Obama: "I Don't Think There's Any Question That We Have A Mandate"
An interesting moment at Barack Obama's presser on the economy today: He declared in more direct terms than I've heard before that his "decisive" win has unquestionably given him a "mandate."
"We had, I think, a decisive win, because of the extraordinary desire for change on the part of the American people," he said in response to a reporter's question. "And so I don't think there is any question that we have a mandate to move the country in a new direction, and not continue the same old practices that have gotten us into the fix that we're in."
But Obama also tempered his claim to a mandate by acknowledging that he needs Republican help to succeed.
"I won 53 percent of the vote," he said. "That means 46 or 47 percent of the country voted for John McCain."
He added that he was entering the White House"with a sense of humility and a recognition that wisdom is not the monopoly of any one party. In order for us to be effective given the scope and the scale of the challenges we face, Republicans and Democrats are going to have to work together."
This is probably too obvious to point out, but the game here is that Obama is working to frame GOP obstructionism in advance. By simultaneously claiming a mandate while approaching Republicans with "humility" and a request for their help, Obama is boxing out Republican opponents in advance, laying the groundwork to cast them as partisan and hostile to the people's will.
That's why it's still lost on yours truly why people are seeing Obama as "centrist" based on his bipartisan gestures and tone or his "pragmatic" staff pickes. This stuff is just about positioning in advance, and the real tell will lie in his actual policies.
How many points over 50% does one need to have a mandate? Even 70% doesn't give one anymore power to execute his agenda than 51%. You can't please everyone and never will, so if one wins (regardless of the margin) he should act like a president and start executing. Waiting for a super majority to bless one's agenda isn't an act of leadership; in fact it's a little cowardly.
November 25, 2008 12:53 PM | Reply | Permalink
eh? I'm sure that when he actually is SWORN IN AS PRESIDENT he'll start executing. And claiming you have a mandate is bold not cowardly.
November 25, 2008 1:01 PM | Reply | Permalink
First, I was speaking generally and not specifically about Obama. I agree that he'll take action when sworn in.
Declaring a mandate only when the victory is demonstrably clear cut only serves to bolster one's courage. What could it mean if one declares, "I won, but I have no mandate"? It means that one hasn't got the self confidence to push forward one's policies, and the perceived need for a declared mandate before acting indicates a desire for political cover in case things don't work out.
Winning is the mandate. By how much one wins is a moot point.
November 25, 2008 1:12 PM | Reply | Permalink
"Winning is the mandate. By how much one wins is a moot point."
Absolutely, how long the mandate lasts is what they're (and every other politician) worried about.
November 25, 2008 1:30 PM | Reply | Permalink
Bush thought he had a mandate in 2000 when he lost the popular vote and a 5-4 majority of the Supreme Court had to declare him the winner.
"Drive it like you stole it" was how he acted on that perceived mandate.
November 25, 2008 2:36 PM | Reply | Permalink
He has a good sense of his political capital, and his ability to generate new capital (i.e. leadership, bully pulpit, + persuasion) to spend appropriately. Most people gauge the President much as our primate ancestors gauged tribe alphas. He must balance between underachieving and over reaching.
November 25, 2008 6:52 PM | Reply | Permalink
Damn right he has a mandate. After watching that puffed up jackass GWB strut around claiming to have a mandate (sometimes you're better off not knowing the definition of a word you're using) following the theft of election '04 - marking on his curve, a triumph because it was merely stolen without protracted dispute and didn't have to be resolved through the efforts of "activist judges" - Barack has every right to claim his mandate. Go for it. What a relief to have a legitimately elected president who's not only not an asshole but also fuckin brilliant.
November 25, 2008 12:55 PM | Reply | Permalink
Smart is SOOOOOO back!
November 25, 2008 1:18 PM | Reply | Permalink
It's time to bring in the elite. Joe the Plumber lacks what it takes to fix this mess.
November 25, 2008 3:35 PM | Reply | Permalink
Now, that post and analysis I agree with 1000%. Excellent post and analysis greg.
November 25, 2008 12:56 PM | Reply | Permalink
a stopped clock ...
seriously, thanks
November 25, 2008 1:17 PM | Reply | Permalink
Seriously you are welcome. By the way, I think you are being generous with the stopped clock thing with me. I am lucky to be right once a day, let alone once a week, and a stopped clock is right twice a day.
