I don't know if I would call it a "leftward surge" or a "suicide march"--a little hyperventilating for my taste--but David Brooks is essentially right in this column. Those, including me, who predicted that Obama's most difficult challenge would be his confrontation with Democratic party liberals have been proven wrong. Obama is falling out not with them but with the party's moderates. As Brooks says, he did it on the stimulus, he did it on the budget, and he is doing it on healthcare. Obama remains well-liked overall, but his support among independents is slipping, and his policies are less popular than he is. A rot appears to be setting in. Can the White House really be surprised?
For a moment put the merits of the policies to one side. (Just to remind, I was for a big fiscal stimulus, but wanted to see more front-loaded tax cuts; I was dismayed by the long-term fiscal implications of the budget; I am for comprehensive health reform with a guarantee of universal coverage but favor broad-based taxes to pay for it, including limits to the tax deductibility of employer-provided insurance.) Let us suppose Obama thinks that Nancy Pelosi and the unions are right on all these topics, and Max Baucus is wrong. Even then, shouldn't somebody be advising him on political strategy? This is the aspect I find completely perplexing.
Brooks says:
The party is led by insular liberals from big cities and the coasts, who neither understand nor sympathize with moderates. They have their own cherry-picking pollsters, their own media and activist cocoon, their own plans to lavishly spend borrowed money to buy votes.
No doubt, but surely even from within the cocoon you can see what a losing approach this is. Why did Obama win in the first place, for heaven's sake? Because he campaigned as a centrist. Admittedly, what he really believed was often in doubt, and some of the policy specifics made one wonder. But look at health care. He positioned himself to the right--toward the cautious center--of Hillary Clinton. And it worked pretty well, didn't it?
If Obama offends the left, what are they going to do apart from whine? Let them whine. If he offends the center, he loses votes and is deeply wounded electorally. And so is the party in Congress, since the swing seats are almost by definition the ones where moderates and independents drive the outcome. When Max Baucus declared that the president wasn't helping him, sirens should have gone off in the White House--and some advisers should have been fired on the spot.
Obama could fix this problem so easily. I say that because I don't think he has strayed as far left as Brooks does. It's as much about messaging as policy. But he has to start disappointing the party's liberals. He has to pick a fight or two, and takes sides with the centrists. In choosing the party's liberals over the party's moderates, he is repudiating one of the most brilliant campaigns ever seen. I simply don't understand it.
Mr. Crook,
Normally, I agree with what you're posting, but what you're positing doesn't make sense and neither does Mr. Brooks'. Obama has, since he has been in office, consistently attacked the liberal wing of his party. From Counter-terrorism to the bailouts to gay rights legislation, all of it, has been done against the more liberal wings' wishes. The Stimulus is included with that assessment. He didn't have to give 40% of the Stimulus to the Republicans in Tax Cuts. He did in an attempt to get their votes, and it backfired.
With Healthcare, Obama has chosen to go with what "works" versus what "doesn't work". If that requires going with a liberal idea, then that's what he'll do. If that requires going with a republican idea, then that's what he'll do. Mr. Brooks seems to be a little irritated that Mr. Obama has chosen to ignore Wyden/Enzi Healthcare legislation. Mr. Obama seems focused on costs and right now, one of the best cost-cutting measures is the public option. It can save about 150 billion over 10 years, if it is robust enough. The trigger plan would be basically meaningless in terms of cost cutting, and the co-op plan which Mr. Conrad had showed an interest in, has a history of not being implemented properly. Hence, we are left with the Public option.
One of the first things that Republicans did, on an ideological basis, is decide that they were against that option. It's very difficult to find any republicans for that option, simply based on ideology (they don't care what it does or doesn't do). Though, Olympia Snowe, to her credit, may back that measure. The blue dogs and new democrats (the so-called "middle") express hesitance on that, because they don't want republicans to run against them on that (again, another ideological decision with no basis in reality). You mentioned before in a previous article that Obama is "choosing to be weak" in not confronting Congress. It seems to me that is exactly what he is doing. He's confronting those members of congress who are IDEOLOGICALLY pre-disposed against ideas that work and help things. Those may not be the members of Congress you want him to confront, but in doing so, Obama is neither weak nor liberal.
