaumbach.
The Bush tax cuts to the rich the President went belly-up on in December were FRAMED by the BLUNT-SKULLS as TAX HIKES.
We should message them as WELFARE for the RICH, which IS what they are!!!!
Why the supposedly smartest people in the Democratic party can’t,including you I guess, come out with this message and CONTINUALLY HAMMER it into the minds of the American populace I find astounding!
And CORPORATE welfare has already been named.
Yet the DEMOCRATIC messaging is all over the place.
We see it here in particular with Tommy the Carpetbagger who never met a BIG BANK that he wasn’t ready to go steady with.
ST–agreed. The frame of the message is critical, and sticking to it is necessary. Ending corporate welfare and millionaire welfare should indeed be regularly shouted from the rooftops.
Robert Reich gets it wrong. Obama isn’t giving in to the bullies; he is joining them in their bullying of the middle class. We are the ones who need to take a stand.
Obama promised change and he delivered. In those heady moments after Obama was elected, did you think during his term there would be a bill on the floor to repeal Medicare?
Obama ran on bipartisanship and compromise. But when Republicans ended up a smoking wreck in the ditch after the election, I think Obama was surprised at the extent of his victory. Obama should have changed his tune and thrown them an anchor. Instead, he helped them out of the ditch.
Paul,
for the most part i agree with you… I just HAVE to see Obama show some sort of piss and vinegar before i can start knocking on doors again. He’s come close many times to actually fighting, and It should be noted that GWB was a doer. he fought hard for the disastrous ideologies he and his Right Wing cronies wanted and he got most of them. It is indeed a change to have a president who doesnt stamp his neck on the minority party….
I understood that is what Obama would be.
Let me say that again. When i voted for Obama I KNEW he would make compromises i might have issues with rather than ideological dictates that I agreed with. I was ok with this, and i voted for it. I voted for it because i thought getting most of what you want in a civil way was better than getting everything you want and pissing off half the country.
I was wrong. That is an impossible pipe-dream
The view of the GOP and the Conservative right have no place in our future. They only serve to make the rich richer and the poor poorer. I realize now that they have nothing to offer that can improve the lives of most Americans.
I need to know that Obama also realizes this…. and if I can be convinced that his next term will be about unapologetically fighting for Democratic principles and keeping his foot firmly on Boner and McTurtle’s necks, I’ll find that 2008 feelin’ again.
And that Plouffe [?sp] guy? He might be from DE and he sure as HELL can “brainiac” a CAMPAIGN, but he hasn’t a FUCKING clue how to re-ignite me now.
I’ll vote for the little “o”, but my money and sweat are going to progressive candidates here in the BIG D.
I’m with ya skip. De is moving a lot progressive legislation forward and becoming deeper blue. (im thinkin my band will play at a lot of gay weddings with open bong-bars before too long) If I have to take a page from the Tbag playbook and “purify” my state, so be it for now. Gotta help the libs like MJ (and others) in lower delaware and drive out those dirty conservatives!
I plan on doing some binge drinking Wednesday night:
Hey,sb,can I play the tambourine or be a roadie at one of those “bong-bars”?
And I want to hear from MJ.
If he went to the open meeting held by Vance Phillips to have a hearing on Sheriff Christopher’s requests to fundamentally change his department, I wonder what was said.
I’d like to have been there for my friend MJ.
He is BAD.
And in the vernacular of the streets, that means GOOOD!!!!
Hey, anon, let’s hook up and get faced.
My dear wife will make sure we both get home alive.
Paul, Count me out on Obama 2012. I’ll be on the sidelines for this one. Destroying the New Deal programs that gave this country 60 years of a growing and vibrant middle class is not change I can believe in.
I hope we’ll have some Democrats running for office here in Delaware that I can support.
@jason330-One’s a guy standing on a soapbox. Two’s a conspiracy of like minds.Threes a movement.
Let’s get it on!!!
And there you have it, folks. Liberalism you can believe in. Standing on the sidelines, hoping for something else to do.
🙄
John Cole speaks for me on the Obama Betrayal Peacockery.
Destroying the New Deal programs
Including progressive taxation.
Bush delivered blows against the programs but was mostly repulsed; Obama is now strolling through the battlefield shooting the wounded.
No offense because we’ve never met – but I’m in a pickle. I like the people who like Obama a lot more than I like the people who don’t like Obama. So I’m planning on weeping silently like the 1970’s pollution CSA indian while Obama runs on cutting Medicaid and more tax cuts to spur the economy.
Also, I’m looking forward to being on the same side as Cassandra someday. When the Obama Presidency is a unpleasant memory.
