RSS Feed MenuAs cold fear rises in the mainstream media that President Obama may be in over his head, my thoughts go back to a dinner I attended in New York last December. Obama had just been elected and the Right was deeply fearful that he might indeed live up to his hype and be a new FDR. One of the attendees at this dinner happened to be one of the very, very few right-of-center people who can legitimately claim to know Barack Obama well on both the personal and professional levels. (I cannot give his name because his comments were off the record, but I have provided it to the editor of New Majority.) Naturally, we were all curious about his assessment of the new president-elect. He was reluctant to speak to the subject initially, but gave in after some good-natured urging.
“Two observations,” he said. “First, I have never known him to change his mind on any issue of any significance, even when provided with new facts and new information.”
As we digested that rather disturbing bit of information, he added the second.
“And I don’t think he has the foggiest notion of how an economy works.”
When you think about it, though, neither observation ought to be terribly surprising. Unlike Bill Clinton, who had to survive in a culturally conservative state like Arkansas for two decades before becoming president, Barack Obama has lived his entire life in a left-liberal bubble. When he wasn’t living in Indonesia, he was living in Hawaii, the most culturally atypical (and one of the most politically liberal) states in the Union. From everything I’ve read about them, the grandparents who raised him would not have felt out of place at a Communist Party USA meeting. Then there was Columbia and Harvard. He cut his political teeth in Chicago, and there can be little doubt he views the private sector the way any liberal, urban politician views the private sector: as a cow to be milked. He doesn’t want the cow to die, of course. But it’s not the politician’s job to feed the cow, care for the cow, or see to it that the cow is healthy. That is somebody else’s job. All the urban liberal politician wants to hear when he gets up in the morning is that the cow is giving milk, and will give more tomorrow. The mechanics of how that actually gets done is simply not his concern. He was elected to redistribute wealth, not create it. That is what Obama was getting at in his unscripted moment with Joe the Plumber last fall.
So, for those out there who think the president is inclined – or even able – to “pull a Clinton” and tack to the political center, someone who has known him for over a decade doesn’t think it’s in his DNA. And there isn’t much evidence to the contrary. We have a president whose beliefs are rigid and who is ignorant of basic economics. Maybe all this will still work out, but any such belief has to be based more on faith than on evidence.
balconesfault // Aug 31, 2009 at 2:16 pm
While Obama hasn’t had much luck with the highly polarized Congress in building bipartisan support on legislation, he’s reached out often to Republicans in filling key jobs.
And interestingly – many Republicans have accepted those jobs.
barker13 // Aug 31, 2009 at 3:16 pm
*** OFF TOPIC ***
I can’t help but notice that we’re “missing” a few of our regulars lately.
Just in case some of them ran into the same “technical” problem I did. allow me to lay out the following:
A few days ago when I tried to log in I got a message “not authorized” blah, blah, blah.
Well… apparently there’s some kind of bug with the system. I actually WAS logging in… HOWEVER… instead of my log-in taking me directly to the homepage, my log-in sent me to the “not authorized” page.
The first couple times this really threw me off. Fortunately, just for the heck of it – even though I was under the impression my log-in attempt had failed – when I clicked upon the NewMajority header and it took me to the front page I then clicked on a thread just to READ the comments and on the actual comment thread found that I WAS now logged in and thus able to comment.
Anyway… Mid… Franco… Doc K… Brutus… Sparky… if any of you are running into this just follow “my” pathway as outlined up above.
BILL
barker13 // Aug 31, 2009 at 3:18 pm
Hmm…
Disturbing piece by NM Gusher.
Thanks for passing it on though.
It SOUNDS right.
(*SHRUG*)
BILL
Chekote // Aug 31, 2009 at 3:40 pm
Isn’t this kind of post too soon?
SFTor1 // Aug 31, 2009 at 4:09 pm
Obama was not elected to redistribute wealth.
He was elected to stop the bleeding after eight years of Bush and 14 years of a Republican-run Congress.
The Republican Party will never regain its footing if it fails to face the economic havoc it has wrought on the country.
ConArtist // Aug 31, 2009 at 4:15 pm
A bit presumptuous, no? Within the first year of his presidency and he is already doomed? Do you think it is possible that these Democrats are tacticians and aren’t given the prudence Karl Rove brought to the GOP in the early 2000’s? If he begins his presidency on such voluminous support, he has nowhere to head but down. Sustaining the hype he inherited was surely unattainable.
I reckon he is intentionally lallygagging only to rebound with a vengeance. He’s above consequence until 2012 and his party may or may not suffer in 2010 (still premature at this point). I think reading George Lakoff has proven that the democrats are savvier than we give them credit.
As per the column – it is flatly untrue that Obama hasn’t governed from the center. He needn’t govern from the center, though he has and it has cost him and has enabled him to become a nebbish. As far as Obama’a rigidity, I believe he’s moderated his viewpoint on the War in Afghanistan consistently. He’s also (though he lacks basic understanding) has waffled on the economy and the public option. Instead of being resolute, I believe he’s vacillating, much to his detriment.