"He didn't have to give 40% of the Stimulus to the Republicans in Tax Cuts. He did in an attempt to get their votes, and it backfired."
TAX CUTS . . . what tax cuts? The tax cuts, as Obama defines them, are actually checks sent to "some" individuals, of which I was not one.
You actually believe everything this man says, and it is very sad.
You say: "I simply don't understand it".
I hate to break this to you, but what you evidently don't understand (nor does Mr. Brooks) is that Mr. Obama is a hard-core ideological leftist that used a centrist strategy to get elected. One had to blinded (by hope) not to see this during the campaign; and one has to stay blind not to realize this now. Orwell said it best: "To see what's in front of one's nose needs a constant struggle." Try some squinting, Mr. Crook. Cheers
I find this extremely weird. Obviously the words "left" and "right" are spatial metaphors that are given meaning only by where the user sits on the spectrum. So it's not particularly weird that Mr Crook and Mr Brooks would find Obama's approach to healthcare too liberal. That's the job of conservatives -- to find everything that Democrats do too liberal. Fair enough. Off you sit on the righthand wing of the spectrum, and everything back to the left of you, including what looks to this liberal like the right-of-center governance of, say, Bill Clinton, looks scarily leftist.
What is weird to me is the agreement of Mr Brooks and Mr Crook that Obama has been giving in way too much to the left-wing of his party. Even though I realize that conservatives still love to describe Obama as a scary left-winger, it should be obvious enough from reading the occasional newspaper that Obama has been a huge disappointment to the left wing of his party, on preventive detention, Guantanamo, the stimulus (way too small), gay rights, etc. And yet you write, Mr Crook, that "a rot is setting in" because Obama is not automatically giving in to the most conservative Democrats (who to you, understandably, are "moderates," situated as they are rather back toward the left from that righthand-perch you're sitting on). I get that you want him to govern as a Republican. That's your job, your prerogative. But....
Since TR in 1912 tried to do something about national health care, the nation has tried, and failed, to achieve it. And now Baucus and his pals are saying "Whoaaaa -- slow down!" And Obama is saying, "If we slow down, it will never get done." And you and Mr Brooks say not merely that Baucus is right, but that he's OBVIOUSLY right. "He has to start disappointing the party's liberals," you write, forgetting (as you must know, if you have access to the papers and the internet) that he's done almost nothing but disappoint the liberals.
Very weird.
Rightly so. It begs the decision to push it through now or later this year (one step closer to midterm elections). If Democrats are so adamant to push this through now because of a fear of loss in support, why are they resisting central support? I wonder if there is a difference of opinion amongst Democrats over what "change" actually means. Maybe some aren't buying the whole package.
For the most part I think you're putting way to much stock into the day to day BS while ignoring the persistent external factors. The middle isn't held by policy, it's held by results. Obama could pass the most centrist bill ever on healthcare, getting 75 senate votes... yet if unemployment keeps rising then his approval ratings are still going to trend down. The only reality to consider is whether or not Obama can get things done before the economy renders him impotent. It's not realistic to focus on this idea that you can please the center simply by passing legislation. All legislative wins do is give Obama a short term boost while people write nice columns about him for a week. Then after that reality sets in and "moderates" are back to being pissed about rising double-digit unemployment.
That's not the sexiest explanation but it's the one that explains the way approval ratings move throughout modern presidencies.
Lastly, yes, Obama ran to the right of Hillary... and he also ran to the left. Bashing NAFTA was the biggest example, but he also did it on foreign policy. But this is all what made the campaign a brilliant one. Obama's really good at getting people to hear what they want while still doing what HE wants.
Oh har dee har har har. You so called conservatives (who are in reality fringe reactionaries) are so out of touch with the majority of American families that you still insist, after being rejected and trounced in two major elections over the last three years, that you are somehow representative of moderate, majoritarian America.
Newsflash: You ain't.
The problem Obama has had in getting health care reform off the ground is precisely the opposite of what you magical thinkers claim. The problem is that Obama tried too much to accommodate conservatives who have no interest whatsoever in achieving what 70% plus of Americans want-- a comprehensive health care insurance system that covers all and eliminates the innumerable injustices and inadequacies of a private insurance based system (exclusions, profit motive, overhead, rationing, excessive cost, insane pricing and payment procedures, the list goes on and on).