We are on the same side. I really wish we could focus on that.
I’m not going to tell anyone what they should do. I’ll worry about myself because, I do not have the time or energy to fight with people I agree with… especially since I have no idea what their endgame is. Defeat Obama? Punish him? Expose him as a fraud? And then what? I honestly don’t know, and I’m all ears if someone would like to explain where all this sitting on the sidelines is leading.
John Cole is arguing for Democrats to fall in line and be more Republican in outlook. So is Obama. So is everybody. Call me weak, but I don’t have the heart for that.
Falling in line, and it’s evil opposite, “Betrayal Peacockery” are things that I’m not interested in, that’s why I’ll be one the sidelines.
I can only speak for myself, but my goals for being on the sideline are to not get involved in influencing the outcome either way. Good luck to everyone and leave me out of it.
Hey, I won’t be sitting on no FUCKING sidelines,pandora.
I just won’t be humping for little “o”.
Even though I absolutely abhor his “head ’em off at the pass” by unilaterally giving up half my position before negotiations have begun to show I’m willing to compromise.
Fuck that ball-less wonder!!!!
For the record, I put this up because it spoke to me as a coda, a final Obama post from someone who can say all of that a lot better than I could. I have no interest in Presidential politics anymore.
So… your goals will lead to nothing? Come on, Jason. That’s not like you.
“And there you have it, folks. Liberalism you can believe in. Standing on the sidelines, hoping for something else to do.”
No, just doing something else with the $1,000 spent on Obama donations in 2008 (my wife’s, not mine, but all from the same pot). I will donate to audacity. I will not donate to an appeaser.
I’m with Jason 330!!!!!!!!
Right on Geez!!!!
Yeah, the audacity of Chamberland and the unrequited hope of Anne Frank.
Speaking of dealmaker: The budget deal itself is not so horrible, at least not as long as you are prepared to write off tax cuts for the rich as a sunk cost.
What concerns me is God-Knows-What side deals made by Obama and Reid in the process of passing the budget. What we know:
Reid has agreed to separate votes on Planned Parenthood, HCR repeal, and NPR I think. With Reid standing down, that leaves only Obama as the backstop – not very reassuring. I wouldn’t be surprised if half the Senate Democrats vote with the Republicans simply so they don’t have to take the heat in an election year.
Obama is announcing plans for cuts in Medicare and Medicaid. And he keeps talking about “tax reform,” which leads me to believe he will never get around to expiring his tax cuts for the rich (an expiration he pledged he would fight for).
Obama is letting his Pentagon people beat up peacemakers including old ladies. Nothing like that happened under Bush’s watch. See: June Eisley’s post on DEWay and be disgusted with yet another crappier-than-Bush Obama legacy in action.
No, just doing something else with the $1,000 spent on Obama donations in 2008 (my wife’s, not mine, but all from the same pot). I will donate to audacity. I will not donate to an appeaser.
Geezer, not trying to pick a fight, just curious: When did you come to this conclusion? It has been obvious to me since the abandonment of the public option.
Well then… so be it. But if we end up with a Republican President don’t complain, because that’s really the endgame here.
I have no interest in Presidential politics anymore.
For once the fact that Delaware’s vote doesn’t matter much is working in your favor.
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Many of us gave up supporting the Blue Dog-ridden DSCC/DCCC in favor of supporting only candidates who support our positions. Standing down for support of Obama 2012 is no different.
Screw the BIG TENT theory.
We should have PLANKS that Democratic candidates run on and believe in.FUCK the BLUE-DOGS.Dinos all of them.
We have to purge the party or start another.
There is NO other option.
I really wish that the teabaggers would lay claim to this dysfunctional approach to getting themselves heard. A damn pity that it is so-called liberals who seem to have this abdication of the field business apparently in their DNA.
Guess I should get ready to be purged.
“A prophet is not without honor, except in his hometown and among his relatives and in his own household.”
Guess I should get ready to be purged.
By your pals on the so-called left? Would not hold my breath. They’re all hat, no cattle as they say.
Ever since the programs were created, any Republican who attacked Medicare, Social Security, or Medicaid has gotten his fingers burned badly. Now Republicans have their head deeper inside the trap than ever before, but Obama won’t snap it shut.
Bunch of comment rescues from dKos:
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Whether you decide to work for Obama, or sit on the sidelines, we are all not being Democrats in our own way.
When did I reach the conclusion not to donate? When the Guantanamo deadline passed without action. My hope lasted longer, but I realized right away we had ourselves a centrist. The imperial presidency issues were the most important barometer to me, because they would have cost so little political capital while testing his principles. He flunked.
