Obama Wants to Move the Center Left

[MADem]

This is an interesting thesis, though I am sure there are some who will disagree with it.

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB123544280120155761.html?mod=googlenews_wsj

Obama Wants to Move the Center Left
The president's liberal critics miss the bigger picture.

President Barack Obama is taking a beating from liberal critics who think his attempt to court Republican support is a political failure and a policy disaster. Yet this assault on Mr. Obama's bipartisan instinct is misguided and, ironically, threatens to undermine liberal goals.


The president has his eye on a bigger prize than winning a few Republican votes for his stimulus package or having a conservative in his cabinet. He aims to move the political center in America to the left, much as Ronald Reagan moved it to the right. The only way he can achieve this goal is to harness the energies and values of both parties.

Left and right mean less nowadays, especially to Americans outside Washington. But broadly speaking, Mr. Obama seeks to use government in new ways to bolster opportunity and security in an era when financial crisis, global competition and rapid technological change are calling into question the political and business arrangements on which our prosperity has rested for decades. This is the task that history has assigned this president. The spat between him and his liberal critics is about the way one makes this happen.

Foes of Mr. Obama's "bipartisan" overtures believe you move the political center by crushing the opposition and then consolidating your gains; that's how we got the New Deal and the Great Society, this thinking runs. This would be a powerful argument if 2009 were anything like 1933 or 1965. But it's not. In the 1930s, with unemployment at 25%, America faced an economic meltdown far more devastating than today's. Support for bold departures was widespread. We forget, however, that even with this readiness for change, and with bigger congressional majorities than Mr. Obama enjoys, FDR was able to enact only a very modest initial version of Social Security.

Today, with trillions in economic spaghetti being thrown against the wall, enough will stick, however imperfectly, to avoid a 1930s-style calamity. Mr. Obama, thankfully, will not have the hardship FDR could mine to move his agenda. This may disappoint those quietly betting on the revolutionary motto attributed to Lenin, "the worse, the better," but those are the facts.....

[nadinbrzezinski]

1. Like FDR did the repeat of history is becoming almost predictable

serious

His choice for cabinet (center right, street cred in Wall Street) reflects the game plan back in '33

As I like to put it

HEALTH CARE, if Dennis proposes it, he's a damn pinko commie, with no street cred (in power circles that is)

If I don;t know SUMMERS proposes it... he has the street cred where it matters. Aka where that will happen... and it is not in the Congress, for the most part

[Selatius]

3. Let us hope Obama can repeat FDR sans the Great Depression repeat, but I fear...

that if things are not plugged up quickly, the economy will continue to slide towards a Second Great Depression. People thought the bursting of the sub-prime bubble was bad. I wonder how bad it will be when the credit card default rate spikes above 10% probably in 2009, along with continued high levels of foreclosures. Would the banks, in their depleted positions, be able to handle a second wave of defaults, this time with credit card users?

[nadinbrzezinski]

28. That is where the Bad Bank comes in, used back in the great depression too

and that is where the nationalization of banks comes in, the Sweeden model, which is an improved version of what FDR did

By the way should change my sig.

I WANT OFF THIS HISTORY IS REPEATING ITSELF RIDE!

:-)

[Captain Hilts]

20. No. FDR had some very liberal cabinet members & completely ignored the conservatives he appointed...

in favor of progressive under secretaries and administrators such as Hopkins, Welles, Tugwell, Alexander, Lillienthal, and so forth.

The one guy with Wall St. "cred," Louis Douglas, resigned fairly promptly and Morgenthau - whose primary qualification was being FDR's neighbor in NY - was appointed. Morgenthau had NO street cred on Wall St.

FDR: Yeah! What Capt. Hilts said!

[nadinbrzezinski]

27. Even his conservative appointees were liberal by modern standards

so take that with your history

By the way... I am expecting some in the current cabinet to leave relatively soon, and then you will see some centrist, not righties, centrist, appointed

This is the way the game is played

[Triana]

2. So what if he does? I don't see the problem, then.

(Wall St. Journal) - aren't they irrelevant yet? The OP is actually pretty positive compared to the tripe the WSJ usually publishes, I gotta give it that.