Obama seems to have finally realized that, getting no succor from the out of touch, soon to be out of work right wings of both parties, will no longer play sucker. By forcefully advocating the public health insurance option, he's finally mobilizing the citizenry to put pressure on Congress to pass his program. He would have even more public pressure and support if he had opted for the single payer system he long advocated as senator and candidate. But then, he'd have to spend a lot of time waiting for Blue Dog Dems and nutbag Republicans to clean out their underwear.
You guys are history. The faster you figure that out, the faster you'll stop embarrassing yourself. Why, just ask your chauffer, maid, au paire or any of the other regular Americans you encounter.
Mr. Crook, your problem is that you believed Obama's campaign speeches. I agree with you that the Obama 2008 campaign was one of the most brilliant campaigns ever seen. The relentless focus of vacuous statements about hope and change; solemn and soulful gazes to the heavens, while pretty studiously avoiding any specifics was a master campaign for the ages.
But at the end of the day, Obama is what he is. He's a hard line liberal; he has little taste for being involved in any of the messy day to day details of actually being involved in crafting legislation. If he had such a taste, why did he vote "present" so often? And when he did vote he compiled (depending upon who you believe) either the first or the third most liberal voting record in the Senate.
In short P.T. Barnum lives again; the voting populace saw a sign "This Way to The Egress" --from partisan politics for example--and rushed for it. Instead of that promised post partisan paradise, we've been dumped into the alley with a liberal gutter fighter from the Chicago Machine.
I've been appalled by just about everything Barack Obama has said or done since moving into the White House, but I've never been surprised. Side with the liberals?!? He is the poster child of America's leftwing. If voters had bothered to go past his empty rhetoric and look at his actual record (scant though it was), they would have seen the man the National Journal rated as the MOST liberal member of the U.S. Senate.
It's just more of "arrogance you can believe in."
Obama forgot two cardinal rules.
Rule #1: "Keep your feet on the ground even though friends flatter you."
Rule #2: "Don't believe your own PR."
Birds of a feather flock together. Obama is a radical totalitarian marxist, and there is no denying it. From his writings, his actions, the people he associates with, in each and every way, Obama is a radical totalitarian marxist, and true to marxism's doctrines, he is willing to do or say anything to advance the cause of international totalitarian marxism.
Obama's policies are very consistent with his voting record during his short political career. He is a loyal leftist who really believes in the left wing agenda.
His presidential campaign was well- designed by Axelrod and essentially just had Obama programmer to say the right poll-tested things. Axelrod didn't even bother to change the speeches he used for D. Patrick. He pitched Obama as the "change" candidate to a Bush-hating electorate running against Hilllary's laughable "experience" meme. Against McCain, Axelrod had Obama read centrist/pragmatist speeches, betting that an electorate unscared of the candidates views (despite all the evidence if his past associations and vote) would vote for "change" plus the feel good bonus if voting for a diversity candidate. Even then Obama was having trouble with McCain......until the stock mkt crashed.
I am unsurprised by Obama's policies. I am surprised that an experienced hand like Mr. Crook would take any presidential candidate's speeches at face value. Obama's actions are entirely consistent with his past and are part of a cohesive agenda that would be exactly the same even if we were in economic boom times. Obama is driven by his partisan views, not by real events.
For instance, any attempt to bend the health cost curve lower MUST include malpractice reform, but Obama will never cross the trial lawyers.
An effective almost immediate stimulus would have included cuts in payroll taxes, issuance of federal "gift cards" to be used for consumer spending (with an expiration date)- very easy to do as many states now load unemployment benefits onto special debit cards for recipients, and a doubling if the road repair/maintenance budget of every municipality, provided they hired local unemployed at $10/hr and opened up bidding for extra maintenance work to ALL local firms (even if non-union
Instead the stimulus was a grabbag of Dem initiatives with little urgency and only minimal direct aid to taxpayers, businesses and municipalities.
