Think of this as Volume 14, Number 5 of A-Clue.com, the online newsletter I've written since 1997. Enjoy.
If you poke a Republican and ask them whose Presidency they would most like to have back, the honest answer is going to be Roosevelt.
The differences among Republicans are only over which Roosevelt they seek to repeal — Franklin or Theodore.
Poke a Democrat and you will usually get the answer Nixon. It's not so much what Nixon did — in many ways he was our most liberal President ever. It was how he did it, what I call the Nixon Thesis of Conflict.
The Nixon Thesis is deeply embedded in our political culture now. We assume that politics is war, that every battle is binary, that the other party is an "enemy" that must be destroyed, not a collection of fellow Americans with which we do political battle, then join for a beer. Political reporting is dispatches from the front.
It is this Thesis that Barack Obama is most determined to overthrow. The goal of his politics is to simply repeal Nixon.
This was much in evidence at last night's State of the Union speech. Given recent setbacks in Congress and in Massachusetts, my natural instinct is to fight back. They kick you in the balls, you kick them back, harder.
Kicking them in the balls is what the Netroots were built to do. Howard Dean, Jane Hamsher, Markos Moulitsas, what they have been building online is the liberal equivalent to the Vast Right Wing Conspiracy. They believe in something, something completely contrary to what conservatives believe in, and they're determined to fight for it as conservatives do.
I agree with them. I would much rather give my money and time to Moveon.org than to a Democratic National Committee that supports weak sisters like Ben Nelson.
But what's most clear is that's not really what this President is about. Changing the tone is more than a slogan with Barack Obama. It's his passion.
Before we can have consensus, we must have an end to politics as war. It's this peace Barack Obama seeks, and he is using "this moment" to press for it above all.
So while any other Democratic politician would press to have the Senate push through the health bill under reconciliation, and use a fading Democratic majority there as it's used in the (more popular) House, the President once more urged compromise. For the lions of the GOP House, who hate him with a passion Confederates reserved for Lincoln, Obama said he would come to their meetings, implying that what worked for Henry Louis Gates and the Boston cop can work on Capitol Hill.
An e-mail blast sent in the wake of his speech used his kindest words toward partisan ends.
We have just finished a difficult year. We have come through a difficult decade. But a new year has come. A new decade stretches before us. We don't quit. I don't quit. Let's seize this moment — to start anew, to carry the dream forward, and to strengthen our union once more.
It's hard to figure this President. Many Democrats wanted another Roosevelt. We wanted a Lincoln who would fight for us. Even a Nixon, feeding us rhetoric and telling us to charge the enemy's battlements, that we would understand.
I'm certain that to the pundits, this rhetoric makes our President seem weak, vacillating, easy to push around. An echo and not a choice. But Americans still wear the scars of our own internal wars — McCarthyism and racist, religious populism still rule many hearts. We don't see our fellow Americans as Americans — we see them as categories.
Lots of Republicans pretend to yearn for some bygone era, when the air was cleaner, when kids did their homework, where people knew their place and America was Number One. That place never really existed. But it can exist, in any heart that can hold out a hand, take the hand of another, and not use the off-hand to pop the other guy in the kisser.
Ultimately the message of Barack Obama is there are too few of us to afford a them. We have to come to some consensus because the problems before us are too great for us to afford this incessant conflict. Democracy must provide a result — policy — which people can accept, even if grudgingly. If it can't then everything we were taught about our nation and our values and our history is a pack of lies.
Who better to sell this message than Barack Obama? The son of a Kenyan father who was torn apart by his own demons, raised by white members of the Greatest Generation. Half-black and half-white, with relatives on every continent and of every color. A synthesis greater than the sum of the parts. In a word, America. The America we pretend exists within us, standing before us, urging us forward, toward the better angels of our nature.
It's a challenge aimed at my heart, and at yours. It is the real battle of our time. The Civil War is still being fought and it can still be lost. Or we can bind up this nation's wounds and seek a new birth of freedom.
Your choice, America.
