High-flying domestic progressivism wont come back
By Donald Devine
Texas Insider Report: AUSTIN Texas Like FDR President Obama may find life in pursuing foreign policy adventures to resurrect himself but his radical domestic agenda is dead. The 2010 mid-term election will go down in history as Many lost but no one won. The biggest loser was President Barack Obama.
He and his transformational" program were rebuked in the most dramatic way since the Republicans won 81 seats in the 1938 off-year election to end Franklin Roosevelts New Deal.
High-flying domestic progressivism will not come back even if the president could manipulate a win in 2012 which he well might.
The next biggest losers were:
- House Speaker Nancy Pelosi who will be looking for a new job and
- Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid who will not now be able to control the unruly Senate.
The ruthlessness of both in cramming the overly ambitious Obama program through and even pulling it significantly to the left in the process was
impressive.
Indeed a majority of the Democratic caucus was committed to pushing through the most left program possible and let the Devil take the hindmost. Unfortunately for them he did.
One has to admire the ideological courage of the Democrats to take advantage of what the wisest knew was the opportunity of a lifetime of holding working control of both houses of Congress and the presidency a chance that is rare in modern U.S. history.
Ronald Reagan had the courage when he first entered office in 1981 but he did not have party control and so had to win over Democrats which fortunately for him legitimized his success.
The Democrats this time had no such cover. It was apparent to the electorate that this was an extreme partisan ideological program that was forced through against what the polls clearly showed was majority popular opposition.
Yet Republicans lost too. All of the polls have demonstrated that the public has been even more opposed to the Republicans in Congress than to the Democrats as political parties.
George W. Bush and his GOP-controlled Congresses have so ruined the Republican brand that only the colossal Democratic overreaching could
have saved them. The voters were dissatisfied with both parties but were sophisticated enough to know that the only way to tame Obama was to hold their collective noses and vote Republican.
Republicans failed in even a more fundamental way.
It would have been better politically for the Republicans to fall a few votes short of a majority in the House as well as the Senate. With majority responsibility for a legislative program even in one house they are an easy target for a president especially one who remains a mainstream media idol.
Even without the media advantage any president is a single person who can move more adroitly than a legislative majority which must contend with competing interests within its ranks.
In 1994 after winning control of both houses for the first time in 40 years the Republicans learned this lesson the hard way. The natural temptation of the winning majority is to try to run the government from Congress.
Its leaders were warned at the time that this is impossible to do.
This is especially difficult in a media age of instant communication which is even more so now indeed is literally 24/7 today. Even if the GOP leadership is cagier this time the odds overwhelmingly favor the president in the political maneuvering.
The one clear winner is
the Tea Party movement and especially its effective political leader Senator Jim DeMint. Their victories in the Republican primaries retired more incumbents than in any recent election and DeMint
is correct that a smaller number of committed members is more important than a majority of Machiavellian pols. His strategy produced not only a greater number of GOP senators but also a substantial number of committed members to keep them honest.
The Tea Party good news could turn sour if expectations about what Republicans should be able to accomplish are tuned too high. To limit much less overrule a president is extremely difficult.
The chief executive still has his number one power the veto and there is no possible way for Republicans to override one. Even the enormously unpopular ObamaCare program cannot be repealed or seriously amended because of it.
Some victories can be won by refusing to appropriate funds to enforce portions but this will not satisfy the Tea Party believers. More serious means to frustrate ObamaCare can be taken by the states but that will not help the Congressional GOP very much.
The likely outcome will be deadlock.
With Mr. Obamas superior perch from the presidential bully pulpit and the media love affair with him and his program he will be in the dominant political position. He will say as he has been doing throughout the campaign that everyone should be able to agree" we should do some nice-sounding phrase for one of his transformational policies so why do the Republicans refuse to cooperate with us?
If he pulls this trick off well he can end up blaming his four years of creating economic uncertainty and delaying a real recovery on the Republicans.
The idea of President Obama successfully running against Republicans as the party of the Depression may sound a bit strange to those rejoicing at the current election results and recognizing that the Bush recession officially ended last year.
But this appeal worked before for Roosevelt and a variation of it re-elected Bill Clinton too.
Regarding their victory this year Republicans may well have cause to recall
the old saw be careful what you wish for you may well get it good & hard.
Donald Devine the editor of ConservativeBattleline Online was the director of the U.S. Office of Personnel Management from 1981 to 1985 under Ronald Reagan and is Senior Scholar at Bellevue Universitys Center for American Vision &Values.