Nonetheless, the analysis was spot on and I agree that that is exactly how obama is playing it. He is one smart and shrewd person. I actually have to wonder sometimes if he is really a politician. He doesn't act like a conventional politician, that's for sure.
November 25, 2008 1:27 PM | Reply | Permalink
Not disagreeing with you, Greg, but just adding, he's been framing GOP obstruction in this way for the entire campaign.
He's been clear about his policies, and continually talks about reaching across the aisle, so when they balk, and they will, he simply references what he's been saying for 22 months, the American people want and voted for these policies, and they want Dems and Reps to get things done.
If the GOP wants to stand on the sidelines, it won't be Obama's fault, and if things go well (or at least get a little better), all the better, because the GOP won't be able to claim any credit, not that they would get much anyway.
November 25, 2008 1:51 PM | Reply | Permalink
A belated hear! hear!
I also sorta, a little, resent Bowers and Madden and others designating themselves as spokespeople of the left.
They don't speak for me at all..on this no more than Pat Buchanan and others who are trying to stoke this putative left outrage in the blogosphere
November 25, 2008 2:16 PM | Reply | Permalink
The Left has never had one voice and I hope it never does, but we do agree on some things and we are able to negotiate on others. The Reich has had one voice and that it why it's minority has been so powerful. But finally the Zom-Bushes have woken up and the slovenly independents made it to the polls. The best thing that happened, was the lack of any serious candidate on the Right that knew who the Right was, and that it is more then a Christian fascist movement.
PS - Not all Christians are fascists, but we all know the ones who are.
November 25, 2008 3:39 PM | Reply | Permalink
I like this:
It ties in with people's dissatisfaction with Congress (disproportionately dissatisfaction with Republicans) and provides a talking point for those few and lonely moderate Republicans who may side with the Obama Administration. It also is a signal to Democrats as well: you either find a way to make things work or you're going to be tarred by the Obama Administration as just doing the same old stuff.
But I doubt this is going to assuage the supposed "anger" of those like Chris Bowers.
November 25, 2008 1:02 PM | Reply | Permalink
It was interesting on Morning Joe this morning when they were discussing how Obama is the first president since probably Nixon to actually start off their administration working with Congress, and that having all the people around like Biden and Rahm will mean that a lot of the more "minor" stuff like environmental bills will fly through in the beginning because they will have had it all worked out before Obama is sworn in.
November 25, 2008 1:12 PM | Reply | Permalink
If this whole transition period doesn't expose to the world how incompetent and lame Chris Bowers is, then I don't know what.
November 25, 2008 1:27 PM | Reply | Permalink
That's why it's still lost on yours truly why people are seeing Obama as "centrist" based on his bipartisan gestures and tone or his "pragmatic" staff pickes.
This has puzzled me too, but I think I have an idea. The right likes to pretend it didn't lose; the center flatters itself that it's where all the vital action is; and at least some of the left is habituated to a kind of proleptic-disappointment mode, ready to jump ship two months before it sails. Christopher Hayes, I love your work, but I'm lookin' at you.
November 25, 2008 1:04 PM | Reply | Permalink
Yeah, I don't know why any sensible person would have a problem with the new Treasury Secretary being a guy whose fingerprints are all over the outrageous handout to Citi. I mean, isn't that progressivism we can believe in, my friends?
But see, I took Obama for a centrist all along, so not only does this not surprise me, but I also have no need to be in denial about it. He's a hell of a lot better than what he's replacing, and that will have to do for now since it seems to be the best our diseased political system can manage. Whether it's good enough to get us out of the deep hole we're in, (or whether getting a good look at the hole after Jan. 20 will inspire Obama to make an FDR-like move to the left), well, we'll just have to wait and see.
November 25, 2008 1:11 PM | Reply | Permalink
I have, as well, and have wondered whether the persistent portrayal of Obama as being left of even Clinton has flim-flammed people.
November 25, 2008 1:18 PM | Reply | Permalink
Me three. I never thought of him as a "leftist" and never understood the portrayal as such.
November 25, 2008 1:28 PM | Reply | Permalink
That's cuz he's standing way over on the left side of the room, y'all are outside of the leftside of the building looking in the window. Of course he looks like a centrist to you.
