"I think the overwhelming message that I hear from the voters is that we want everybody to act responsibly in Washington. We want you to work harder to arrive at consensus. We want you to focus completely on jobs and the economy and growing it so that we're ensuring a better future for our children and our grandchildren."
Barack Obama
Nov. 3, 2010
It has been nearly a month since Barack Obama uttered those words.
It was the day after the midterm election that resulted in the largest shift in House seats since Pearl Harbor, and the president seemed humbled by the experience ("some election nights are more fun than others. Some are exhilarating; some are humbling. But every election ... is a reminder that ... power rests not with those of us in elected office but with the people we have the privilege to serve").
But, while he acknowledged that Americans "expect Washington to work for them, not against them" and said the message was that the people wanted their leaders to find common ground, he was almost defiant in his insistence on focusing on areas where he and the members of his party have shown the least inclination to compromise.
In yesterday's Washington Post, House Speaker–to–be John Boehner and Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell assured readers that, when they met with Obama, "all of us will have an opportunity to show the American people that we got [that] message."
And, before Tuesday's meeting with congressional leaders, Obama, too, sounded more conciliatory, pledging to reach out more to the opposition.
But, while they all talked the talk about seeking common ground, no one walked the walk — yet.
And Republicans continued to be the Party of No, defeating an extension of jobless benefits. I really do not think that is what the voters were voting for, and I think it will be interesting to see what happens when millions of Americans suddenly lose those benefits.
There's an old saying that all that is necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing. By the same token, I think, all that is necessary for the triumph of desperation is for politicians to take away the safety net that keeps good people going while they're trying to survive until the job market gets better.
Anyone who has been out there knows it has been horrific for the last couple of years.
Without that safety net, good people will be more likely to resort to things they ordinarily wouldn't consider if they weren't hungry or afraid of losing the roof over their heads. I'm not sure either the economy or the judicial system is ready for the kind of short–sighted lawmaking this seems to have spawned.
Midterm elections can be mysterious in their implications. I have read many analyses of the results. Some of them make sense to me. Some strike me as just plain looney.
Having said that, here are my thoughts on where we're going, a month after the midterms and only a day after the president's conference with congressional leaders.
It is unwise, it seems to me, to conclude that the American people, as a group, came to some sort of conclusion of any kind on Election Day. There are many people — myself included — who could have been persuaded to vote for the candidates for another party in the contests that were on their ballots if those nominees had been viewed as acceptable.
Besides, House races tend to be very local in nature. In large cities, some districts only cover a handful of neighborhoods. The issues are not national or international.
Only in states with the smallest populations are representatives elected on a statewide basis. The rest represent only portions of the states in which they live. Consequently, the issues that decide most House races may not be significant even in the rest of that state.
I have lived in congressional districts that were intensely partisan, and I have lived in congressional districts that were evenly balanced. Even in years when supposedly historic transitions were occurring, I can't remember anyone saying that they were voting for or against a certain House candidate because of the president.
Both sides have rationalized and will continue to rationalize the results, but they ultimately will have to come to terms with the unpleasant truths about themselves that this election revealed for all to see:
- Democrats squandered a golden opportunity that was handed to them in 2008 — the greatest economic crisis this country has faced in more than three–quarters of a century.
In those days, Obama was being compared to Franklin D. Roosevelt, mentioned among presidents who entered office at times of great national distress and guided the country safely through them. But he resisted the voters' message to focus on the economy and jobs, and, thanks to the ongoing decline in his popularity, he was being compared to Jimmy Carter even before the midterms.
While I disagree, as I always have, with the negative assessment that many insisted on giving to Carter's presidency (and continue to insist on giving it today), the comparisons of Obama to FDR and Obama to Carter are intriguing, to me, because they seem to represent polar opposites of presidential success.
Roosevelt, of course, was elected president four times — in the days before the 22nd Amendment limited presidents to two terms. Carter was denied a second term.
Regardless of how you may feel about those two presidencies, FDR and Carter both had something Obama does not — previous executive experience. And that would come in quite handy in the radically different political environment in which the president will find himself in little more than a month.
Those two Democrats had to build compromises on smaller (and, arguably, less diverse) scales than they had to as president, and perhaps those presidencies serve as the ultimate arguments for and against gubernatorial experience when choosing a president.
But Obama had no such experience when he became president. Can wielding the veto make up for not being able to pass any legislation in the second half of his term? Or can he learn a skill that he desperately needs to make him an effective leader?
As Democrats look ahead to 2012, when not only Obama but nearly two dozen Democrat–held Senate seats will be on the ballot, the party's future may depend upon it.
In case you haven't heard, the prevailing wisdom of the day is that Obama won't be denied a second term because the only sitting presidents since the Depression who have been defeated when they sought re–election were those who were challenged for their party's nomination — Gerald Ford, Jimmy Carter and George H.W. Bush. Another — Lyndon Johnson — withdrew from the race rather than take on the insurgent Gene McCarthy.
Democrats have been reassuring themselves that Obama will not face such a challenge — and, therefore, will win a second term.
That's a dangerous assumption to make. - It is tempting, when one is flush with victory, to make assumptions about the voters' intent.
But Republicans would be wise not to get carried away. This election was not an endorsement of Republican government. Exit poll after exit poll suggested that the voters still blame the Republicans for, as Obama likes to say, driving the economy into a ditch, and it will be incumbent upon them to prove themselves worthy of the temporary reprieve they have been given.
Voters were, essentially, trying to get their leaders' attention. They've been trying to do that, for different reasons, for the last three elections, but there always seems to be, as Strother Martin said in "Cool Hand Luke," a failure to communicate.
In 2006, voters began restoring Democrats to power in Washington by giving them modest control of the House and Senate. This, I have always believed, was a response to the shameful Terri Schiavo episode and Hurricane Katrina. Those were the events that began driving many voters away from the GOP.
Two years later, Democrats were rewarded at the polls by voters who held Republicans responsible for the economic implosion. I guess the party's congressional margins were deceiving. Many Democrats seemed to believe the pendulum had swung in their direction permanently. Polls kept showing that people were overwhelmingly concerned about the economy and jobs, but Democrats insisted on scattershooting.
The voters were in their back pockets, they assumed. And the voters figured the Democrats needed a good dose of reality so they went with the only option they had. At least, that is how I see it.
Sometimes the option wasn't palatable. Most Tea Party candidates, for instance, were not readily embraced by the electorate, but a few were. And they may prove to be loose cannons for the Republican Party as it goes through what is, essentially, a probationary period.
There are enough Democrats in the Senate that they can vote down anything the House Republicans approve. And House Republicans are sure to vote down anything Senate Democrats manage to squeeze through.
Stalemate, right? Which side will that favor two years from now?
The only way either side can claim to have accomplished much of anything in the next two years, it seems to me, is to reach out to the other side. Obama may have the most to lose. Unlike Bill Clinton, he won't be able to run against a completely obstructionist Congress since the Senate remained in Democratic hands.
Besides, the onus is on the president to bring the two sides together.
So, it all comes back to that compromise thing, that skill that successful governors — especially those who go on to become successful presidents — learn.
Whether he likes it or not, Obama needs to learn about the art of compromise.
That is, if he really does aspire to a second term.
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