When I first moved to Washington, D.C., exactly four years ago today, I wondered about the types of things I would be discussing at dinner parties with my new-found Beltway insider chums.
The answer to that question, surprisingly, hasn’t turned out to be “politics.” People in politics, be they members of the administration, the opposition party, diplomats, journalists, or policy analysts, don’t really like to discuss politics at dinner. It’s too 9-to-5, too combustible, and who knows if it will leak, and so forth.
Which is why one conversation I recall was unusual in its subject and candor. It was a semi-drunken rant given by a Clintonista, a Philippic delivered to a mixed audience of Democrats and Republicans (what is known in D.C. as a “multicultural audience”), all of whom were inebriated. The subject was yet another Obama cave-in, this time on the Bush tax cuts.
The supporter of Madame Secretary let loose. As best I can recall the speech, it went something like this:
If she were president, she wouldn’t have been so arrogant and delusional as to assume that she wasn’t a Democrat but a “conciliator.” Only a megalomaniac comes to Washington and thinks members of the opposing party would want to work with him once they found out what a truly decent and fine fellow he was. Does he think they respect him for all of his reasonableness? No, they hate him; they would have hated him no matter what sterling qualities he possessed. In fact, they hate him and disrespect him even more for all that reasonableness. If he wanted their respect, he’d crack a pipe across their heads. Then they’d show him a modicum of respect.
Theories abound as to why Obama does things the way he does. Independent voters, say some, want him to do precisely what he is doing. And if that irritates the liberal base, well then, they are more than welcome to cast a ballot for Rick Perry or Michele Bachmann next November (which is why Mitt Romney’s signing of the Marriage Pledge yesterday surprised me; didn’t he have an almost singular ability to siphon off some disaffected Democrats in a general election?)
Others speculate that Obama’s approach has to do with his character. The President is a pragmatist, who eschews histrionics and tries to get things done. In the final analysis, he produces sensible, effective legislation that actually helps people.
I have no fresh insights here, other than to observe that a base can be energized or demoralized. Until Sarah Palin was named as the vice-presidential selection in 2008, it was safe to say that the Evangelical base was disheartened by John McCain’s candidacy—an enthusiasm gap he never recovered from.
Obama’s base is demoralized. That may be its problem—an inability to realistically assess the demands of governing in this day and age. But, in his supporters’ defense, their man always leaves them at the symbolic altar.
Again and again, he refuses to give them clear signals that he is fighting for them. Hard. He may in fact be fighting for them; my point is that he is failing consistently to convey that message.
Take the little 14th Amendment episode a few weeks back. Our nation’s foray into Con Law revealed that, grosso modo, Obama could have nuked the debt-limit discussion by recourse to an obscure constitutional provision. Even if it were, in Laurence Tribe’s words, “a false hope of a legal answer that obviates the need for a real solution,” it was one plum of a cudgel by which to bludgeon Republicans, who have grown far too adept at bludgeoning people themselves.
Why, oh why, did Obama remove this option from the table as early as he did? Why didn’t he let it fester and ferret out the Tea Party crazies, who would have been calling for his impeachment at precisely the moment the nation faced bankruptcy?
Why didn’t he make more of the “corporate jet talking point,” which he introduced only to mothball? Why not delegate his minions to airbrush an image of Captains Boehner, McConnell, and Cantor piloting a Gulfstream G550 with a dozen oil executives in tow? Why did he cast himself as a spurned lover left at the altar, as opposed to the victim of a mugging which he was soon to avenge?
My point is, even liberals need a little symbolic satisfaction every now and then. For whatever reasons, this president is congenitally averse to accommodating them. It may be a sign of his maturity as a statesman, and as a man. Then again, it may be a catastrophic misreading of human nature.