November 25, 2008 1:39 PM | Reply | Permalink
I'd reverse that one on you. I think that you on the right are across the freaking street and in the next town when it comes to the center. Did I tell you by the way that I went to bush I's inauguration? Oh yeah, but I'm a flaming lefty.
November 25, 2008 1:42 PM | Reply | Permalink
LOL!
We're just like little urchins, peering longingly in the window, wishing we could be inside...
November 25, 2008 1:45 PM | Reply | Permalink
And Obama is opening the window.
November 25, 2008 1:51 PM | Reply | Permalink
lol...I didn't mean outside like that...it was the way over there left of him point I was driving at...but the urchins line was hillarious!
November 25, 2008 1:58 PM | Reply | Permalink
So who would a progressive TS pick be, and what would they fundamentally do differently that would solve the crisis that the current pick would not?
I'm not saying Obama is far left, but there are some progressives who believe that, although the current system needs to be revamped, reformed, and rethunk, immediate fundamental change at this time would only worsen the situation globally, and then everyone loses.
November 25, 2008 1:37 PM | Reply | Permalink
Samuel Bowles or Samir Amin.
November 25, 2008 2:01 PM | Reply | Permalink
or Chen Deming.
November 25, 2008 2:20 PM | Reply | Permalink
Actually I would say someone like Hazel Henderson, but I don't know what she would do differently at this point in time than what Geithner would do other than scare the bezebus out of Wall Street. Maybe for the second term.
November 25, 2008 2:53 PM | Reply | Permalink
She'd make a good Under-Secretary, a "don't forget this" guy.
November 25, 2008 3:03 PM | Reply | Permalink
hey Michael -- agree, and it's also conditioning for some on the left, having gotten sold out so many times...
November 25, 2008 1:17 PM | Reply | Permalink
Yeah, that's why I used the word "habituated." After a few decades of getting sold out, you kind of come to expect it. I'm just going to wait and see if the guy closes Gitmo.
November 25, 2008 2:09 PM | Reply | Permalink
Wait and see, and be pleasantly surprised!
November 25, 2008 2:49 PM | Reply | Permalink
If the Right was to admit that the country has moved Left-Center, it would be admitting it is completely out of touch. The media is part of the vase right wing conspiracy, but in the Age of the Internet, people have managed to bring them back to reality. The Internet is just too big.
November 25, 2008 3:42 PM | Reply | Permalink
As many people have pointed out over the last few months, Obama is playing chess--and I would argue three-dimensional chess--while the Republicans are playing checkers. Or tic-tac-toe. Or hide & seek. This is a man who plans for the ages.
November 25, 2008 1:04 PM | Reply | Permalink
Dude needs Spock ears. Seriously.
November 25, 2008 1:16 PM | Reply | Permalink
Obama is over playing warhammer with everyone he knows, the republicans are sitting alone in the corner playing with a jack in the box. (It STILL surprises W.)
November 25, 2008 2:34 PM | Reply | Permalink
I think some (but by no means all) see him as centrist because he has bi-partisan approach. Republicans/conservative are the bad guys and Obama must repudiate them and their ideological views in a grand sweeping manner. These are the people that see red when they hear Obama say: "a recognition that wisdom is not the monopoly of any one party..."
November 25, 2008 1:05 PM | Reply | Permalink
We see him as a centrist because he is one, and because he's never made any secret at all about being one. I voted for him quite happily, secure in the knowledge that a centrist is a hell of a lot better than a wingnut.
November 25, 2008 1:13 PM | Reply | Permalink
Obama has some views that would be considered these days as centrist, but overall he is left of center, just not that far off the center. I think the discuss a few threads back was a good one regarding this debate, but by the time Obama is done is in eight years, what we think about as a country it means to be left, center, and right will have been redefined in some very fundamental ways (eg health care and energy).
November 25, 2008 1:21 PM | Reply | Permalink
I think Obama is a centrist as well, but I admit, I'm also one of these:
He's absolutely correct, and it's an adult approach to governing, but just once, I'd like a Republican to step up and say "George W. Bush has done real harm to our country, and Republicans have to acknowledge that."
Republicans talk about the dire condition their party is in without ever acknowledging the disaster that is George W. Bush.
