President Obama's Q&A with Senate Democrats showed that the disconnect between the mindset of elected Democrats in general and what needs to happen over the few months is still far too wide. Thanks in large part to a handful of fundamentally lame Senators, the caucus as a whole has been seriously undermined. There are a lot of words that could be used to describe what the Senate has done over the last year, but "leadership" -- a word that was used Wednesday-- isn't one of them.
Great questions were asked by Arlen Specter, Kirsten Gillibrand, Pat Leahy, and, unsurprisingly, Sherrod Brown. Blanche Lincoln and Evan Bayh used the opportunity to strengthen the argument that in certain situations, the grassroots shouldn't care much if the worst Senate conservaDems lose their seats, because they end up costing more than they're worth.
Lincoln went right from decrying attempts to score political points to blasting the "extremes" in her own party. Her definition of "extreme" appears to be anyone who actually wants to get things done. President Obama was at his best when responding to Lincoln.
In a move that shocked no one, Bayh decided to spend his time hackin' it up. After the last year, anyone who links working with Republicans to getting results is either borderline delusional or uninterested in results. (Bayh also warned against "bad economics"... while touting his budget deficit fetish.)
So what will it take for this elusive bipartisanship to materialize? Is Evan Bayh going to lead an army of Sasquatches, unicorns, and leprechauns who will talk Mitch McConnell's Republicans into playing nice? The only way a Republican Senator is going to vote with Democrats is if we put the maximum amount of pressure on them by clearly and repeatedly pointing to them as blocking what the country needs.
It's a no - brainer, but the way prominent Dems talk about the two parties has consequences. We're coming across as incoherent and ineffectual at a time when projecting strength, leadership, and vision is essential politics. We're helping to prop up the GOP and it's failed ideas, and sounding pathetic while doing it. If Congressional Republicans aren't contributing anything productive (and they're not), elected Democrats need to make them pay a price for their obstruction. An occasional remark about how they have a responsibility to govern isn't going to cut it in the coming months.
There was a lot of talk about listening to the American people. If this happens, Senate Dems and the White House will see that there isn't a constituency for excuses. There's a difference between legitimate reasons and an excuse, but all many voters know is that Democrats control the White House and both houses of Congress, yet they haven't delivered. People don't want to hear about the way the Senate operates. They want the Senate to change to reflect the times we're in. If that doesn't happen, they'll naturally take out their frustration on those who are in control.
President Obama was right on the money when he talked about how people want action and results, not what is assumed to be politically safe. But some of what he said could have been addressed to himself. It's ironic that the president brought up the image Democrats have been saddled with since the 1970's, because he's making a similar mistake; weak economic policy mixed with a failure to make a strong case for the Democratic vision of effective, responsive government. Obama and modern Democrats won't undo the damage from the Carter years by being Cateresque.
While it was great to hear President Obama warn against treading lightly, what does he think he's been doing? Even the president's description of the core values of the Democratic Party and the reasons the people in the room wanted to join it was tepid.
The whole "ignore the blogs" meme was telling on some level. While getting out of the Beltway bubble and listening more to the concerns of average Americans would be a great step in the right direction, it's worth noting that progressive bloggers have been pushing for elected Democrats to focus on delivering for Main Street for months now. While they're ignoring things, will the "Turn Off The Blogs" Caucus stop reading Broder, Halperin, Brooks, and other sources of consistently wrong conventional wisdom?
President Obama's comments about "bad timing" where frustrating to hear right after the calls to pay less attention to the netroots / grassroots. A year ago, when the stimulus was being watered down, I was writing about how a flawed handling of the bailout and a recovery bill that didn't deliver would badly damage the credibility of the Democratic vision of government. I echoed the same thing over and over throughout the process that led us to the health insurance legislation that is in limbo as we speak Many other Democratic bloggers were expressing the same sentiment. Maybe dismissing the people who followed the events that got us to this point the most closely, thought through them, debated and wrote about them, and have at least on a few major occasions been right about them, isn't a very smart thing to do .
The president's line about "demonizing all banks" was a ridiculous misrepresentation of what progressives are pushing for. It was almost as detached from reality as some of the charges House Republicans make about the president. Hopefully their reliance on building straw men so they can proceed to hack away at them hasn't rubbed off on him after only one visit.
Leadership is needed right now. But what we're seeing from Senate Dems as a group, and far too often the president himself, is hardly leadership.
UPDATE: Political Wire flags a quote that is a pretty good example of what I'm talking about.
While Congress shouldn't use a lack of presidential leadership as a misdirection to deflect from its own timidity, the president has a role to play as well. And they're all going to face consequences at the ballot box if they don't deliver.
UPDATE #2: The White House pushes back and argues convincingly that the quote that circulated earlier was taken out of context.
Still, this effort is unlikely to survive without the president and other leading Democrats asserting themselves.
