Mother Jones' David Corn: After the Disaster, What's Obama's Next Act?

[flpoljunkie]

After the Disaster, What's Obama's Next Act?


White House photo/Pete Souza

The president has a tough decision to make: how confrontational to be in opposing the more extreme and more powerful Republicans.

By David Corn
Nov. 3, 2010 3:00 AM PDT

Now comes Act III for Obama, and the critical question: will he change the script?

The election results on Tuesday night were no surprise: a tea party-fueled tsunami of discontent washed away the House Democratic majority and eroded much of the Democrats' territory in the Senate. It was a historic rout. The initial returns indicated the Republicans would pick up five dozen or so House seats and end up with a commanding majority in that chamber. Prominent House Democrats—Florida's Alan Grayson, South Carolina's John Spratt, Virginia's Tom Perriello—lost. Tea party favorite Rand Paul dominated the early returns, winning the Kentucky Senate seat. Sen. Russ Feingold, a three-term, non-establishment Democratic progressive from Wisconsin—gone. Republican candidates with lobbying and corporate ties waltzed into office. A reelected Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-Minn.) will be commanding a sizable tea party caucus in the House. Republicans made signficant gains in gubernatorial races and state legislative contests, placing the party in a strong position to consolidate power by redrawing congressional districts in key states.

And all this was utterly predictable. With high unemployment persisting, polling had made it clear for months—perhaps over a year—that Obama and the Democrats had backed themselves onto the edge of a cliff. Yet the president and his strategists—David Axelrod, Rahm Emanuel, and others—failed to plot a path to safety. At times, it even appeared they were not exerting themselves fully—such as this past August when the White House did nothing special to prepare for the coming elections.

In his first eighteen months in office, Obama racked up impressive achievements: a stimulus bill that saved or created millions of jobs (though not enough), health care reform legislation that contained significant improvements (though it also included hard-to-understand provisions and eschewed a public option), and a Wall Street reform measure that set up a new consumer financial protection agency (though it did not tighten up the rules of the road sufficiently). But the president, who had presented such a compelling tale as a candidate, allowed Rep. John Boehner (R-Ohio) and Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) to outfox and outmaneuver him. The GOP did all it could to block Obama's agenda and then claimed he had not succeeded. Its leaders lied about the stimulus (claiming it had literally produced no new jobs), and they enabled and cheered on tea party critics of health care reform, who decried nonexistent "death panels" and who compared Democratic supporters of the bill to "Nazis." And Obama never fully called them out.

If Obama—the guy with the bully pulpit— fails to define the opposition in clear terms, it will keep on defining him.

more...

http://motherjones.com/politics/2010/11/obamas-next-act

[BootinUp]

1. Can't disagree with much in the article. nt

[flamingdem]

2. Remember: Last August the White House was dealing with the worst environmental disaster in history

THANKS BP!