This isn't limited to Republicans, of course. They just happen to be a particularly prominent poster child for this behavior right now.
November 25, 2008 1:23 PM | Reply | Permalink
It would be nice for the Repubs to say what most of the country already believes.
But if Obama and the Dems let the Repubs who remain "save face" (although they don't deserve it), and by doing so, get to implement an agenda that fundamentally undermines the philosophy/ideology of Bush and company that did that damage, I'll live with trying to exact the pound of flesh.
November 25, 2008 1:29 PM | Reply | Permalink
oops meant to say, that I won't try to exact the pound of flesh.
November 25, 2008 1:30 PM | Reply | Permalink
This: http://www.politico.com/rogersimon/
is probably as close as you're going to come.
November 25, 2008 1:34 PM | Reply | Permalink
And that's not even close, but you're right. Best that can be expected.
November 25, 2008 1:54 PM | Reply | Permalink
Yep.
November 25, 2008 3:06 PM | Reply | Permalink
Ok, McCain is giving a press conference now and has absolutely has nothing too say. Can some one please tell me the reason for his press conference? and why he is getting blanket cable media coverage?
November 25, 2008 1:09 PM | Reply | Permalink
They're hoping he'll do something mavericky.
November 25, 2008 1:13 PM | Reply | Permalink
He announced that he is running again for relection as a senator. I know he is praying Gov Napalnatno takes up BO offer to join his cabinet.
November 25, 2008 1:18 PM | Reply | Permalink
Judging from Boehner's boneheaded response, this is going to be like shooting fish in a barrel, or wolves from a helicopter, whichever you prefer.
November 25, 2008 1:14 PM | Reply | Permalink
Like slaughtering turkeys at a press conference?
November 25, 2008 1:26 PM | Reply | Permalink
What'd he say?
November 25, 2008 1:43 PM | Reply | Permalink
Incidentally, you have a typo gregg. It's picks, not pickes. Just sayin.
November 25, 2008 1:17 PM | Reply | Permalink
Maybe it was pickles...just saying.
November 25, 2008 2:06 PM | Reply | Permalink
That was funny.
November 25, 2008 2:10 PM | Reply | Permalink
I baulk at anyone who say's Obama is shifting to the center. Being a pragmatist and a realist is not ''centrist.''
November 25, 2008 1:20 PM | Reply | Permalink
In surrounding himself with very smart and open-minded people, people who are respected on both sides of the aisle, Obama is making it much more difficult for partisans and republicans to vilify him, his administration, and his policies. Rather than giving life to a modern day wannabe Newt Gingrich and losing the gains of Congress, Obama is laying the groundwork to not only increase those gains, but also strengthening the Democratic brand in the minds of the country. The obstructionists will soon show themselves to be the ones who are the extremists and out of touch, while Obama and the Democrats will solidify themselves as the party that gets things done.
November 25, 2008 1:25 PM | Reply | Permalink
Absolutely. That is how I see it as well. Folks will not be able to spin and argue the substance of the issues into divergent meaningless petty partisan tangents to obfuscate the real issues. Cause all the intellecutal talent will already be on board with Obama's consensus, as they were on the team when it was shaped.
He is a brilliant politician.
He told us this was his talent and we are watching a master at work.
His press conference today was awesome. He left nothing for conjecture and speculation. He broke down the details into explainable and easy to comprehend pieces for all listeners with examples in specific policy areas, like energy, health care and farm subsidies.
'
Farmers have ample warning to start looking for alternate revenue streams.
The public understands that spending will not be willy nilly but part of a long term strategy and they need to be alarmed by intially massive spending creating deficits because it will be for a long term investment in our future.
I just looove listening to him.
Not big government, not little government but SMART government.
Perfect sound bite.
November 25, 2008 2:51 PM | Reply | Permalink
Let's examine where this "centrist" meme is coming from? It's coming from the likes of Chris Bowers, Matt Stoller, and David Sirota, etc., all guys who had beefs with Obama from the very beginning of his candidacy (I've heard speculation about job offers not given for some of them). To be fair, it's not everyone, it's people like Chris Hayes that I like too (although, when you cite Chris Bowers in your work, you lose a lot of credibility).
These guys have agendas, and nothing would please them more than to take Obama down a notch - seeing as they've been shut out of his "movement."