Want real change? Freedom? Liberty?
Vote Ron Paul in 2012.
Do not fall for the band-wagon mentality. Do your own research. Draw your own conclusions.
There will be those who, in the oldest traditions of anti-intellectuals and anti-free thinkers, voice immediate opposition. Do not allow them to make your opinion for you.
The only worthwhile weapon you can wield in the fight for liberty is your own knowledge.
I suggest starting with the Republican primary debates from the last presidential election:
http://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=ron+paul+debate&aq=f
For those of you who enjoy watching the positions of neo-conservative Republicans decimated in intellectual debate, I highly recommend it.
Pass.
I am neither anti-intellectual nor ant-free-thinking (perhaps unknown to you, “free thinker” once meant “athiest.”) But I have to laugh when free-thinking and intellectualism are called upon to justify faith in Ron Paul and his grab-bag of positions so beloved by a certain stripe of self-satisfied “libertarian.” (Bonus question: Can anyone find me a libertarian who isn’t self-satisfied?)
You’re trolling for votes on the wrong blog, Pub. Liberals believe in collective action, not individual wonderfulitude. What you call “freedom” and “liberty” translate into “devil take the hindmost.” I believe in taxing those with means — you included — to take of those without.
Ron Paul’s positions play perfectly into many of the myths Americans cherish, but he has as little chance at the presidency as Dennis Kucinich, who much better fits the liberal value system, and would easily win a face-off among this blog’s regulars.
no thats plubis. If i want a crazy fraud who thinks that anyone in the country can be a self made man…. as long as they are white and start out with lots and lots of money, i’ll vote for the Donald…. he has better hair.
I’m kinda waiting until the speech on Wednesday to pass judgment on Obama, on the budget matter.
What could he possibly say to make a difference?
Hey sb, the jury is still out on exactly what perches on the Donalds head.
What is that thing and how does it stay in place?
The INQUIRER would pay big bucks to see him get it wet or expose himself to a gentle wind.
Skip, i researched it. If you distill and boil down the tears of poor people, you get a very fine silky resin. They say It lends it self nicely to synthetic hair.
the “I’d Vote for Obama, he’s better than the other guy” mentality is alive and well with Pandora and Cassandra.
I’m curious. What Does Obama have to do to actually lose your support?
I ask because I’m curious what he HAS actually done to garner so much support.
while your thinking, feel free to peruse the soon to be regulated internet
None of the above, dv. Is that where you going with this?
Lots of us will still vote for him, DV. Your abandonment issues shouldn’t cloud your political sense. Your other choices are the GOP and various third-party “protest” candidates. I chose the latter for nearly 30 years, until GWB ran. It’s no longer viable to me to toss my vote.
Perhaps VC.
I’m not sure why you call them abandonment issues though Geezy. You make things like promises made during an election seem trivial or inconsequential. It’s almost as if you are accepting of being lied too. I’m not. I do take it personally. Do you know why? B/C it’s my life, my children’s lives and their children’s lives. I don’t like being lied too.
By not voting for a republican I voice my opinion. BY not voting for a Democrat I also voice my opinion. By not voting for either I also voice my opinion.
I’ll be fine with voting for a “3rd Party” candidate. Eventually the system will succumb to the will of the people. And, until people like myself, you, pandora and Cassandra stop casting votes b/c the other guy is worse we will continue to get a candidate like we have in office now.
I have higher standards for elected officials than most people I guess. Call me an ideologue, but the minute a guy literally breaks more than one campaign promise he’s on my bad side. When he continues to break promise after promise I don’t vote for him just b/c the other person is a shittier pill to swallow.
Im not trying to start a fight DV…..
but you’re a smart guy and you KNOW that next president will only be either Obama, or ___________(insert teabag here)
you KNOW this. a 3rd party candidate will never ever ever ever win. The game is rigged.
A vote for 3rd party Libtastic is a vote FOR the Teabag running. Is Obama worse than the generic teabag? keep in mind, even the bread-crumbs he’s given us (lilly ledbetter, ending DADT, no longer enforcing DOMA) will be reversed as soon as the Teabag candidate takes office.
you know all of this.
No, I don’t take it as a fight at all.
I do no this, it’s why I voted for John Kerry and Al Gore and see what it got me?
and when I voted for Obama b/c he was what I wanted, see what it got me?
Look, I am a smart guy, so why would I hold my nose and vote?
That’s not smart. Yes, the game is rigged, until, smart people, like you and me, start voting smarter.
You know all of this too… 🙂
I do “know” this (sheesh)