Marshall Ganz: How Obama lost his voice, and how he can get it back (MUST READ)

[highplainsdem]

http://www.mcclatchydc.com/2010/11/04/103177/how-obama-lost-his-voice-and-how.html

Commentary: How Obama lost his voice, and how he can get it back
By Marshall Ganz | Los Angeles Times


President Obama entered office wrapped in a mantle of moral leadership. His call for change was rooted in values that had long been eclipsed in our public life: a sense of mutual responsibility, commitment to equality and belief in inclusive diversity. Those values inspired a new generation of voters, restored faith to the cynical and created a national movement.

Now, 18 months and an "enthusiasm gap" later, the nation's major challenges remain largely unmet, and a discredited conservative movement has reinvented itself in a more virulent form.

-snip-

Obama and his team made three crucial choices that undermined the president's transformational mission. First, he abandoned the bully pulpit of moral argument and public education. Next, he chose to lead with a politics of compromise rather than advocacy. And finally, he chose to demobilize the movement that elected him president. By shifting focus from a public ready to drive change - as in "yes we can" - he shifted the focus to himself and attempted to negotiate change from the inside, as in "yes I can."

-snip-

In his transactional leadership mode, the president chose compromise rather than advocacy. Instead of speaking on behalf of a deeply distressed public, articulating clear positions to lead opinion and inspire public support, Obama seemed to think that by acting as a mediator, he could translate Washington dysfunction into legislative accomplishment. Confusing bipartisanship in the electorate with bipartisanship in Congress, he lost the former by his feckless pursuit of the latter, empowering the very people most committed to bringing down his presidency.

-snip-

[FirstLight]

1. question...

Do you think Obama *knows* this...? or that he actually reads this stuff...?

I'm not trying to be snarky, i just wish sometimes we could get this message THROUGH to him.
Wish he would just grow some bigger balls and decide to DO what we elected him to do...the "mandate" was to FIGHT FOR US and we need it now more than ever. now is NOT the time to tuck tail or be polite, the rethugs can smell it like a rabid rottweiler, and they will not hesitate to rip the jugular of the president and then proceed to piss on the country at large.
I *want* the president that says "chill the fuck out" and HANDLES it!!!

I know we have work to do in the trenches, but we elected our LEADER to be bold and brave and fight that fight FOR us and WITH us.

I am with ED, we need some more FIGHT in our bellies!!!

[highplainsdem]

2. I have no idea. I have to hope he reads this type of criticism, and listens.

Because it's way too late for him to try to redefine himself as the best friend the Republicans have, sensitive to every whim of the electorate, including the whims of troglodytes who'd like to undo a century of social advances and part of the Constitution. They're going to do everything possible to nail him anyway, no matter how much he compromises.

You can't play three-dimensional chess with someone holding a gun to your head and shouting that he'll use it.

It's time to fight. Time for all Democrats to fight.

And we HAVE to make our message clearer. Something I've been trying to get across in a topic I posted earlier today:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=389x9474442

I wrote that because I was so bothered by part of Obama's press conference yesterday, a statement of his which very neatly exemplified the same leadership problem, the shift to transactional leaderhip, that Marshall Ganz is criticizing him for.

[Bonhomme Richard]

3. I think that is what bothers me the most.

He is not stupid and he must have heard this a zillion times so I ask myself why he doesn't change his behavior. Simply baffles the shit out of me.

[highplainsdem]

4. Baffles me, too. My best guess is that he's shifted to this transactional mode for two reasons.

One is that his background is in the legislative rather than the executive branch of government, and he believes that transformational leadership is necessary only for campaigns and then you have to switch to a transactional leadership style.

The other is a failing I've sometimes noticed in myself. If you can usually reason with people and get them to at least see your side, if not completely agree with you, then sometimes it's tempting to believe you can ALWAYS do that.

Obama is very eloquent and persuasive. But this isn't a leisurely theoretical discussion among academics. This is power politics and he's dealing with Republicans who have no intention of listening and compromising, as they've shown again and again. The few who pretended to be more willing to compromise were apparently just doing so in the hope of stalling his agenda and getting concessions while offering none.

[Bitwit1234]

5. How about this. We organize. We get a group representative

of America. All walks of life, all colors, all religions and then elect a leader, select a group and ask the president for an interview so that the real America can tell him what THEY THINK he has done wrong so far. AND BOY WE COULD JUST LAY IT OUT TO HIM.

If we could get a diverse group of people to think about this and help us get together, we could be able to get an interview with him. I am sure he would have to agree if we COULD get the MSM in on it. He would be afraid to turn us down since he know says he wants to comprise. He could start with us. How can we organize.

[zipplewrath]

6. Community organizer

If you think about it, between his legislative experience, and his community organizing experience, as well as his Law Review background, his skill set was developed trying to bring people, who are relatively independent, into a cooperative structure. His background isn't in being the dominate leader, who establishes the priorities. His background is in leveraging the priorities of those around him.

My perception is that this is not currently serving him well.

[highplainsdem]

7. kick