Like Mr. Crook, I am disappointed, but I am not surprised. Even now Obama is like an automaton reading formulaic Axelrod speeches ( look left, chin high, straw man, look right to read the next sentence off the screen, blame Bush, apologize for the behavior of all Americans before the One, etc etc).
It is fascinating to watch. We have probably the most disconnected president in history, reading scripts that bear little relation to the reflexively liberal, almost theoretical/academic left wing agenda that he supports
A truly brilliant man would have looked to Europe, observed the failings of social democracy in Europe and made an attempt to improve on it or at least adopt best practices. Instead he us ramming through 30 yr old ideas and lying to America about how they'll work and how they will be funded.
Well, there are precious few honest adults in either party
Clive,
There is a simple explanation. The person Obama claimed to be during the campaign isn't who he really is. Obama claimed to be a moderate, after running as a liberal during the primary. And prior to the primary his record (what little of it there was) was extremely liberal.
What I don't understand is why so many people (especially in the media) seemed to take Obama at his word that he would govern from the center or even slightly left of center, given his history, and based only on his general election campaign rhetoric. Then again, thinking of P.T. Barnum, I guess I do understand it.
The Obnoxious American
I understand it. He is, and has been, and will be, with the party's doctrinaire liberals on all domestic matters. He won't disappoint them. True to his Chicago political roots, he is not a reformer but an accommodater of all that is the worst in politics.
I feel your pain, but isn't the answer obvious. Obama is a leftist/socialist/radical or whatever you want to call it.
Mr. Obama marches with the Left because he is more Left than the Libs in Congress are. Do you seriously believe that he wants centrist policies to be a trademark of his administration? Left unchallenged, "you ain't seen nothin yet."
Why did Obama win in the first place, for heaven's sake? Because he campaigned as a centrist.
No. He won because a lot of people like you believed him when he lied. Everything in Obama's history makes it obvious that he is a leftist who genuinely agrees with Pelosi et al. And whenever he went off the teleprompter, he revealed that his own views were quite different from those of his speechwriters.
He won because just enough people were willing to believe rhetoric over reality, combined with just enough people being unenthused about McCain.
I don't think he can fix the problem, because he isn't the person you think he is. He talks one game and plays another. And the game he wants to play is one that he can't win.
Obama ain't no centrist. He's a Chicago machine politician who cut his teeth around America-hating bomb-throwing extremists. He's probably more machine pol than bomb-thrower, but he definitely agrees with them that the government should be a combination of social engineer and giant charity that collects with guns.
Everything he's done is completely predictable from this viewpoint: mega-billions of pork for the boys in the "stimulus", the Detroit mess getting resolved on the UAW's terms, and both Cap'n Trade and Obamacare being laden with vast opportunities to grow the government, with plenty of lucrative nooks and crannies in these phonebook-sized bills for politically connected insiders to get rich.
Clive, I find your confusion amusing. Obama's opponents told you and everyone else that Obama was a far left liberal masquerading as a centrist. But they were ridiculed, scoffed at and ignored. Most liberal senator? Ahh, that means nothing. Hangs out with radicals in every facet of his life from church to dinner parties? Oh, that's a scare tactic.
The fact is, the American people were warned. Obama's record was out there for all to see and the media ignored every extremist friend and radical statement he ever made and demonized anyone who dared to point them out in the name of getting him elected. The only people who aren't shocked are the 48 percent of the country who voted against him. It was also well documented that he has no spine, not to stand up to his party, not to stand up to his preacher, not to stand up to Iran. He's a weak man being led around by the liberal wing of his party and I can only chuckle at the moderates who supported him being surprised by this.
Hasn't Obama always been a lock-step lefty? Whether you like his policies or not, it seems obvious in his short Senate voting record he always leaned way to the left. His campaign retoric was more or less "centrist" but his real life history and record were left-wing.
To me the interesting thing is to see how many in the media and congress are gladly shedding any centrist camouflage and happily embracing Obama's agenda.
Clive,
Look at Obama's voting record in the Senate. You keep thinking he is a centrist, but he isn't. His voting record can only lead to one of two conclusions. He is either the ultra-liberal he appears to be, or he defers to the ultra-liberal wing because he doesn't have the personal fortitude to resist them. In my opinion, he merely adopted centrist positions to win the election. The radical left and the liberal media let him do it because they knew he wouldn't or couldn't oppose them once he was in office.
