The Heart of the Matter

John Judis says, in The New Republic, that the only way Barack Obama can salvage his presidency and Democratic majorities in Congress is if voters believe the economy is improving when they go to the polls next year and in 2012.

Many people have said, in interviews and op–ed pieces, that the economy is, in fact, improving. But Judis has a caveat.

"[H]istory suggests that it is not enough for the economy to be headed in the right direction," he writes, "it has to be headed in the right direction in tangible ways that voters can see. Economists pronounced the recession of the early 1990s over in March 1991. But, when unemployment continued to rise through 1991 and most of 1992 and real wages stagnated, the public perceived the economy to still be declining — and it punished George H.W. Bush accordingly."

Consequently, Judis says that job creation is "Job One."

That's not news to me. I've been saying that for months.

Maybe it all needs to be boiled down to a memorable slogan, like "It's the Economy, Stupid." Of course, the problem with that one is that Bill Clinton used it to win the 1992 election, but he didn't really use it to govern — at least, not right away. Initially, his focus was on health care reform. Sound familiar?

Well, Judis has some encouraging words for Obama's supporters who, like their leader, believe (or appear to believe) that health care reform is the most pressing, the most urgent of all the problems on Obama's plate:

"Barack Obama looks like he will succeed where three Democratic presidents, Harry Truman, Jimmy Carter, and Bill Clinton, so famously failed — by passing health care reform," Judis writes. "That is an achievement for which posterity will likely reward him."

Then the second shoe drops. "But it may not help him and his party avoid setbacks at the polls."

Judis doesn't say health care reform is not a worthy objective. But he questions the timing (which, of course, implies it has been given priority status).

"He is correct that Democrats may not have another chance to do so for decades — and, as the experience of Social Security shows, an imperfect program can be improved over time," Judis writes. "There is good reason to applaud the president's statement to Congress that 'we did not come here just to clean up crises, we came here to build a future.' But, if Obama doesn't clean up the crisis and get the economy moving again, his administration may not be around to enjoy the future he is building."

Many unemployed Americans may not be around to enjoy it, either. As Judis points out, the health care bill won't go into effect until 2013. The millions of Americans with no health insurance likely will remain uninsured in the interim. Those who have gone without medical attention likely will continue to go without it.

Being without work forces people to make unpleasant choices. Jobless Americans — and those who are worried about joining them — may well conclude that replacing their representation in Washington is yet another unpleasant choice that must be made.

Judis acknowledges that "the U.S. economy isn't going to morph overnight from its current woeful condition to a state of buoyant full employment." But he makes a critical point when he speaks of how voters perceive the situation. The perception that unemployment was on a downward trajectory was the key for both Franklin Roosevelt and Ronald Reagan, and the trajectory of unemployment will be the key for Obama as well.

Is it too late? I don't know. But it isn't too late to try.

Is it?

Advice for the New Administration

Barack Obama, like every new president, has no shortage of people who want to advise him on the wisest course to follow. And, in these difficult times, everyone, it seems, has advice to offer.

It's easy to give advice when you aren't the one who shoulders the responsibility. And not all of the advice that is being offered has wisdom to back it up.

But I do find a lot of wisdom in William Galston's article in The New Republic, in which he writes of the experiences of two presidents in the late 20th century — and the relevance their experiences have to the current occupant of the Oval Office.

"A surprised Rudolph Penner, assistant director of President Ford's OMB and later a CBO director, offered a blunt assessment of the new president: '[He] has proposed a huge restructuring of government, and people are actually taking him seriously. The man ... turns out to be downright radical.'

"This president was Ronald Reagan, who pushed through changes in spending and taxes that redefined economic policy for a generation," Galston writes.

And he has another observation to make.

"After a week in office, another newly minted president mused in his private diary, 'Everybody has warned me not to take on too many projects so early in the administration, but it's almost impossible for me to delay something that I see needs to be done.'

"That president was Jimmy Carter, who — true to his word — sent a flood of proposals down Pennsylvania Avenue, so many that Congress soon bogged down in near-gridlock. By the end of his first year, Americans were beginning to wonder whether Carter could get things done and — worse — whether he was up to the job."