No, it's not everyone. And no, not every criticism of Obama is out-of-bounds, far from it.
But these guys have very serious credibility problems, and this meme they're pushing now is damaging and just inane.
November 25, 2008 1:25 PM | Reply | Permalink
Oh come off it. Obama is right smack in the mainstream of the Democratic Party. And that mainstream cannot reasonably be described as "left" if that word is to have any meaning at all. I deplore that (fairly mildly, I certainly don't get nearly as bent out of shape as the Open Left crew), while plenty of others see it as a feature, not a bug. Regardless, it's reality.
November 25, 2008 1:31 PM | Reply | Permalink
I'd just add, not just mainstream of the democratic party, but mainstream of america as a whole. This evidences where america and the dem party is. That is the problem with the gop agenda and where they are heading at this point unless they change.
November 25, 2008 1:34 PM | Reply | Permalink
That's BS, Matt Stoller needs to go away somewhere far from the internets it's true. But Bowers is a rock-solid and damn honest. Do you think he was ever thinking about a job in an Obama admin? Ha.
And Dave Sirota is an ass. He's an ass you want in your corner, but still an ass. But he has strong points: the bailouts are going for shit and none of Obama's economic team has any kind of track record indicating they will demand accountability or even transparency from these companies. They fucked up and nothing happens to them? That's bull, and Obama is going right along with it.
A friendlier Corporatism if that.
So much for his "people" rhetoric. The next time he is influence by "the people" will be the first.
November 25, 2008 1:36 PM | Reply | Permalink
He just announced his team yesterday, so give them some time to operate under Obama's leadership. And you can be for the bailouts and still be left of center.
November 25, 2008 1:46 PM | Reply | Permalink
I am wary. Obama's team were the architects of the current financial collapse. They put these pieces of deregulation into play under Clinton.
Summers & Rubins drove this bus into the ditch. Now they are at the wheel still being utlized to get us out. Will this work? Who knows. But what we do know is that they are responsible for Enron & Citicorp going down as well as the huge mortgaged backed securties ponzi scheme as well as the credit default swap hustle. Rubins and Greenspan opposed regulating these markets. Rubin also dismantled the safeguards put in place following the depression to prevent this.
I think Obama has them at the table so they can't agitate from the outside by critiquing his plan and because Wall Street trusts Rubin & Summers, so they will be on board.
However, my fervent hope is that Obama is the visionary for how we proceed. Geitner was angling for more regulation so he will be receptive to those safeguards and he knows how to push back on Sommers.
But in all honesty, this team scares me to death..they are like surgeons who revolutionized a surgical procedure but killed the patient. How many more patients do they get to kill?
November 25, 2008 3:00 PM | Reply | Permalink
I guess I just thinking that they've had a little Greenspan-like awakening, and understand that some of their views they've had in the past weren't the right ones for our economy. In other words, as they watch the meltdown, they have had a few "lessons learned."
November 25, 2008 3:53 PM | Reply | Permalink
Obama framed that PERFECTLY.
November 25, 2008 1:38 PM | Reply | Permalink
Centrist? You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it does.
November 25, 2008 2:11 PM | Reply | Permalink
On the contrary, it's "left of center" that doesn't mean what an awful lot of people think it means. It does not mean "anything to the left of John McCain".
November 25, 2008 2:14 PM | Reply | Permalink
It's kind of interesting that you assume I was speaking to you. I was actually addressing the broader issue which is that we collectively don't know what "centrist" means any more and yet we keep throwing the word around in our discussions.
November 25, 2008 2:22 PM | Reply | Permalink
I think most of us actually do know pretty well, and I'm sure that includes you, but as you're aware there's an awful lot of deliberate obfuscation on that score by our "liberal" media.
November 25, 2008 2:24 PM | Reply | Permalink
I know what I think a centrist is, but that's not necessarily the same as you. And there are too many people throwing that term around without defining it for me. Does it mean "within the mainstream of the Democratic party" or does it mean "within the mainstream of the American public as a whole"? Or does it mean "within the mainstream of the industrialized world"? In many cases, those are the same thing thanks to the extreme rightwing drift of the Republican party, but not always.