LFC // Aug 31, 2009 at 4:15 pm
“First, I have never known him to change his mind on any issue of any significance, even when provided with new facts and new information.”
Sounds an awful lot a bad case of George W. Bush Projection.
“And I don’t think he has the foggiest notion of how an economy works.”
I have a few questions for him. Did he support the Bush tax cuts? Did he grasp that we had a real estate bubble before 2006, and that Bush policies were inflating it? Did he scream bloody murder at the GOP refusal to fund either war? Did he scream bloody murder at the GOP refusal to fund the Medicare drug program? Did he scream bloody murder at the GOP’s reckless increase in spending? Does he think Phil Gramm is an idiot?
If the answer isn’t “yes” to every one of these questions, he has no business assessing anybody’s ability to determine how the economy works.
When you think about it, though, neither observation ought to be terribly surprising. Unlike Bill Clinton, who had to survive in a culturally conservative state like Arkansas for two decades before becoming president, Barack Obama has lived his entire life in a left-liberal bubble.
And there’s the admission that the poster doesn’t have a clue about the economy, or the Republican’s hideous track record on the issue. Reagan bought his way out of it with ever increasing deficits. That was fine for the first few years when things were bad, but to continue down that reckless path through his entire 8 years was inexcusable. After I saw that, and then saw George HW’s inability to do much at all to try to get things under control, I changed my registration from Republican to Independent. Scales. Eyes. The 90’s and 00’s GOP Congress and George W sealed the GOP’s track economic record. And still, all I hear is “TAX CUTS!” and “DEREGULATION!”. How many failures does a party need to experience before they accept that their policies have, you know, FAILED?
As to Clinton, he was smart to raise taxes to a reasonable rate when it was needed, and to reign in out of control increases in spending (which started with his first budget, two years before a Republican majority Congress … so no taking credit), but he blew it big time when he signed the repeal of Glass-Steagall that the GOP was pushing so hard for.
As to the whole premise of this post, I smell a lot of wishful thinking. Obama was handed the worst economy since the Great Depression. If it turns positive before 2012, he’ll get the credit (fairly, unfairly, or a mix of the two) and he’ll be judged a success on the economy, which politically is probably more than enough.
DFL // Aug 31, 2009 at 4:16 pm
3 percent GDP growth in 2011-12 will get Obama reelected.
barker13 // Aug 31, 2009 at 4:43 pm
Re: Sftor1 // Aug 31, 2009 at 4:09 pm (#5)
“…14 years of a Republican-run Congress.”
Or as reality based math would have it… 12 years.
Oops! (*GRIN*) (*SHRUG*)
Sftor1… I want you to repeat after me…
The Democrats have controlled both Houses of Congress since January 2007…
(*PREDATORY SMILE*)
BILL
midcon // Aug 31, 2009 at 5:43 pm
barker, I did notice a bug, but I was able to successfully log in. I have just been on travel for business durin August so haven’t had a chance to do much more than read.
SFTor1 // Aug 31, 2009 at 7:16 pm
12 years is good with me Bill. The Republicans still own the flea circus.
SFTor1 // Aug 31, 2009 at 7:23 pm
Point being being, Bill, that the either the economy has been run on highly un-Republican principles, or Republican principles don’t work. Or hasn’t for the last, as Bill points out, 12 years. (Aren’t political programs supposed to work within a 12-year span?)
And apart from that maybe we all agree that this was a particularly thin post, making a particularly spurious argument.
txanne // Aug 31, 2009 at 8:06 pm
This post is reaching at best. Save his presidency? Such drama after just 7 months in office.
31 August PM parting shots « blueollie // Aug 31, 2009 at 11:17 pm
[...] Obama The concern trolls at New Majority wonders if “Obama can save his presidency”: aturally, we were all curious about his assessment of the new president-elect. He was reluctant to [...]
Raider1 // Sep 1, 2009 at 8:40 am
Why does this surprise anyone? Anyone who seriously uses the phrase “spread the wealth” is nothing more than an asset redistributor and more comfortable in some Orwellian universe than the USA. This guy is WAY over his head.
jabbermule // Sep 1, 2009 at 8:50 am
Yes, Obama was definitely NOT elected to redistribute wealth.
However, once all the independents, swing voters and squishy Republicans that voted for him come to realize that is exactly what he IS doing, he’s finished.
sinz54 // Sep 1, 2009 at 9:41 am
sftor1:
Obama was not elected to redistribute wealth.
Then he should stop doing it!!!
For myself, the turning point was Obama’s bailout of General Motors.
Why should my taxes go to subsidize the production of Chevrolet Aveos that nobody wants to buy, and to give welfare checks to UAW workers whose incessant demands for more and more helped make GM uncompetitive against non-unionized Toyota and Honda?
General Motors will NEVER, NEVER be able to compete on an equal footing with Toyota or Honda. They just don’t know how to build good enough cars.
So this bailout of GM is welfare for the UAW.
jabbermule // Sep 1, 2009 at 10:58 am
sinz54:
Exactly. And we all know the UAW makes massive campaign contributions to the Democrat Party, so the GM bailout was nothing more than an assurance to keep the cash flowing to the DNC.
