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Jewish World Review
June 6, 2014 / 8 Sivan, 5774
Obama ditches his party: How the prez exposes Dems to risk
By
Michael Gerson
http://www.JewishWorldReview.com |
As a presidential candidate in 2007, Barack Obama told historian Doris Kearns Goodwin: “I have no desire to be one of those presidents who are just on the list — you see their pictures lined up on the wall. I really want to be a president who makes a difference.”
In moments of decision, and in rare flashes of passion, we have seen what that means to him: passing the Affordable Care Act, even against uniform Republican opposition; ending the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, even on less-than-favorable terms. President Obama is genuinely animated when talking about gun control or closing the income gap. His second inaugural address — the first draft of his legacy project — was the most ambitiously progressive in American history. But even as a second-term president contemplating his portrait on a wall that includes both Franklin Roosevelt and Franklin Pierce, he faces a final, usually difficult midterm election. Obama is reported to have said, “I don’t really care to be president without the Senate.” And there is a tension here between legacy and politics. Exhibit A is the Environmental Protection Agency’s announcement of sweeping new restrictions on carbon emissions from power plants. This is the bold, politically risky expression of a consistent presidential priority. No one who voted to reelect Obama, or to replace him, could have doubted (if they paid attention) that this was in the works. But, as a pleased Republican staffer on Capitol Hill told me, “Obama didn’t do this before his own reelection. Now others get to take the risk.” Those others include Alison Grimes, the Democratic challenger to Sen. Mitch McConnell (Ky.). “When I’m in the U.S. Senate,” she said, “I will fiercely oppose the president’s attack on Kentucky’s coal industry.” Obama has clearly complicated her first task: getting to the Senate in the first place. In announcing the carbon dioxide rule, EPA Administrator Gina McCarthy mocked “special interest skeptics who cry the sky is falling.” Which also seems to include the Democratic Senate candidate in West Virginia, Natalie Tennant, who declared: “I will stand up to President Obama, Gina McCarthy, and anyone else who tries to undermine our coal jobs.”
It is not my purpose to criticize presidential boldness on matters of principle; I only note that in the contest between presidential legacy and Democratic Senate control, Obama has chosen legacy. And since the battle for the Senate is being fought in red states (some of which are coal states), the political consequences of Obama’s progressivism are magnified. If you are a capable, electable Democratic Senate candidate — say, in Kentucky or Georgia — you can’t be very pleased with Obama. The EPA regulations require explanation, or desperate distancing. The Taliban prisoner swap — which the administration somehow assumed would be noncontroversial — reveals layers of legal, ethical and geopolitical controversy. The VA hospital scandal continues to unfold, with 79 percent of Americans putting at least part of the blame on the president. And beneath it all, Obamacare — which generates Republican resentment without producing a counterbalancing Democratic enthusiasm. Some of these factors are within Obama’s control, and some aren’t. But five months before the Senate majority will be determined, Obama is complicating the messaging of some Democratic Senate candidates and exposing them to political risks he refused to take himself. Over the years, progressives have argued that Obama has engaged in too much accommodation with Republicans and too much self-censorship when it comes to his deepest beliefs. More recently, Obama seems to have internalized that criticism, embarking on a pen-and-phone strategy of executive actions. And this has been accompanied by Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid’s systematic appeal to the Democratic base — alleging a war on women while conducting a war on the Koch brothers. But all of this is strangely disconnected from one of the main challenges facing the Democratic Party in the coming election. A recent NBC News/Wall Street Journal poll found that only 29 percent of independents approve of Obama’s job performance. Just 24 percent of independents say they prefer Democratic congressional candidates. National Democratic leaders are actively making this problem worse. And both progressives and Republicans are now hoping for the same thing: Let Obama be Obama. The president has always had a tendency to fly alone. From the start, his mission was singular and personal — a movement inseparable from the man and only incidentally connected to his party. But the epic failure of that party in two midterms, and a sendoff loss of Senate control, would also help determine the Obama legacy.
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Previously:
06/03/14 Obama's global war on straw men
05/30/14 Conservatives can do better than a do-it-yourself philosophy
05/16/14 Individualism gone awry: Social disconnection explains inequality.
05/09/14 Republicans regrouping: The establishment fights back
04/29/14 The payoff of a college education
04/04/14 Our dysfunctional Senate
03/25/14 Obama is learning is learning the lessons of inaction -- one hopes
03/21/14 The GOP's need for creative policy
03/18/14 Can Obama Rise To Carter's Level?