[MADem]

5. I thought it was an interesting article despite the source.

It's a thesis I've put forth in the past, myself. He's doing a Reagan, only jinking in the opposite direction.

However, as the article points out, there are some who can't abide any treating with the enemey in any form. The paradigm is dominate and crush.

[Skittles]

4. Move? That is where he has always been.

[MADem]

6. The article is saying that Obama wants to move the definition of "center" to the left

It's more about that thing called the center, not where Obama is in relation to it.

[Skittles]

8. that would make it where most of the country is

yup

[tuvor]

7. Thank you for posting, MADem.

[MADem]

9. Anytime--glad you enjoyed it! nt

[Truth2Tell]

10. I take issue with this post on so many levels.

Ronald Reagan certainly used the crush and consolidate method, not the appeasement model. And he didn't move to the left after his election to achieve his conservative goals. He moved to the right.

The economic meltdown facing America in the 30s was not "more devastating" than the present meltdown. We are just earlier in the process right now.

The certainty with which the author proclaims that Obama's economic measures will prevent a calamity make the whole thing suspect. "those are the facts..." Uh huh.

The logic of the argument that moving to the right will somehow co-opt the opposition and then move the center to the left is twisted WSJ Orwellianism.

[MADem]

16. The article is saying that Obama is doing the Reagan, only in the other direction and differently.

Of course Reagan moved to the right--that was HIS agenda. Obama's agenda is to nudge the nation leftward. And if he has to use GOP tools to do it, he will. That's the thesis. It's not moving to the right, it's ju-jitsu--using your enemy's strength against him.

We really don't know yet how devastating this present meltdown is going to be. We don't know if we're "earlier in the process" or if there will be a massive course correction as a result of new events, breakthroughs in technology, new discoveries, or other factors that can influence the global economic engine.

Look, this is an OPINION piece. The writer isn't claiming special knowledge. And the writer did not propose "moving to the right" if that's what you take from it. In fact, the article is saying that Obama is doing a little meaningful triangulation in order to move what is presently defined as the center to the LEFT. He's co-opting the GOP economic themes that resonate, and using them to promote Democratic goals. The Republicans are inadvertently helping him, by being obstreperous, pissy whiners, to reach citizens who would ordinarily line up behind their GOP leaders and not bother to give Obama a listen.

To be sure, the Republican Party today is hardly a promising reform partner; its leaders seem bent only on repeating the GOP comeback of 1994. But as Mr. Obama knows, that doesn't mean that conservative economic thinking, shorn of certain discredited excesses, has nothing useful to offer. It just means Republicans are too blinded by fear and ambition right now to offer serious ideas on growth and efficiency as opposed to bogus grandstanding on "spending" and "pork." This vacuum gives Mr. Obama an opportunity to appeal to parts of the electorate that might otherwise be beyond his reach.

The president plainly feels this dialectic in his bones -- witness the long, superfluous riff at his recent press conference on why conservatives need to get past their "money doesn't matter" canard on schools even as he challenged liberals to accept reforms in exchange for new investment in education. (Mr. Obama's stimulus includes $5 billion in "incentive" funds that for the first time will give the secretary of education real power to forge constructive deals on issues such as teacher tenure and compensation.) On issue after issue, Mr. Obama knows we need such new "grand bargains" that harness the market forces cherished by Republicans with the public purposes stressed by Democrats.

Seen in this light, Mr. Obama's search for a true "Third Way" isn't a stylistic choice or a cynical exercise in triangulation. Nor is it naive, except in the sense that leaders willing to make big bets to move history can be deemed dreamy by definition. Liberals who mock Mr. Obama's Republican flirtations fail to appreciate that his bipartisanship is an effort to play for bigger stakes. He's daring to link a political strategy to an attempt to actually solve America's major policy challenges....