Consider this, Dana. Maybe Obama’s grand strategy is to do the minimum pushing, shoving and threatening in order to force the Congressional democrats to grow some courage and find the legislative power that existed in the 60’s and 70’s. He experienced the psyche of the Senate firsthand and perhaps believes that there are enough good leaders there to build a very powerful partnership that could solve some of our seemingly intractable problems. He might feel that continuing the growth of the imperial Presidency would minimize the chance to build such a coalition. Also, importantly, he may also believe that continuing his public Can’t we all just get along and stop the bickering approach to politics will eventually peel off the one or two Republican rationalists that he could really use to forge a majority consensus.
This kind of thinking, of course, does not imply that Barack is any kind of progressive radical, at least not yet. I think he knows the way to be a successful pragmatic is to build a strong consensus of reasonable leaders. If he does that and then turns leftward, well, then we’ll all be the better for it and Barack will once again show us how his strategic thinking is consistently underestimated.
Consider this, Dana. Maybe Obama’s grand strategy is to do the minimum pushing, shoving and threatening in order to force the Congressional democrats to grow some courage and find the legislative power that existed in the 60’s and 70’s. He experienced the psyche of the Senate firsthand and perhaps believes that there are enough good leaders there to build a very powerful partnership that could solve some of our seemingly intractable problems. He might feel that continuing the growth of the imperial Presidency would minimize the chance to build such a coalition. Also, importantly, he may also believe that continuing his public Can’t we all just get along and stop the bickering approach to politics will eventually peel off the one or two Republican rationalists that he could really use to forge a majority consensus.
This kind of thinking, of course, does not imply that Barack is any kind of progressive radical, at least not yet. I think he knows the way to be a successful pragmatic is to build a strong consensus of reasonable leaders. If he does that and then turns leftward, well, then we’ll all be the better for it and Barack will once again show us how his strategic thinking is consistently underestimated.
The pundit class prefers everything be broken down to bumper sticker politics for the Mike Barnicles and Mika Brzezinski’s of the world. “If the President can’t tell me what the healthcare bill is about in one sentence, then American’s won’t support it!” Oy.
This movement really heated up in the late 70s with Jerry Falwell’s Moral Majority which helped bring us Jack Kemp, Newt Gingrich, and Tom Delay, among others. We spent almost twenty years debating non-issues of abortion, school prayer, and flag burning, none of which were central to the future of where we find ourselves now. Yet even Democratic politicians had to show off their god-belief to the cameras.
Yet the appeal to Obama’s roots and mixed race is the very thing I thought he wanted to get beyond. Unless you’re Chris Matthews. (“For an hour I forget he was black.”)
It’s not his nature, but I wish for Obama to be radical in the face of republican opposition. Handicapping your country’s economic recovery by not immediately ending two purposeless wars and not forcing real regulation on banks and Wall Street guarantees your presidency — and the country — will fall short.
Rather that Obama would be radical by telling the conservatives that we WILL end these wars, and if you want them sustained, then all republicans age 56 and under can donate your income to the annual Defense budget and you can start your basic training so we can assign you to your first 15-month deployment. And we’ll also ask that you republicans bring your sons and daughters down to the recruiting station and sign them up for a decade of deployments and we’ll take their money, too. Otherwise, all the billions spent weekly will go straight to deficit reduction (an issue conservatives and the media care about only when republicans not in office). We kill two birds with one stone. Republicans, what is your choice — war or deficit reduction? You can’t have both anymore; not after almost ten years of war.
I’d also suggest that Obama continually make comparisons to China and Russia and India — countries that are not engaged in endless war but are spending their money on their futures. A future of fear or a future of hope, you chose, America.
Let the media and the repubs blast away. You’ve spoken the truth, that no country can engage in war without going under. At least he could sleep well knowing he told the truth to us.
The pundit class prefers everything be broken down to bumper sticker politics for the Mike Barnicles and Mika Brzezinski’s of the world. “If the President can’t tell me what the healthcare bill is about in one sentence, then American’s won’t support it!” Oy.