What have you gentlemen been smoking? You both write about Obama like he is a detached non partisan who is simply making a political mistake and only needs to make adjustments so he can continue to build his power base for the good of America. The assumption you seem to hold is that Obama is a transcendent, objective, principle based man who stands above politics and the left is simply running interference. By the sound of things, maybe you should be a part of his political team, and save the man from the savage left! Only one problem with your argument: Obama IS the POSTER BOY of the far left. He was the most liberal member of the senate. He has always been far left in his view of America, politics and yes, economics. In spite of media attempts during the campaign to downplay his leftist tendencies and associations, some of us saw it very clearly and knew what was coming. He is going after what he wants! Get it? If this surprises you, you are either in the wrong business, deluded or both.
Personally I think the Obamasia is too arrogant and too left to conceive of a path to the center left. It will be intersting to see how long and at what cost House and Senate Democrats will suffer this man.
A simple explanation for Obama's "leftward surge" is that he is an ideologically convinced, radical liberal. Actions speak louder than words, and Obama's actions shout "postmodern liberal!" We should not surprised by this. His actions before the election shouted the same thing. Unfortunately, the nation chose to stop its ears and focused instead on the soothing images of a charming and intelligent man and the understandable desire to strike a final blow at racism by electing its first black president. Obama hasn't veered from his core beliefs; he's back on course.
This hand-wringing by both Crook and Brooks about why Obama isn't governing as a centrist is the same kind of cognitive dissonance the majority of Americans in the ideological center who supported Obama are having.
In the face of BHO's most liberal voting record in the Senate (as rated by most every congressional review) a much more conservative middle America chose his eloquent centrist campaign rhetoric over the actual record of the man. Obama's words allowed centrists to project their beliefs and values onto an individual who has NEVER proved himself to share their beliefs and values. The conflict was inevitable.
BHO is a fellow traveler with Pelosi and the radical San Francisco left he felt comfortable enough to mock center America in front of (before the audio came out and he furiously back-peddled).
For BHO it's not about centrist politics now, it's about leftist governing. The "conservative" at the NYT's, David Brooks, can pretend to be shocked or disappointed in Obama's actual governing as a pure leftist. But he's responsible for helping to convince centrist Americans that BHO was as middle-of-the-road as his infomercial proclaimed. The product is now showing up at our doorsteps looking nothing like the picture on the box. Shame on Brooks and Crook for passing their delusional vision of BHO with Americans during an election season when the real truth might have been able to do some good.
Are you kidding me? Obama was the most radical left wing senator in Washington. Move to the left? He's always been as far left as any Democrat! LOL
You simply don't understand it?
Let me help out. The reason Obama chooses the party's liberals over the moderates is because Obama is a liberal.
Does that help?
Nonsense. Brooks is an imbecile.
The problem is that Obama is trying too hard to cater to the right wing trash of the RepubliCON party. They are the incompetent cretins who have led the nation to the abyss and ANY policy they might even consider supporting is only good for their financial backers.
Unfortunately, after years of careful spending of their massive war chest, the RepubliCONs have created an army of brainless foot soldiers, who now vote right wing by reflex action. Racists, fundamentalist imbeciles, gun nuts and rural welfare queens are puppets under their control and while they benefit little or not at all from RepubliCON policies, consider anything with even a modicum of intelligence, to be elitist.
Expect a continuing decline in living standards until a considerable majority are convinced that the RepubliCON politicians are vile scum and their policies are self serving idiocy, catering to lobbyists.
That's right. He campaigned on the center re: health care. But it's called not holding Obama accountable for the difference between his campaign promises and rhetoric, and actual voting record. But let's just start with the positions he laid out as a candidate. Obama said he did not believe in introducing universal health care. He argued for incremental steps to get there, and in the debates, repeated that we needed to start by mandating coverage for those 25 and under--not all of the 47 million uninsured. So, he's changed his mind since January, to be kind about it, from his position when he ran. This suggests to those with their eyes open, that he just might have wanted universal health care all along, but had to position himself differently from Clinton for political gain. And it worked!