03/11/14 Ukraine shakes up the GOP debate over foreign policy
03/07/14 The U.S. retreats: History tells us who will fill the vacuum
02/28/14The GOP is struggling to redefine itself
02/25/14 Physics is enjoying a golden age
02/18/14 Syria's refugees: Assad uses mass atrocities in the civil war
02/11/14 Burke and Paine, a rivalry that still reverberates
02/03/14 A rendezvous with irrelevance
01/31/14 Obama's thin agenda: The State of the Union lacked a theme
01/28/14 Obama breeding distrust of liberalism
01/24/14 Our complex president: Is his intellectual style actually good leadership?
01/21/14 The power to intimidate . . . on the Left
01/17/14 Gates hits his target
12/31/13 A dismal year in politics, for Republicans and Democrats alike
12/24/13 The war on Christians
12/17/13 The exhausted parties: What have politicians accomplished?
12/06/13 My numbered days: My cancer diagnosis gave me the clarity of mortality
11/22/13 C.S. Lewis: Rescuing desire
11/19/13 Former bridge burner starting to build them to save GOP
11/15/13 Entrepreneurs of outrage: Fear and anger sweep up policy issues
11/01/13 What Obamacare has cost Dems
10/29/13 In 6 months will this column prove prophetic?
10/22/13 Obamacare repair: It could become a crisis for modern liberalism
10/04/13 The GOP should speed Obamacare's demise. Right now, it's not
10/03/13 The tea party's revolt
09/30/13 The end of compromise?
09/17/13 A state of paralysis: Congress, Obama need to act
09/12/13 In full retreat on Syria
09/10/13 Obama misunderstands wartime leadership
09/09/13 Rallying around a gesture
08/30/13 The preacher and the politician
08/27/13 Is Obama's oft-cited best-case scenario in Syria still even possible?
08/23/13 Jordan's wary welcome
08/20/13 The hardest goodbye: A parent letting go
08/16/13 For GOP, opposition shouldn't only mean obstruction
08/13/13 Crazy, humane determination creates breakthrough for millions
08/09/13 America's bubble of complacency
07/01/11 The GOP's ideal America
03/04/11 The last doughboy and the emergence of a great nation
03/01/11 Conservatives shouldn't be so surprised by freedom
02/22/11 The progression of pain
02/18/11 The seriousness primary
02/11/11 Do Egypt's protests mean American decline?
01/27/11 No-bend Obama
01/21/11 Two good arguments for civility -- and passion -- in politics
01/11/11 Obama's staff changes give him a second chance
01/11/11 Is Arizona shooting an empty search for meaning?
01/07/11 WikiLeaks gives dangerous ammunition to a tyrant
01/04/11 Michael Vick: Symbol of the second chance
12/28/10 Social Security reform is the answer to Obama's problems --- and the nation's
12/21/10 When foreign policy realism isn't realistic
12/17/10 When it comes to politics, Obama's ego keeps getting in the way
11/26/10 Libs resort to conspiracy theories to explain Obama's problems
11/19/10 With Holder at the helm, detainee policy is a disaster
11/12/10 Blue-state budget crises spell even more trouble for Dems
10/19/10 Obama the snob
10/12/10 Seeds of victory in Afghanistan
10/05/10 Believers' remorse
10/04/10 Pound-foolish on national security
09/28/10 Babylon on the Potomac
09/27/10 Our reluctant commander in chief
09/21/10 Blue strongholds are becoming Democratic graveyards
09/17/10 For the GOP, a bittersweet brew from the Tea Party
09/15/10: Insanity's great enablers
09/13/10: The lost communicator
09/08/10: Will 2010 midterms be 1994 all over again?
09/01/10: Obama's economic wandering
08/27/10: Miracles from abroad
08/25/10: Address these issues in order to strengthen the Tea Party
08/20/10: The lost promise of Barack Obama
07/23/10: Obama's greatest nightmare
02/04/09: The Reality of Innocence
01/07/09: The Risks in Obama's Ambitions
12/31/08: Support Obama Will Need
06/13/08: Prince Charles, Organic Conservatism Icon
06/11/08: No longer a bankrupt political joke but still overshadowed
04/23/08: McCain's anger management
04/10/08: A Country for Old Men
03/06/08: Does the America Need a Hug?
03/06/08: Obama's First 100 Days
02/29/08: Words Aren't Cheap
02/22/08: He Said, They Said
02/20/08: Dying silently in Zimbabwe
02/15/08: Hillary's Unappealing Path
02/13/08: NATO's Afghan Stumbles
02/08/08: Why McCain Endures
02/06/08: One surge that led to another
02/01/08: In North Korea, Process Over Progress
01/30/08: Compassionate to the end
© 2008, WPWG
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