By Karl Rove
Turning critics into enemies isnt presidential.
Team Obama is suffering from Extended Campaign Syndrome. In an election campaign staffers are often just trying to survive until the next week or the next primary. They cut corners because they are fatigued or under pressure. They can be purposely combative and even portray critics as enemies.
Carrying this mindset into the White House can get you into trouble a lesson the Obama administration is now learning the hard way.
For example theres a video being circulated online of Barack Obama telling the Illinois AFL-CIO in 2003 I happen to be a proponent of a single payer universal health-care program . . . we may not get there immediately and then telling an SEIU Health Care Forum in 2007 I dont think were going to be able to eliminate employer coverage immediately. Theres going to be some transition process. I can envision a decade out or 15 years out or 20 years out where weve got a much more portable system.
The White House now insists that the president doesnt want to enact a single-payer health-care system or eliminate private insurance. Whats more a White House spokeswoman attacked the video saying its compilers Take a phrase here and therethey simply cherry-pick and put it togetherand make it sound like hes saying something that he didnt really say.
Thats laughable. Mr. Obamas remarks are straightforward and indisputable. Rather than saying his views have changed as he has worked to create a national consensus the administration denies what is obviously true.
Last week the White House asked Americans to report fishy information about health-insurance reform and its purveyors. Setting the record straight is one thing. Collecting information on critics in this vaguely threatening manner is quite another.
Much of the Democratic response to critics has been inappropriate or unpresidential. Take the reaction to the town-hall meetings taking place across the country. Many people are worried about their health care and a few are responding in unacceptable ways. But Democrats are portraying the opposition as an angry mob using as House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer wrote in a USA Today op-ed un-American tactics. Mr. Obamas Organizing for America a political group founded by the president to mobilize supporters dismisses critics as tools of insurance companies . . . stirring up fear with false rumors without presenting a shred of evidence to back up the charge.
The White House may actually welcome this process fight if it is more interested in the state of mind of 60 Democratic senators and 256 Democratic House members than in what the public at large is thinking. It seems to believe attacking critics will reassure nervous members of Congress. The sideshow also distracts attention from the substance of Mr. Obamas plans which is what is really hurting him.
For example many small businesspeople are starting to figure out that under ObamaCare it will be cheaper to pay a penalty equal to 8 of payroll than to continue covering their employees health insurance. How will people feel about Mr. Obamas claim that everyone can keep their existing coverage when their employer tells them it makes better economic sense to dump them into the government-run option than to keep paying for private insurance?
The administrations rhetorical tricks extend to issues beyond health care. The economy continues shedding jobs yet the administration keeps saying the presidents policies save jobs. Last Thursday Christina Romer chairwoman of the Council of Economic Advisers proclaimed at the Economic Club of Washington that the stimulus package has saved about 485000 jobs since February.
The following day the Bureau of Labor Statistics reported that 247000 Americans lost their jobs in July. What Team Obama says not only runs counter to the experience of ordinary Americans its causing many to conclude that their White House is misleading them.
The administration could strain its credibility further when it updates the governments fiscal projections in the soon-to-be-released report called the Mid-Session Review. Its likely that the president will blame his predecessor for a larger than previously projected deficit.
Its true that the deficit was $455 billion when Mr. Obama took office with $325.3 billion of that from the bank rescue bill Sen. Obama supported.
But since Jan. 20 Mr. Obama has only added to the red ink. He has signed into law a $787 billion stimulus package and a $33 billion expansion of the State Child Health Insurance Program. Hes greenlighted spending another $330.4 billion in bank rescue money. And he signed a $410 billion bill to fund discretionary spending for the second half of the current fiscal year an increase of 8 on an annual basis. By supporting each spending initiative he robbed himself of the ability to credibly blame others for the size of the deficit.
Life inside the White House is far different from life inside a presidential campaign. The spotlight is brighter and scrutiny greater. While the posse in the White House pressroom is still slow to challenge Mr. Obama ordinary people are forming their own judgments and they are increasingly negative.
Mr. Obamas exaggerations misdirection and efforts to divide Americans are becoming more obvious. What worked in the Obama campaign will often backfire on the Obama presidency. But old habits are hard to leave on the trail.
Mr. Rove is the former senior adviser and deputy chief of staff to President George W. Bush.
