Obama Courts The Blue Dogs
The Blue Dogs are fiscally conservative and moderate Democrats, many from deep red states. In a Washington Post report today, we learn several important facts:
- There are 49 Blue Dogs in the House, many in powerful positions.
- Their ranks are expected to swell after the November election.
- According to Obama himself, the Blue Dogs will have the power to "block or clear" his legislative initiatives.
- At the urging of Obama's transition team, headed by Clinton administration veteran John Podesta, Obama is now actively courting their support.
Repealing the Bush tax cuts? Big spending on alternative energy, education, and infrastructure? Universal healthcare? Comprehensive immigration reform? Gay civil unions or repealing DOMA? Even with a Democratic majority in the House, Barack Obama can't take for granted that he'll have the support he needs to enact his agenda.
Not only is Obama making louder noises about fiscal responsibility these days, he's probably starting to realize how difficult his situation will be. He'll be under enormous pressure from the center/right to scale back his spending and under pressure from the left/netroots to keep his promises.
I'm old enough to remember that George H. W. Bush promised "read my lips: no new taxes", but when he actually had to govern, he signed a tax increase. Bill Clinton campaigned in 1992 on a pledge to cut middle class taxes, but didn't propose one. Clinton also wanted a $30 billion tax hike on energy, but couldn't get it passed.
So I have to wonder just which campaign promises Obama is going to leave behind?
I hope Obama will continue the same brilliant instints he's shown as president as he's shown as a campaigner. For more than a year, he's shown remarkable focus in defining his campaign's messages and strategies, executing them with discipline, and not getting sidetracked by diversions.
He's been up in the polls and down, but he hasn't made any big course changes. Even when he moved from the primary to the general campaign, his slogan shifted only from "Change You Can Believe In" (subtly digging at Hillary Clinton's negatives on honesty and character) to the "The Change You Need" (striving to focus the campaign on issues, rather than making a contrast on character).
Instead of taking back any of his campaign promises, I hope Obama will have the strength of will to keep them. If anything, the fiscal crisis gives him an opening to argue that large hikes in government spending investments and tax cuts are necessary to avert recession.
If he plays his cards right, he can keep all his promises while portraying himself as a real fiscal conservative who is deeply concerned to minimize government borrowing. He can make a few largely symbolic gestures--for example, demanding that most of the new federal agency directors submit balanced budgets--to bolster his image. He might also want to consider proposing a Constitutional Amendment to allow a presidential line-item veto.
Steady leadership and commitment to his principles will help him to win the support of many centrists and Republicans, and help to cement the Democratic control of the federal government. And if he can win over the Blue Dogs, he can not only win his progressive agenda, but actually move America's political center of gravity towards the left.
Cross-posted at Joe-Perez.com
Thanks for posting this, Joe. I hate the Blue Dogs. They are a bunch of morons, as evidenced by this graph from the WaPo article:
"Balance out" health care and education? As if education and health care are frivolous luxuries dreamed up by extravagant liberals. That's whack. That's Republican. Those two issues intersect class, race, age and gender more than any other issues. Either we want to compete in the global marketplace with a healthy, energetic, educated population, or we want to exploit unskilled, uneducated, and unprotected laborers in other countries. Blue Dogs claim they are "fiscal conservatives," but they are actually social conservatives. And social conservatives don't care about issues that benefit women, minorities, children (unless they are fetuses), the elderly, and the poor. (Forget about gays; they aren't even on the list.)
As for the hopeful optimism you expressed about President Obama, I wish I had some. But I read Alexander Cockburn's article about the bailout in The Nation called "The Election Is Over," and I got all the hopeful optimism knocked out of me like a punch to the gut. Harsh as Cockburn is, I think he is right. And the WaPo article seems only to bolster Cockburn's assessment (at least to me).
October 15, 2008 4:14 AM | Reply | Permalink