It has been interesting watching the reactions to Scott Brown’s victory in Massachusetts—after all, it’s significant enough that a Republican won a Senate seat in the safest Democratic state in the country, but that he did so not by painting himself as a moderate but by emphasizing his conservative positions on taxes, health care, and national security is amazing. Normally, one figures that significant defeats should lead us to examine ourselves and re-evaluate our efforts, and that failure should inspire us to humility; the initial returns from leading Democrats didn’t show any sign of that, though. Nancy Pelosi declared that the health care deform bill would pass, “one way or another,” even if the only way to do that were to force the House to accept the Senate bill in toto—even though folks like Bart Stupak were saying that that idea was a non-starter (a fact which Speaker Pelosi is now recognizing). The lesson Howard Dean drew from the election is, “We gotta be tougher . . . leadership is not trying to be centrist and get everybody to work together, because that’s not going to happen.” Well, no, if you’re not willing to give as much as you get, it isn’t.
(Interestingly, Dean also said, “George Bush would have had the health care bill done a long time ago and it would have been done through reconciliation and that would have been what we wanted.” This is striking on two counts. First, it’s revealing of his attitudes; it would appear that all the things for which the Democratic leadership berated President Bush were things which they secretly admired. Second, though Dean didn’t make it explicit, this is a pretty sharp negative comparison of Barack Obama to his predecessor; the implicit line here is “Bush was tough and knew how to get things done; Obama isn’t and doesn’t.” Given how vicious the Democrats were toward President Bush, this is no small thing.)
As a practical matter, once a Brown victory began to look probable, Democrats began talking about delaying seating him so that the placeholder, Paul Kirk, could vote on the Demcare bill. That talk sparked a sharp popular response, including petitions and Facebook groups demanding Sen.-elect Brown be seated immediately, and Democratic senators such as James Webb (D-VA) and Evan Bayh (D-IN) quickly made it known after the election that they expected the Senate to hold any significant deliberations until Sen. Brown had formally joined the chamber; President Obama said the same, but whether he meant it or whether this is just another case of him taking the rhetorical high road and leaving the dirty work to those around him is unclear.
What does seem clear, however, is that the President and his administration are unable or unwilling to see the election result in Massachusetts as reflecting on them, or as an indication that they need to change their agenda. So far, White House weathervane Robert Gibbs has varied between flippant, glib, sarcastic, and dismissive in dealing with any suggestions to that effect. David Axelrod has declared that backing off on the President’s health care agenda is “not an option.” Mike Allen of Politico quoted “a senior administration official” as saying,
This is not a moment that causes the president or anybody who works for him to express any doubt. It more reinforces the conviction to fight hard.
The article continues,
The health care backdrop has given the White House a strong incentive to strike a defiant posture, at least rhetorically, in response to what would be an undeniable embarrassment for the president and his party. . . .
“The response will not be to do incremental things and try to salvage a few seats in the fall,” a presidential adviser said. “The best political route also happens to be the boldest rhetorical route, which is to go out and fight and let the chips fall where they may. We can say, ‘At least we fought for these things, and the Republicans said no.’”
Which makes perfect political sense . . . if you believe that those are things the public wants done. If a majority of Americans don’t want them done, then the overall public response to that will be “Good for the Republicans,” and the result will be strong gains for the GOP. At this point, the White House appears (wilfully?) incapable of considering the possibility that Barack Obama might not have the mandate he thought he had, and that the public might actually really honestly not want him to do what he’s determined to do. He even went so far as to tell congressional Democrats that if they just pass the health care bill, those who are opposed to it will “suddenly” discover that they like it after all.
Given this, it’s not surprising that the President seems to assume that his party will go along with him in pushing his agenda through; at this point, though, even liberals in the party are backing away from his agenda, as the Massachusetts vote has put the fear of defeat in them. As the New York Times put it,
Mr. Obama could find it more difficult to get moderate and conservative-leaning Democrats in Congress to cast politically tough votes.
It will be lost on few in the House or the Senate that the Democratic defeat in an overwhelmingly Democratic state came despite a last-minute personal appeal from Mr. Obama, who campaigned here for Ms. Coakley on Sunday. This suggests that Mr. Obama may be of limited or no help to candidates in close elections. No less important, he may not have much leverage to stop them from defying him in Washington.
The question is, is the President willing to accept this? Is he willing to accept that he isn’t the titanic, popularly-adored champion of liberal change he seems to have thought he was? Or is he wedded to the belief that he’s a transformative figure who’s going to change America and its politics forever? As Jay Cost says, we really don’t know, but if the White House isn’t just blustering, if they’re serious, it will not end well.
Democrats should hope that this is just aggressive talk designed to buy the White House time to figure out what to do next. If the President really thinks this, they are going to be in a mess of trouble for the rest of his term, for it would mean that he’s too stubborn or arrogant to make needed adjustments. It would mean that a comparison to Jimmy Carter is more apt than a comparison to Franklin Roosevelt.
Frankly, all of us should hope that this is just bluster from a typically blustery White House. Barack Obama is going to hold his office for the next three years regardless of whatever happens in congressional elections in November, regardless of how well he governs, regardless of where his job approval numbers go. Let’s hope that this untested, young, inexperienced fellow the country elevated to the highest office in the land has the good sense to recognize the message the Bay State sent last night, to understand that messages of similar intensity will be sent in November, and to direct his staff to make necessary changes.
Watch Obama carefully for the next few weeks. How does he react to this Senate defeat? What does he do about health care? Does his message shop change its typically aggressive posture? Answers to these questions are going to teach us a lot about the still-mysterious person who currently holds the office of President of the United States.
For the sake of the country, let’s hope that our President is willing to humble himself and his administration, to accept the message of Massachusetts and bow his head to the people. As John Judis has pointed out, Barack Obama really prefers to hang out with the elite and look down on the rest of us; here’s hoping he’ll come down from the ivory tower and stop seeing himself as above the people he was elected to serve. Partly, this would mean moving to the center, looking for initiatives that both Democrats and Republicans can support; more than that, though, it would mean spending a lot less time lecturing Americans on what’s good for us, and a lot more time listening seriously and respectfully to those who disagree with him. It would mean replacing the attitude of “I won” with the attitude of “How can I serve you?” Do I expect this? I don’t know. But here’s hoping.