Barack Obama's election marked a sweeping mandate for a progressive agenda!

[Clio the Leo]

Or maybe not. While I dont agree with the conclusion of this article (follow the link if you want to see what that was), it explains the political limits the President and Dems in Congress face better than any explanation I've seen thus far....

... liberal output that has argued that Obama did not go liberal enough. He "opted for an inside game," rather than "extend(ing) those limits" to achieve big, i.e. liberal, goals. If he had done the latter, middle class Americans would have felt the positive benefits already and his poll numbers would not be sliding.

I disagree with this line of thinking. I doubt very much that Obama could have used "the remarkable capacities he displayed during the 2008 campaign" to "inspire and rally Americans," thus "changing that politics." All Presidents face real constraints, and Obama is no different. Acknowledging and identifying them can help us understand where the President has gone wrong.

On the stimulus, he certainly could have gone no bigger than what he did. Reich fails to acknowledge the political fallout from an even larger stimulus package. Deficit spending is a major political issue that has dominated public discussion since the battle between John Adams and Thomas Jefferson. Reich and Paul Krugman might fault Obama for not spending more, but their preferred level of deficit spending is politically untenable. It always has been. Even FDR was consistently worried about deficits. Granted that the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act was not enough economic boost for the price tag, but that does not meant that the price tag could have or should have been higher. Not in this country. See: Perot, H. Ross, peculiar appeal of.

As for health care, Obama's goal was an FDR- or LBJ-style comprehensive, systematic reform of the system. It was to be his Social Security, his Medicare. But Obama simply lacked a sufficiently broad mandate to pull off such a feat. If the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act seems less august than Social Security and Medicare, that's because Obama's political position upon assuming the office was not as strong as FDR or LBJ's.

To appreciate what I'm talking about, consider the following picture. It compares Obama's election in 2008 (by county) to previous landslides - Roosevelt in 1932 and 1936, Eisenhower in 1952, Johnson in 1964, and Reagan in 1980. These maps come from an excellent French cartographer named Frédéric Salmon, whose work can be accessed here. They follow a different color scheme than the red-blue divide we are used to. In the following maps, Republican counties are in blue - and they become darker blue as the county votes more heavily Republican. Meanwhile, Democratic counties are in yellow - and they move to brown as the county votes more heavily Democratic.



As should be clear, Obama's victory was geographically narrower than Reagan's, LBJ's, Ike's or FDR's. Substantially so. Obama did much more poorly in rural and small town locales. They have a history of progressive/liberal support, but Obama was unable to place himself in the rural progressive tradition of William Jennings Bryan. This makes his coalition the most one-sided of any on the above maps. Most of his political support comes from the big cities and the inner suburbs. The exurbs, small towns, and rural areas generally voted Republican (with notable exceptions in the Upper Midwest).

In fact, if you look at presidential elections going back 100 years, Obama's is the most geographically narrow of any victors except Carter, Kennedy, and Truman....


Voting input inevitably determines policy output, and these maps hold the key to Reich's disappointment with the President. In our system, it's not just the number of votes that matter, but - thanks to Roger Sherman - how they are distributed across the several states. Obama's urban support base was sufficient for political success in the House, which passed a very liberal health care bill last November. But rural places have greater sway in the Senate - and Obama's weakness in rural America made for a half-dozen skittish Democrats who represent strong McCain states. The evolving thinking on the left - "Obama should have used his campaign-trail magic to change the political dynamic" - is thus totally misguided. The "remarkable capacities he displayed during the 2008 campaign" never persuaded the constituents of the red state Democrats he had to win over. Why should they suddenly start doing so now?

http://www.realclearpolitics.com/horseraceblog/2010/08/what_went_wrong_with_obama.html

[Jim Sagle]

1. Your link is to a Republican-leaning site, and the article is a buncha bullshit.

[babylonsister]

3. Baloney. I read that site every day. They 'attempt' to provide

both sides.

[Jim Sagle]

13. But only by the light of the corporate moon.

[FrenchieCat]

2. But, but, but....

and here I thought he was magic and shit!

[Clio the Leo]

5. .....

;)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nd254scA8XU

[scheming daemons]

4. "Geography" doesn't vote... people do. A "map" of an election is meaningless. Here's why.

New York City.... which is 250 times smaller than the state of Wyoming geographically, has 16 times as many people.

On the "map"... NYC shows up as a little blip, while Wyoming is a large box.


Looking at just Wyoming vs. NYC... you'd think that McCain won in a landslide.



people vote, not acres.

[Clio the Leo]

6. How many Senators does NY have? How many does WY?

Do Schumer and Gillibrand have more votes than Barasso and Enzi because they represent a more populous state? Nope. So, IN THE SENATE, a block of a half million people have the same power as another block of 19.5 million. To further complicate things, there are more states (ie votes) with small, rural, populations than than states with large, urban populations. As the article says, therein lies the problem. Sure, the President won by a 10 million vote margin, but those voters were concentrated into fewer areas ie Senate votes.

Or in other words, the Senate is busted.

[DFLforever]

7. Yes, but he's nicely pinned down the problem

with the Senate and as we know that's where area does prevail.

His point of view is interesting although I don't agree with his conclusions.

edit: typo

I will add I think his observations on the stimulus are much more perceptive than the economists we often quote on this site.

[Gman]

8. A very strong argument can be made that swing voters, who determine elections

voted against a crazy McCain and continuing Bush policies and against batshit-nuts Palin instead of for Obama.

The 08 election was hardly a progressive mandate.

[LAGC]

10. You're forgetting all the voters who voted for Nader in 2000.

I'd say Obama owes just as big of debt to the hard-core liberals and progressives who were out there making calls and ringing door-bells. Sure, most of them wanted primarily to end the Bush legacy, but by Goddess a good portion of them believed in "hope and change" too.

[Gman]

14. Oh no... I don't ever forget those that voted for Nader and who facilitated

getting us where where this country is today.

Progressives and liberals very narrowly got Obama the Democratic nomination. He won with the margin he did in the General Election because of those who didn't want McCain to win and liked the appeal of Obama's message. Progressives did not win the 08 general election for Obama.

[Radical Activist]

9. But Obama did expand support in rural areas

over Kerry. The party's problems in rural areas have been developing for years, long before Obama ran. He did some work to reverse that, particularly in the Midwest.

Anyway, I disagree with the premise that he didn't pursue an "outside" strategy. He did use the bully pulpit. The media ignored it and the net roots responded by staying in auto-pilot attack mode.

[JoePhilly]

12. +100

[uponit7771]

11. It would be great if Obama had the resources to implement a more progressive agenda

[zipplewrath]

17. He doesn't want them

He wants Specter and Lincoln. He thinks challenging the conservative democrats with their own constituents is "retarded". He doesn't bother to call Lieberman to even try to influence him on health insurance reform. He does go to Kucinich's district in Ohio though and campaigns there. He expressed preference for cadillac taxes and mandates, and claimed that the public option wasn't all that important. These aren't the actions of someone trying to pass progressive legislation. They are the actions of a centrist getting centrist legislation passed.

[WI_DEM]

15. 2008 was a vote against the GOP and primarily Bush more than anything

[jefferson_dem]

16. Jay Cost leans right.

But his columns are typically well considered and rich with supporting evidence. Open thy mind.

[Clio the Leo]

19. Exactly .... HE MAY but his stats dont....

..... the fact that most of the President's votes came from urban areas is not a partisan theory.

It's a fact. One that we, unfortunately, have to deal with.

[JamesA1102]

18. Great article

Too bad there are so many closed minded people here who will refused to learn from it. Remember when the definition of being a liberal was keeping an open mind?