Don't assume that I know exactly what you are thinking. If you are going to expend over a dozen posts in a thread calling Obama a centrist, all I ask is that you tell me exactly what that means in terms of policy positions and temperament. And lay off the attitude a little. I'm honestly not trying to antagonize, but it's a little hard to be sympathetic to your point of view if you keep jumping down my throat.
November 25, 2008 2:39 PM | Reply | Permalink
I agree with your point about the term centrist. One could have a week long symposium on the term and not get to any clear definition. Just take the issue of health care. What is the leftist view vs. the centrist view (as if it was that clear cut).
November 25, 2008 2:46 PM | Reply | Permalink
The leftist view is a national single-payer system. The centrist view is the kind of complicated compromise, keeping the current "insurance" "system" largely intact, that Clinton proposed and that Obama is proposing. The rightist view is "Can't pay? Too bad, so sad." There, was that really so difficult?
November 25, 2008 2:57 PM | Reply | Permalink
That is until you start talking about the details of single payer system. And is entirely federalized, or do the states have a role? Are the doctors part of the government or do the negotiate fees? On and on.
November 25, 2008 3:04 PM | Reply | Permalink
Of course there are nuances- that's why they call it a political spectrum, not a political trichotomy- but the basic positions are clear enough.
November 25, 2008 3:10 PM | Reply | Permalink
This whole left-center-right debate is about where specifically such-and-such position or policy is on the spectrum. Someone stands here on the spectrum and says "I'm just left of center" and someone else says, "No way, that centrist."
I would argue that if one wants a single payer universal health care system, then we have to first move to something that is a mix. In other words the realistic leftist approach to universal health care is to first move the country where Obama is talking about taking us.
November 25, 2008 3:38 PM | Reply | Permalink
I think all this hand wringing about how left Obama and his picks are is sort of beside the point. Obama never struck me as a particularly leftist candidate, but he did promise to move the country forward in areas very near and dear to a leftist's heart: health care, clean energy, infrastructure, education. If he can get us there by packing his cabinet with centrists, I'm all for it. Hell, if he can get us there with chimps, I'm all for it. I just want him to get us there.
I realize in the heady days after victory, people who felt injured that the right wingnuts held sway for so long would like Obama by proxy to give some folks on the right side of the aisle a quick kick in the wingnuts, but that won't get results. We'd be back to Clinton-era deadlocks all over again. And honestly, how much progress did the leftist agenda make then?
Ideological purity tests were what the recently deposed right wingnuts were all about and it sunk 'em. And if you can cast your memories back to the days of McGovern it's what sunk the Democrats for a long time too. Let's not start repeating our old mistakes IMMEDIATELY if you don't mind. Governing is what Obama is about and that means getting results. If he has to shake a few Repub hands to get there...well, I for one am not going to cut off my health care, clean energy, economic recovery and renewed infrastructure to spite John Bohner's face.
November 25, 2008 2:49 PM | Reply | Permalink
Well said. And if delivers on the health care, clean energy, infrastructure, education, etc. in a way that makes the left happy, then I would consider him a leftist politician, even if there were a few policies/initiatives that one might place in the center category.
November 25, 2008 2:58 PM | Reply | Permalink
Agree.
November 25, 2008 3:07 PM | Reply | Permalink
I totally agree as well. The only point is that I don't consider these issues "leftist," nor do most americans: "health care, clean energy, infrastructure, education." I think that these issues are "mainstream" or "centrist" and that is the problem with this whole, left, right and center debate.
November 25, 2008 3:51 PM | Reply | Permalink
Well, I agree. That problem is a function of how the corporate media have connived with the Republicans to dishonestly redefine right-wing policies as being "centrist", thus branding anybody who actually wants the government to work a supposed "leftist".
November 25, 2008 4:26 PM | Reply | Permalink
But that is the beauty of it. We are already seeing signs that the Repubs are wetting their pants at the idea of Obama getting real health care reform passed. If he can pull it off it means the death of the "center-right" meme and consequently, the death of the modern iteration of the Republican party. All of America will be "leftist" then and darn happy about it. But I do agree, these labels are becoming more and more meaningless as they're used by the modern media. Hell, just a few weeks ago Obama was a socialist for suggesting a return to the tax structure that existed under the Clintons. By that standard we were all commies under Nixon.