Raider1 // Sep 1, 2009 at 12:09 pm
IFC you need to lose that “Reagan = massive eficit” as the whole story to the Reagan recovery. As anyone who has run an enterprise will tell you, there is necessary debt at times to grow. Reagan borrowed money to fund the defense build up and the massive reduction of the marginal tax rates that sent the country into the longest period of peacetime prosperity in its history and, in fact, left the country with a SURPLUS by the time the effects of this economic expansion in increased tax rolls were realized a full decade after he was gone.
The deficits being piled up in Bush II’s term and now even worse today are to feed a massive government entitlement behemoth, not to create a REAL economic expansion. There is a difference between a business borrowing to expand, modernize its plants, buy businesses that fit its overal model, etc. and a business that borrows money to pay for a negative cash flow from paying its workers too much with too little income.
A deficit is not a deficit is not a deficit.
jchenn // Sep 1, 2009 at 8:19 pm
It is early. And if you look at some of the other presidents who dropped below 50% very early, it hardly seems like a death knell. But there is a deeper story to be told there:
Carter dropped below 50% very early and got the boot
Reagan dropped below 50% early on and went on to have a very strong presidency
Clinton dropped below 50%, was impeached, and still survived
The common thread? The economy. If the economy is up at re-election, the incumbent tends to stay. If not – it’s time to pack up and leave. I’d say Obama has his work cut out for him. Right not there is a virtual orgy of spending going on and very little seems to be going towards the economy. Sooner or later that party will end and we’ll get part two: the orgy of taxes.
blcllc // Sep 1, 2009 at 9:11 pm
I supported Obama and wanted him to succeed. I drank the “change” kool aid, longed to be rid of the arrogance of Bush/Cheny. But the Obama administration, I suspect, is doomed. They fail to appreciate that the economic collapse in the Fall of 08, to the Obama presidency ,was analygous to 911 for Bush. The populace has been traumatized by the incredible distruction of their wealth. A few tenuous months of market recovery will not cure systemic fear. Obama could have been a hero by focusing the first term on creating (or suggesting that he was creating) prosperity and by building political consensus. He should have announced that the Great Recession trumped the liberal wish list.
Instead, the administration passed the stimulous bill and then pivoted their attention to incomprehensible transformative health care and environmental legislation, while suggesting that taxes on capital would rise in the first term…Insane Arrogance or Myopic Ignorance? It’s still the economy….stupid……..
Can Obama Pull a Clinton and Save His Presidency? « The Rhetorican // Sep 2, 2009 at 1:15 am
[...] September 1, 2009 Posted by Jehuda in Uncategorized. Tags: News, Politics trackback New Majority: Don’t count on it. “Maybe all this will still work out, but any such belief has to [...]
barker13 // Sep 2, 2009 at 10:44 am
Re: Sinz54 // Sep 1, 2009 at 9:41 am (#17) –
“Why should my taxes go to subsidize the production of Chevrolet Aveos that nobody wants to buy, and to give welfare checks to UAW workers whose incessant demands for more and more helped make GM uncompetitive against non-unionized Toyota and Honda?”
It’s actually WORSE than that, Sinz.
(*SHRUG*) http://usalyright.blogspot.com/2009/09/theyre-shutting-detroit-down.html
BILL
barker13 // Sep 2, 2009 at 10:48 am
Re: Jabbermule // Sep 1, 2009 at 10:58 am (#18) –
Jabs. You should check out the link I provide in post #23 also.
Yeah… I hear what you’re saying and agree… BUT… this oligarchy business is “equal opportunity” in terms of partisanship.
Re: Raider1 // Sep 1, 2009 at 12:09 pm (#19) –
(*NOD*) (*THUMBS UP*)
Re: Blcllc // Sep 1, 2009 at 9:11 pm (#21) –
Yep. (*NOD*)
BILL
Cforchange // Sep 2, 2009 at 1:23 pm
Maybe our political system is not designed to correct a economic fall. Really, has there been another time in our country’s history where so many in the work force are either totally or partially idle and many even obese at the same time I don’t think so.
We’ve never had excess national housing inventory like what exists today. While historically we’ve manufactured with pride most significant goods that filled commercial space that activity has gone 100% full circle. Challenge yourself, just try and find a single American made product resting on a store shelf or store room floor. Then on the horizon we have the whopping negative economic force that will arrive when the commercial delinquencies bloom. Yeww, but I’m so scared when I hear wealth redistribution.
We had the dot.com burst with a Democrat at the helm followed by a housing extravagana from a Republican who should have known that mansions for all wasn’t a good experience for Texas back in the 80’s. Precisely who is to blame for our faltering condition – who knows or is that we dutifully point the fingers back and forth enabling all the while.
Even though the business of government and politics is depressingly our largest national going concern, it appears that the population at large is content to follow media influence which for now is an order to yell at the opposition. Until we Americans at large add clarity to our discontent and find issues that receive overwhelming support, it will be politics as usual and less or no business for the citizens.
We the majority must become less special interest if we expect government to competantly serve all.