That, it seems to me, is at the heart of the challenge facing Obama today.

Obama's personal popularity remains high — although that tends to be the case with new presidents who have not yet reached the 100-day mark yet, and Obama has only been in office for 50 days. But the modest support that the economic stimulus package received, and the somewhat lukewarm reception his budget has been given, suggest that he may be making the same mistakes Carter made.

"The key question is not early economic performance," writes Galston. "The GDP, which the Reagan administration predicted would rise by 4.2 percent in 1982, instead shrank by 1.8 percent, and unemployment peaked around the day of the midterms, at 10.8 percent. Still, the Republicans held their ground in the Senate and suffered smaller than expected losses in the House, and the Reagan administration evaded a knockout blow."

Galston also observes that radicalism is not the most important factor, either. "Reagan represented more of a change from the status quo than did Carter. If the times demand radical responses, moderation is a mistake, politically as well as substantively."

Galston writes, "The core issue is the clarity and self-discipline needed to maintain control of the agenda."

It's true that there are many things that need to be done. But Obama, like Reagan, needs to set priorities and make his initial agenda manageable.

One thing that has hindered Obama is the seemingly constant roadblocks he has encountered with his nominees for Cabinet posts and other positions in his administration. He certainly isn't the first president to face that kind of problem. Remember the difficulties Bill Clinton faced in 1993, especially with his nominees for attorney general?

But, for whatever reason, Obama has had more than his share of false starts, which seems to be uncharacteristically inefficient. Whoever was charged with vetting Obama's appointees has been dropping the ball.

Republicans need not be smug about Obama's struggles. The same national problems would face John McCain, if he had managed — somehow — to win the election. And who knows how his appointees might have fared?

But the "frozen minds on the other side of the aisle," as Joe Conason calls the Republicans in The New York Observer, produce only "a droning chorus for tax cuts on capital gains," which "is of little relevance to the problems of the moment. Investors are not fleeing the markets because they worry about enormous returns that will be subject to punitive taxation; they are abandoning stocks and real estate because those assets are deflating like punctured balloons. Until there is a real prospect of capital gains, cutting taxes on them will scarcely affect investment and jobs."

It is far from certain that a McCain administration, with a Democratic Congress to contend with, would have had anything more productive to promote at this stage.

If the historical comparison that is being drawn between 2009 and 1933 is accurate, America may be fortunate that the economic meltdown occurred when it did. The stock market crash of 1929 occurred when Herbert Hoover was less than a year into his presidency, and the Republicans did little to alleviate the misery in the next three years. By the time Franklin D. Roosevelt took over, conditions had deteriorated into what history recalls as the Great Depression.

But the current calamity all came to pass as the Bush presidency was in its final year and an election was being held. It is highly doubtful that the Republicans would be capable of coming up with creative solutions to the myriad of problems facing America today.

However, if Obama continues to pander to Republicans in a misguided attempt to achieve bipartisanship, he may be setting himself up for Carter-like failure. And he may be setting the country up for unnecessary hardship and misery.

Obama must focus his efforts on job creation and halting home foreclosures. Jimmy Carter is an intelligent man, but Obama cannot follow his example and say, "[I]t's almost impossible for me to delay something that I see needs to be done."

Some things will have to be delayed, for practical as well as political reasons. Amid congressional concerns about a second stimulus package, Sen. Evan Bayh of Indiana acknowledged that everything is important. It just isn't practical to pursue everything at once.

"Like getting health care costs under control is important to the economy and getting the deficit down. Sustainable sources of energy at reasonable prices is also important to the economy. Dealing with the financial crisis is obviously important to the economy.

"So what needs to be done is, Obama's got to move on all these fronts but also integrate them back to the same theme of always strengthening the economy, getting people to work, growing businesses, improving our standard of living."

Obama must decide which things must be emphasized — and which things will have to be tabled — for now.

Trying to do too much at once is, as Carter learned, the path to a single term.