From Peter Baker in today's NYT:
Of course, to many on both sides of the aisle, there is a less sympathetic narrative. To the left, Mr. Obama seems increasingly to lack the fire to fight on matters of principle.Almost. Just drop the "on matters of principle" and you've got it right.
President Obama doesn't seem to lack the will to fight on matters of principle, rather, he seems to lack the will to fight on anything. There's a huge difference. Markos of DailyKos was on Meet the Press this morning. David Gregory asked him something about liberals being "idealistic" or something. The implication being, that this battle is between those who accept reality and those who are naive.
That is not what's going on.
The blogosphere might have been idealistic 5 or 10 years ago, when many were new to politics. But they're not new now. And some of us have been working in national politics for twenty years. Our anger is not rooted in our naivete, or our idealism. It's rooted in our realism. We know that when you fight for something in politics, you can very often win. But if you don't fight, you'll never win. We are upset at the President and the Congress because no one fought for the public option, for the President's own campaign promise. (As David Gregory rightly noted to David Axelrod during the same broadcast.)
The President and Congress never really fought for a specific plan. Sure, they made a lot of noise about wanting "reform," but the White House was never behind a real "campaign" for health care reform. They simply enabled some of the worst suspects in the Senate to come up with a "compromise," then sat back and did little while the entire process unraveled. (And mind you, what kind of a compromise do you get when the lead Democratic Senator that Obama picks to run the negotiation is dead-set against Obama's own campaign promise, and the GOP members are even worse?)
What's a campaign look like? Think GOP and Harry & Louise. Think what the Republicans did earlier this year, sending their minions to shut down the health care town meetings this past August. Think about the incessant GOP messaging on death panels, and killing granny. That's what a campaign looks like. It looks like hard-hitting messages that catch your opponents off-guard and sear your definition into the minds of the public. It is not simply sending the President to do a few speeches, and his wife to do a few Web videos. (And when a member of the opposition stands up and boorishly yells at you during your biggest speech on the topic, and the public is aghast, you don't go and change the bill in order to meet his concerns, confirming his assertion the bill was wrong, and you a liar.) A campaign is not waiting until your major promises are gone, and only then getting Vicki Kennedy to write an op ed.
Those of us who have been in national politics a while know what a real campaign looks like. This was not a real campaign. And that is why so man of us are so upset with our leaders. Not because we expected the impossible. But because we expected them to actually try. And they didn't.
