Obama’s political style in a nutshell
Thursday, March 4, 2010 at 06:02PM Toward the end of a long story about Mayor Daley's political career in The New Yorker is this description of the first public meeting between the mayor and candidate for US Senate Barack Obama in 2004:
[F]or all their differences of style and speech, Obama and Daley shared a basic approach to politics as a constant negotiation of interests and ideals—Chicago's brand of Realpolitik. Both had advanced by capitalizing on the prevailing power structure, not by dismantling it, and they were united, above all, not by ideology but by pragmatism.
That fits exactly with the impression I have formed by watching and listening to Obama for two years. At the top of Obama's agenda for change has been improving the tone of discourse and encouraging bi-partisan cooperation. That is not at all a desire to dismantle the prevailing power structure, but would merely make it easier for him to be a pragmatic leader. He has never had a liberal policy agenda or any other substantive agenda, in my view. He has readily accepted that his initial proposals about healthcare, Guantanamo, gay rights, government secrecy, executive powers, global warming, economic stimulus, financial regulation, etc. would have to be scaled back, but he has never wavered from his commitment to bipartisan reasoned discourse and cooperation. That's what he seems to really care about. He's a process guy and would probably be pleased with the notion that his tombstone might say something like, "He played a major role eliminating gridlock in the Congress and making government function effectively." Yes, he's said he admires FDR and Reagan because they led transformations, but I interpret that as his loving the idea that he might have a central role in some historical transformation rather than that he has a vision about a particular transformation he is committed to leading. Not that any of that is bad or disappointing or that it makes him at all unique among successful politicians. I offer it only as a model for interpreting what Obama does, predicting what he will do, understanding what he really cares about, and figuring out how he can and cannot be influenced.
Skeptic
Similar message in this cartoon?
Skeptic
Frank Rich says pragmatism is the opposite of leadership, and Obama needs to lead:
Obama prides himself on not being ideological or partisan — of following, as he put it in his first prime-time presidential press conference, a “pragmatic agenda.” But pragmatism is about process, not principle. Pragmatism is hardly a rallying cry for a nation in this much distress, and it’s not a credible or attainable goal in a Washington as dysfunctional as the one Americans watch in real time on cable. Yes, the Bush administration was incompetent, but we need more than a brilliant mediator, manager or technocrat to move us beyond the wreckage it left behind. To galvanize the nation, Obama needs to articulate a substantive belief system that’s built from his bedrock convictions. His presidency cannot be about the cool equanimity and intellectual command of his management style.
Skeptic
George Packer reports Washington insiders characterizing the President's style in ways that resonate with the initial post.
Meetings with the President, various Administration officials told me, are businesslike but thorough. Opposing positions are solicited and hashed out, and Obama steers the debate with tough questions . . . .
This pride in responsible process is the closest thing to an Obama ideology. It champions pragmatism without pandering to the status quo, and conveys skepticism, even contempt, for Washington's ordinary way of doing business. . . . When candidate Obama talked about changing the tone of American politics, he meant it earnestly--more, perhaps, than he meant anything else.
"Sometimes the President practices a meta-politics," Paul Begala . . . said. "He's a process reformer. He cares deeply, I think, about our politics, in the highest sense of the word." . . . .
Obama's quest for bipartisanship, in the face of exceedingly discouraging facts, has been so relentless that it suggests less a strategy than a core conviction . . . .
Meanwhile, Obama's opponents [on healthcare reform legislation] went on the attack, and his restraint came across as weakness. Close observers of the President said that, as a consequence, he lacks a key element of Presidential power: the ability to inspire fear.
. . . . To be an effective communicator, a President needs a strong world view, a fundamental vision of why things are the way they are and how they ought to be, which can be simplified into a few key ideas and images--in short, an ideology. For Obama and his advisors, there is no worse pejorative. Their distaste for ideology sometimes causes them to sand down the sharper edges of their own proposals. . . .
A week after Obama gave his State of the Union speech, Paul Begala mentioned Reagan's address from 1982 and said, "His point of departure was always philosophical. He explained how the world works. Roosevelt did the same thing." Begala said that Obama, for all his persuasive gifts, seemed unable to reach the public in this way. . . . The same qualities that had allowed Obama to make the case for himself in 2008--his aversion to partisan small-mindedness and ideological oversimplification--prevented him from making the case for his political agenda in 2009. . . .
. . . .
Ed Rollins, who held roughly the same position in the Reagan White House that Axelrod holds in Obama's, told me recently, "Everybody knew what Reagan wanted: 'We're going to turn away from the Carter malaise.' Nobody knows what Obama wants. Reagan marched to the policy drums that he believed in. Obama hasn't thought about these things over a long time. What Obama thinks about is how he's going to be loved--how he'll become a historic President, like F.D.R. Reagan became successful because he had policy goals."
Can Obama make his current style work for us? If not, can he change it? Is it too late?
Skeptic
From Joseph Lelyveld's NYRB review of David Remnick's The Bridge: The Life and Rise of Barack Obama:
What Remnick’s portrayal of Obama’s political evolution makes clear is that the promise was more than a calculated choice, a campaign pose. It was intrinsic to his character and recognized as such early on. As far back as Harvard Law School, he stood out for “his way of absorbing and synthesizing the arguments of others,” for his “earnest, consensus-seeking style,” for an “open-mindedness [that] seemed strange even to his friends.” Later on, when as an obscure state legislator he sat in on a seminar at the Kennedy School, the seminar’s leader, Robert Putnam, was struck by Obama’s ability “to listen for a whole day and see common themes in the midst of an arguing bunch.”
It’s a refrain to which Remnick regularly returns. “Conciliation [is Obama’s] default mode,” he writes, “the dominant strain of his political personality.” The 43 percent of whites who voted for the first African-American president presumably recognized this quality. Its effect on an irreconcilable portion of the 55 percent of whites who voted against him is suggested by the fury of the Tea Party activists. That’s a paradox yet to be resolved. The very qualities of thoughtfulness and patience that made Obama’s election seem such a hopeful harbinger now make him vulnerable to charges of weakness from both flanks of the political divide. It’s who he is. It has something to do with why he is where he is. And in the short term at least, it doesn’t play conspicuously well in the media echo chamber, which is always spoiling for a fight, doesn’t reward prudence, and has no time for ambiguity.
Skeptic
David Bromwich describes the Obama he sees in this long LRB piece. He says Obama has "tendencies" but not "convictions," that he's a mediator, and that "he's still mystified by the idea that there are people who don't like him." I have sometimes called him the Mediator in Chief or the Consensus Finder in Chief.
Reader Comments (1)
Well, his tombstone certainly won't read "Change you can believe in" and no one will believe in that again. So what is he going to run on next time?