Presidential leadership matters

I just have to disagree with Matt Yglesias on this one, as I did with Ezra Klein when he first posted an academician's study showing that legislation has a better chance of passing if the President doesn't lead.

I don't buy it.

1. Why have a President at all? It sounds like this study would have him be nothing more than a figurehead. And even if the study were right, and I seriously doubt it, that's not the way our government is set up. I think the American people would have a problem with a President who doesn't feel the need to engage. In fact, I think the American people do have a problem with a President who doesn't like to engage.



2. I inherently have a problem with any leader who would choose how to conduct his job based on some academic's study of how to do his job. It's just a gut sense. The notion is somewhat odd and disturbing.

3. The notion that when the President leads, Congress gets all partisan, but when he doesn't lead, Congress doesn't get partisan, seems difficult to believe in principle, and in practice it's just not true.

In principle, are the Republicans going to be any nice to Harry Reid and Nancy Pelosi, just because Barack Obama goes on an extended 2.5 year vacation until 2012? Seriously? They're going to come around on immigration reform, and climate change, and abortion once Obama gets out of the picture? That's just not true. And I apologize for not presenting any counter-polls to prove this - my polling is 20+ years of working in politics in Washington, DC. This town is partisan. Politics is partisan. There is no "cure," as the post-partisan President, with an approval rating now lower than his age, has been finding out for 18 months now.

And that last sentence is where the "in practice" comes in. Barack Obama was practically nowhere to be seen on health care reform. He didn't put forward his own proposals, didn't fight for them at all, and what happened? The GOP went immediately partisan and spent a year trying to kill reform. And they did a pretty good job. Almost killed the entire thing. And certainly gutted the proposal so that it's now a shadow of what we (Democrats) wanted, and a shadow of what we could have had.

Why did the President's absence from the health care debate not solve the partisanship problem? He hasn't been much of a leader on immigration either. So what happened there? And on climate change. And on gay rights. He didn't lead very well at the beginning during the BP oil spill. How did that go?

They say the best way to avoid a fight is to not get into one in the first place. So maybe the best way to avoid partisanship is for Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid to also take this academic's advice, and they can stop leading as well. The only way we're going to get the Republicans to play nice is by ceding everything to them. Then they can pick the Supreme Court justices they want, lower taxes for the rich as much as they want, bash gays and women and blacks and Latinos as much as they want, and we'll all be living in post-partisan bliss.

Now, is it possible that presidential leadership fuels "more" partisanship than simply have congressional leadership alone? Okay, sure. But George Bush was a rather strong leader - he was a moron, but he asserted himself strongly (except for those few hours he went and hid while our country was under attack, but let's put that aside for a moment). And Bush got a lot done. Oh sure, he polarized things to death. And it didn't matter. He still got a lot of what he wanted. So did Ronald Reagan. Not exactly a "sit back and let someone else take the lead" kind of guy.

And finally, if the President isn't going to get involved in legislation, or is inherently ineffective at getting involved in legislation, then don't promise it in exchange for our votes. I don't buy the argument for a minute. I think strong presidents get the job done by bulldozing, elbow-twisting, and smartly making deals. But if we're going to let the guy off the hook, and tell him he doesn't have to lead the country the next two and a half years, then he'd better find another reason for us to vote him back into office.