Thank god we have the American media to comment on American politics. If we left it up to the UK press, we’d be forever in the dark. Three cheers for the Internet and its ability to denationalise media-coverage! Obama’s one-year anniversary was marked by stories of his party’s special election defeat in Massachusetts. Many saw the opportunity to see in this untimely reversal evidence for a long-term decline. For example, Anatole Kaletsky in the Times had this to say:
The crushing defeat of the Democratic candidate to succeed the late Edward Kennedy as senator for Massachusetts, does not only wreck Mr Obama’s hopes of signing a health reform Bill this month, the main objective of his first year as President; far worse, as Massachusetts is the most solidly Democratic state in the union, it portends defeat for Democrats all across America in November’s congressional elections.
Massachusetts was the only state to vote Democrat in the most lopsided election in US history, the 1972 re-election of Richard Nixon. So the import of this defeat is undeniable even to the most Panglossian of left-wingers: if the Democrats could not hold Teddy Kennedy’s seat, no Democratic legislator anywhere in the US is secure.
The implication is that America and the world must now prepare for the longest lame-duck presidency in history, lasting at least until the 2012 election and, perhaps, until 2016
This analysis is not only wrong on the merits (see below) but also demonstrates the tendency of the media to want to write the BIGGEST STORY POSSIBLE. It’s not enough to present the loss of a 60th Senate vote as a set-back. It has to be seen as a decisive and dramatic turning point. The one-year anniversary makes the story all the better because of the symbolism.
Kaletsky presents himself as a level-headed observer, but he writes – in this case at least – more like a journalistic hack. His analysis is caught in the swell of the current moment, rather than a calm accounting of Obama’s actual position. In fact, Obama is still likely to enact much of his program – save for his climate change legislation perhaps – and my guess is that, come November, he’ll still be in steady control of all three branches of US government.
What did Massachusetts reveal about the “people’s” view of Obama’s program? Not a lot. Certainly not about healthcare, his signature dish. Massachusetts is unusual in having some of the best healthcare in the US – a universal provision more universal than what the bills that recently went through Congress allow. Massachusetts voters voted to keep their superior coverage, because neither candidate campaigned to repeal it. Scott Brown, the Republican candidate, argued that Washington should not be allowed to impinge on what local people already have – which is hardly an indictment of socialized medicine. Ezra Klein writes a good post about the craziness of those who see the Massachusetts vote as anti-public health.
Why did the Democrats lose, though? First, their candidate. Martha Coakley turned a lot of people off, especially red-blooded men. Second, national Democrats took their eye off the prize. There were other things going on before and after Christmas (healthcare, terrorism, Haiti) and the special election didn’t become a priority until too late (Coakley was 30 points ahead in December). This is a bad excuse – but it is a good reason for the Democrat’s defeat. Obama lost not because of his policies so much as his party’s electoral readiness, which is something different.
A better explanation is that the people of Massachusetts are angry as hell – not necessarily with Obama, but the whole damn shooting match. George Packer argues in the New Yorker that Obama’s rational gradualism is unsuited to a populist age:
the whole drift of political currents—especially in the wake of last night’s Massachusetts result—is away from Obama’s agenda, and toward a kind of populism that, like a wild fire, can shift directions with any light wind that blows through and quickly burn up large tracts of land (it just immolated Martha Coakley). This is a politics that Obama has never been comfortable with. His preferred approach, as we’ve learned this past year, is to bring together his relatively non-ideological advisers, let each one argue a point of view, then make a decision on the rational basis of evidence and expertise, and explain it to the public in a detailed, almost anti-inspirational manner. Thus the bank plan, the Afghanistan policy, the “jobs summit,” etc. A Democratic politician recently told me that the best way to get Obama to do what you want is to tell him that it’s the unpopular, difficult, but responsible thing.
If Obama has any ideology, it’s this process. It is not an approach that’s easily adapted to leading and guiding the volatile hearts and minds of a beleaguered and cynical public. My guess is that it’s driven his political advisers around the bend many times.
Andrew Sullivan embellishes on Packer’s theme here.
Obama’s governing style may be a problem – but it hardly dooms him to defeat and disaster. What he needs is better presentation and more forceful messaging. His attack on the banks yesterday showed his ability to turn on the anger when needed – as he did several times during his campaign. In this case, thankfully, his populism coincides with good policy: breaking up the banks is surely a good idea on the merits, aside from being necessary politics.
More substantially, Obama remains in a good position. His capture of 60 votes in 2008 was always somewhat fortuitous anyway – at the extreme of what he could have hoped for. He still has 59 votes in the Senate, and a massive majority in the House. He can get a lot of stuff done – including healthcare. Surely, after the shock has subsided, the House will pass the Senate bill, thus obviating the need for further Senate votes, and achieving many of the Democrats’ and Obama’s goals. Obama can then move on to further crowd-pleasing initiatives, including bank-bashing, immigration reform, and restoring economic confidence. (His climate change legislation may be in trouble, though.)
The problem in all of this is not Obama, but 1) the media, which seeks to escalate the smallest setback/controversy to the greatest extent (the cliche about selling newspapers is true; the rest can be put down to journalistic vanity and ignorance), and 2) the American system, which denies the ability of election-winners to govern properly. Even with a big election victory, and majorities in both houses, Obama has had to fight for everything he can get. America’s Founders envisioned a system of checks-and-balances, where sensible men would disagree but eventually compromise. In today’s partisan environment, and the blatant obstructionism of the Republicans, that is impossible – 60 votes or no. Either America’s politicians re-learn the art of bipartisanship, or they change the laws of the Senate to allow simple majority voting (instead of super-majorities). If the Republicans continue to block everything, Obama should blame them for the impasse and start pushing for a change in the rules.
If he fails at this, and fails with his agenda too, we shouldn’t blame him for everything. Obama’s problems are unusually complicated – they are party political as well as systematic. But I think we are a long way from the end of Obama. The problem with the media is that it wants to call everything instantaneously, instead of seeing developments over the long-haul. My guess is that, once the dust has settled, Obama will come out fighting, the Republicans will overplay their hand, and Obama’s momentum will be restored. In the history of his presidency, the Massachusetts defeat will be an embarrassing footnote, rather than a era-defining moment.
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