This movement really heated up in the late 70s with Jerry Falwell’s Moral Majority which helped bring us Jack Kemp, Newt Gingrich, and Tom Delay, among others. We spent almost twenty years debating non-issues of abortion, school prayer, and flag burning, none of which were central to the future of where we find ourselves now. Yet even Democratic politicians had to show off their god-belief to the cameras.
Yet the appeal to Obama’s roots and mixed race is the very thing I thought he wanted to get beyond. Unless you’re Chris Matthews. (“For an hour I forget he was black.”)
It’s not his nature, but I wish for Obama to be radical in the face of republican opposition. Handicapping your country’s economic recovery by not immediately ending two purposeless wars and not forcing real regulation on banks and Wall Street guarantees your presidency — and the country — will fall short.
Rather that Obama would be radical by telling the conservatives that we WILL end these wars, and if you want them sustained, then all republicans age 56 and under can donate your income to the annual Defense budget and you can start your basic training so we can assign you to your first 15-month deployment. And we’ll also ask that you republicans bring your sons and daughters down to the recruiting station and sign them up for a decade of deployments and we’ll take their money, too. Otherwise, all the billions spent weekly will go straight to deficit reduction (an issue conservatives and the media care about only when republicans not in office). We kill two birds with one stone. Republicans, what is your choice — war or deficit reduction? You can’t have both anymore; not after almost ten years of war.
I’d also suggest that Obama continually make comparisons to China and Russia and India — countries that are not engaged in endless war but are spending their money on their futures. A future of fear or a future of hope, you chose, America.
Let the media and the repubs blast away. You’ve spoken the truth, that no country can engage in war without going under. At least he could sleep well knowing he told the truth to us.
I'm equally frustrated, but that's not the Obama Way — to be radical.
Instead he's trying to be persistent. I don't know how you turn around political assumptions based on conflict, and get both sides engaging with one another. I do believe the American people want that kind of engagement, and they're not getting it, and they're blaming both sides even when anyone who has been in a bad relationship knows it takes two to tango.
The President's meeting Friday with the House GOP caucus was called "theater." I'd like to see him and his Administration doing enough of these things that they're no longer seen as "theater" — but part of the regular order of business.
As to what individual Democrats should be doing, that is different. Pressing the President from the left, consistently, and concentrating your political activism on people you agree with — not just those with a "D" next to their names — seems advisable. This is the strategy Republicans used 40 years ago, as I keep having to repeat.
For Democratic activists the question should be, who on the other side can we take out this year? Who do we have who can do it? How do we get as much help as we can to them? I suggested some possibilities earlier this year.
Dana
I'm equally frustrated, but that's not the Obama Way — to be radical.
Instead he's trying to be persistent. I don't know how you turn around political assumptions based on conflict, and get both sides engaging with one another. I do believe the American people want that kind of engagement, and they're not getting it, and they're blaming both sides even when anyone who has been in a bad relationship knows it takes two to tango.
The President's meeting Friday with the House GOP caucus was called "theater." I'd like to see him and his Administration doing enough of these things that they're no longer seen as "theater" — but part of the regular order of business.
As to what individual Democrats should be doing, that is different. Pressing the President from the left, consistently, and concentrating your political activism on people you agree with — not just those with a "D" next to their names — seems advisable. This is the strategy Republicans used 40 years ago, as I keep having to repeat.
For Democratic activists the question should be, who on the other side can we take out this year? Who do we have who can do it? How do we get as much help as we can to them? I suggested some possibilities earlier this year.
Dana
What you're describing might be called the "Scott Brown opportunity." Brown claims to be a different kind of Republican — pro-choice, not knee-jerk anti teh gay. He is just a deficit hawk, and we need deficit hawkishness. Once the economy starts growing on its own the President becomes one, and so do I.
As I told Zaine, what the President should do and what activists should do at this point are two different things. Push for what you really want
What you're describing might be called the "Scott Brown opportunity." Brown claims to be a different kind of Republican — pro-choice, not knee-jerk anti teh gay. He is just a deficit hawk, and we need deficit hawkishness. Once the economy starts growing on its own the President becomes one, and so do I.
As I told Zaine, what the President should do and what activists should do at this point are two different things. Push for what you really want