[quote=Allan from Fallbrook]
As Bill Clinton famously said, “It’s the economy, stupid” and it is. Unfortunately, Obama does not get this and, in trying to be all things to all people, he’ll satisfy no one. This country is capable of amazing things, but the more reactionary elements of BOTH parties are stifling that capability and strangling growth.[/quote]
Of course it’s the economy, and I think he does get it. But beyond his tactics (which I’ll get to), he faces two possibly insurmountable problems.
First, and probably foremost, I’m not sure there is a fix for the economy. There are tweaks and incentives and a little of this and a little of that, but there is no magic plan that will make it all better in the next 15 months. (At least not one that is politically feasible. The right stimulus would do it. Say .5 to 1 $trillion in infrastruce spending. That wad was already blown.) The right complains that he has no plan. But the truth is, neither does the right. As painful as it may be, doing absolutely nothing might be as effective as doing anything. (At least this was true before the debt limit debacle. Tax rates would have gone up the end of next year. Now it’s tax rates go up AND draconian budget cuts. That will surely NOT help.)
Second, as you mentioned, the intransigent opposition he’s dealing with. And it’s really worse than intransigent, because even if he (Obama) goes a different direction, they won’t support it, because it’s his idea. Nothing he suggests will ever be supported.
Obama’s “theory of change” was aimed at offering the political opposition a choice between cooperation on progressive policy initiatives or self-isolation through obstruction and extremism. In other words, in a country unhappy with partisan gridlock, Republicans would either go along with key elements of a progressive agenda, or shrink themselves into an ever-more-extreme ideological rump that was irrelevant to the direction of the country.
(Emphasis supplied.) One GOP landslide in 2010 and an Obama approval rating of 40 later, it seems difficult to argue that the Theory of Change has worked politically. Will Obama stick to it through the 2012 election and will it be advisable for him to do so? I argue, and I think “liberals” argue, that no, that would be a political mistake. Jon Chait and John Cole seem to be arguing that Obama needs to “stay the course.”
Chait and Cole are idiots. I half jokingly suggested to Armando (who, in addition to being a keen political observer, may be the best the left has on SCOTUS issues and analysis) in 2006 that Obama would do well to hire him as a political consultant on both policy and tactics. (He ultimately became a Clinton supporter.) Obama’s pragmatism will be his downfall. It hasn’t worked. It won’t work.