November 25, 2008 4:57 PM | Reply | Permalink
Maybe the GOP can get Shrill Sarah to campaign against everything on Obama's agenda. She engages her mouth without engaging her brain, so she can pick up where GWB left off.
Bush could have seized the issue but he was too busy with his wars and his ill-fated Social Security privatization.
November 25, 2008 5:25 PM | Reply | Permalink
See, that's the problem with today's gop. Based on their mindset and platform, we all were commies under nixon. Look at what nixon did and accomplished and compare that to the GOP's current platform. Shoot nixon was left of today's dems even. Is that frightening or what?
November 25, 2008 5:47 PM | Reply | Permalink
Shrewd, we're watching "smart like a fox" here, guys. The earnest serious tone, the constant reminders about how bad the mess is, the endless, carefully arranged briefings and leaks about the new regime, staying out of DC, weekly addresses when he's not even inaugurated yet.
He's disabled Bush and who knows where Cheney is. He's gobbled up the news cycle at exactly the correct time of every day, Bill is grovelling and Mrs. Clinton is twisting herself into a pretzel to gain his favor. Jeez, Teddy even went back to DC for him (and had his 50' Concordia schooner trucked down to boot).
Presumably he's hoping that doing all this preparation will not only make the Republicans look like the incompetants they have been, but will also help the populace to accept how bad things really are. In addition, I suspect he's hoping that all this will make the health insurance companies extremely unpopular, as the major American auto manufacturers have clearly become, since serious change in those core parts of the economy is going to require serious desire on the part of the populace to support the hard parts of the change.
And his ability to pull this off this way was clear from the beginning. He did it in Chicago, then again to get to the Senate, again to beat out Mrs. Clinton and poor Mac was a cinch after that.
I'm just waiting to see how he'll tie Cheney up as well. That's really the last hurdle.
November 25, 2008 4:56 PM | Reply | Permalink
That's why it's still lost on yours truly why people are seeing Obama as "centrist" based on his bipartisan gestures and tone or his "pragmatic" staff pickes.
I don't see Obama as a centrist based on his bipartisan gestures or his staff picks, but based on his writing. How can one read The Audacity of Hope and not see Obama as a centrist (or just left of center, if that)?
I agree that Obama is laying the groundwork for boxing out obstructionist Republicans. He is also providing cover for those Republicans willing to work with him. Isn't it possible, however, to be a centrist and pursue such a political strategy at the same time?
Then again, in this day and age, I view most of Obama's policy postitions as centrist positions. I no longer see universal healthcare, for example, as belonging to the leftist side of policy ledger.
November 25, 2008 4:57 PM | Reply | Permalink
I don't get this man date business... isn't Obama married and wasn't Bush against homosexuality? What people do in their bedrooms is their own damn business but all this "I've got a better man date than you" stuff just seems a little over the top. At least wait until the next morning before you start crowing about it.
November 25, 2008 5:35 PM | Reply | Permalink
He's doing a good job of positioning his initial efforts as president. By stating that there's a mandate, it moves forward the very notion.
-- Cris
My site: Obama Wallpaper Archive
November 26, 2008 12:26 AM | Reply | Permalink
Smart is in. Stupid is out.
Obama rocks my world with his big, bulging, sexy brain that actually works.
November 26, 2008 12:32 AM | Reply | Permalink
I don't get why P.e. Obama--or even a second-termer--has to justify any of his policy or secretary decisions on the basis of a "mandate." He was elected by a landslide, and any half-wit can see why he was elected and what his electorate wants of him. Obama shouldn't was a nano-second of his term justifying anything to his naysayers, and like FDR, steamroll his way to national resurrection.
November 26, 2008 12:34 AM | Reply | Permalink
I know it is lost in the series of 24 hour news cycles because it takes so long for this country to count all the votes. However when all is said and done Obama won this election by 7%. Biggest margin of victory for a first team candidate since Reagan in 1980 and first term Democrat than LBJ in 1964. Highest percentage of the vote of any Democrat since LBJ and before that FDR. Since Obama won by a margin of 7 points and by almost 9,000,000 votes (on the day after the election it was 6 points and less than 8,000,000) votes Republicans have tried to minimize Obama's victory.
The conclusion is yes this was a huge mandate for Obama and he needs his supporters to help him use this mandate for achieving progressive policies.
November 26, 2008 3:58 AM | Reply | Permalink