As for the difference in his campaign rhetoric and voting record: Obama's voting record, as any independent/GOP/non kool-aid drinker would remind Obama supporters, consistently showed a record to the left of John Kerry. Which is fine if you are that far left. HOwever, the MSM never attempted to hold Obama accountable for what he said in his campaign, and how he actually voted in the US Senate--and in Illinois, for that matter. Nor did the media bother to hold him accountable when he let the truth slip e.g. spread the wealth, but rather, went after Joe the plumber--the citizen who asked a question, no less. Thus, the myth of the even tempered, visionary who appeals to the center was swallowed whole. So now we're stuck with a discourse about how Obama positioned himself, instead of some MSM self-reflection on how they did not require Obama to explain in detail how he could square his record with his presidential policies.
The slew of issues where we're experiencing magnificent differences between Obama the candidate and Obama the president, e.g. deficits, taxes, signing statements, health care, wiretapping, and cap and trade to name a few, is significant both because it has enormous bearing on the country, and also because it serves as a wake up call to the MSM that they need to do an objective job reporting on candidates in the future, and not castigate those whose values differ from them (both sides of the partisan aisle) or privilege the folks whose values accord with their own. That's what this debate is also about.
An extraordinary article!
Given that Obama was a member of the New Party as little as 13 years ago, and the New Party was simply another name for the Communist Party, the whole thrust of the article seems adrift.
There are no ifs buts and maybes about this, Obama was involved with a communist party as little as 13 years ago, and he was not student.
http://tinyurl.com/thenewparty
So why would he want to reign in the Left; he's more radical than them?
Michael
I don't really know how to put this politely, but are you kidding me? Obama shouldn't be afraid to start choosing the party's moderates over the party's liberals? It's time for Obama to finally "start disappointing the party's liberals"? Start offending them?
I'm baffled. These remarks suggest someone who hasn't actually read much in the way of liberal opinion in the last half a year, but only the way liberal opinion is rendered in the words of people like Brooks and Broder. Is that true? Because in reality, of course, Obama has disappointed and aggravated liberals from the get-go, whether it was on FISA, Geither's co-optation by the financial businesses, the lack of action on Don't Ask Don't Tell, the refusal to extend a (painfully slow) revision of Guantanamo practices to "black sites" elsewhere in the world (eg Baghram), or the general undue caution of his policies.
When Krugman blasted Obama repeatedly for allowing the stimulus bill to become near-fatally flawed in the process of winning over Sens. Snowe and Collins, he spoke for a sizable liberal caucus in the party - how could one have missed that whole firestorm?
You don't have to go to someone like Glenn Greenwald, who last month wrote about the Obama administration's "bullying tactics", used "for the war supplemental bill and now for the cap-and-trade bill", are "only directed towards the House progressives who want legislation to be less beholden to corporate donors". I suppose he can, after all, still be discounted as an irrelevant outsider.
Instead, to get an idea of how deep-seated the feeling already is that Obama at best ignores the liberals in his caucus, read Ed Kilgore of The Democratic Strategist, who is firmly grounded in the politics of liberal DC, for example. He provides as good a current summary as any in TNR today: Left Behind -- Do progressives have any power over the Obama administration?
As Kilgore does admit, you're right on one thing: when Obama offends the left, what are they going to do apart from whine? Despite their numbers in Congress and among the activist base, they have preciously little leverage. The baffling part about your post is where you suggest that it's high time this starts happening, and upbraid Obama for not having done it yet. I don't see how anyone could come to this conclusion, unless someone's daily reading really does not extend anywhere to the left of Brooks and Broder.
We should not be surprised by Pres. Obama's leftist policies/comments. Prior to his election, 'centrist' posturing notwithstanding, his record was one of a hard left activist in the best traditions of Saul Alinsky and that ilk. Had the press done its job and thoroughly scrutinized him (as they would have for a Republican), we might have had a different outcome. At the very least his leftist postures and 'mea culpa' foreign policy would not be a 'surprise.'
Gray Beard:
Hard line liberal? How so? He's gone to great lengths to try and please conservatives. Can you name me one thing that has passed that the left-wing of his party really liked? There hasn't been one.