[acmavm]

11. Pfffffffffft!

[KG]

12. this article is a huge steaming pile of BS.

[Laelth]

13. Agreed. That author's crystal ball is far too clear to believe. n/t

:dem:

-Laelth

[MADem]

14. Well, that really added to the discussion. Why don't you share your views about why you feel that

way, instead of dropping that turd and running away?

[KG]

15. i just expressed my opinion, the turd is the article you so proudly posted.

[MADem]

17. "So proudly posted." You're apparently looking for a confrontation.

I thought the article had an interesting thesis and deserved a bit of thoughtful and intelligent discussion.

Your agenda is to shout down anything that doesn't meet your muster, and get snarky and personal.

I get it. Gee, you don't like the article. So what's YOUR idea? What do YOU think Obama should do? Hmmmm?

It's easy to criticize, it's harder to come up with a viable game plan.

[KG]

18. my agenda?

:rofl: get over yourself.

[MADem]

19. I rest my case. You have no interest in discussion, only snark and immature insults. nt

[digidigido]

22. opinions are like assholes..... everybody has one. Give me thought and reasoned argument

and we'll all be better off. "That sucks" does not qualify

[KG]

24. i was merely expressing an opinion on an editorial. if it doesn't meet your standards, oh well.

:eyes:

[Captain Hilts]

23. Alert. nt

[IDemo]

21. "America faced an economic meltdown far more devastating than today's"

I think it remains to be seen.

[EPIC1934]

25. Left in media speak or left with historical perspective?

What does "left" mean after the democrats put up zero resistance to the most radical right regime in US history. Richard Nixon is a leftist i todays context and that is not irony, but begetable reality. Center means right today. You need history to be able to tell this but that is NOT A MATTER OF OPINION.

[Larkspur]

26. The nation is already center left. We want to move Obama and the Democrats

center left and stop their inane flirting with Republicans and their bankrupt ideas.

[MADem]

29. Well, I question that assumption. If we were really center left, California

wouldn't have shit on gays with a hideous vote quite recently, there wouldn't be draconian laws down south for recreational drug possession, and we wouldn't see so many hate crimes. We'd have better health care for Americans. We'd have more of a safety net for the poor, the homeless, the battered. We wouldn't have to fight for children's programs. Fewer children would be abused, neglected, murdered. Our schools would be better.

If America, the way it is today, is by your definition "center left," that's a pretty sad definition of that location on the political spectrum.

I think our country is now center right, when before it was a bit more to the right than that.

If Obama can recalibrate our nation to be center left, and we see a bit more of the good old "social justice" on the domestic agenda, that will be a good thing.

[Larkspur]

30. On economic issues, Americans are center left and have been for quite a while

Americans today support single payer over the monopolistic system we now have and most Americans support workers' right to form unions.

While I support gay issues, they are not the barometer of whether the nation is center left or not. It's the economic issues that really define us.

[MADem]

31. On social issues, though, they're center right, and some are to the right of that.

And from an economic perspective, there are plenty of people around from both parties who won't put up with higher taxes (a right of center GOP theme, originally) and who don't want "their" money spent on too many social programs.

You can ask a fundamentalist Christian if "it's the economic issues that define us" and she will say NO--that prayer in school is the big issue. There are single issue voters across the spectrum, from tax voters to gun voters to abortion voters.

As a nation, we are still leaning to the right of the center. And not everyone is leaping up and down for single payer. Some people, the rich, most of them, the bastards--think that people should pony up for their own health care costs and the 'gubmint' should stay out of it entirely. Some people want 'gubmint' out of everything, from education to gun control. Employers in those misnamed "right to work" states HATE unions, and they've managed to convince a lot of stupid people who could benefit from unionizing that unions are evil, commie, pinko outfits peppered with molesters who are going to charge them huge fees and tell them how they have to vote.

I hope Obama can shift the center more leftward, because right now, it's still decidedly to the right of the center I remember from even the anti-war, take-to-the-streets, mid-sixties.