To follow up on Zac’s post, I too am growing weary of what we can now safely call, I think, a total absence of political leadership from the White House. I really hope, beyond hope, that I am wrong, that there is some master plan behind all of the hand-wringing and hedged public statements, but more and more that seems not to be the case.

Obviously we are not privy to every conversation, but the feeling among Democrats here in DC that I have spoken with is quite poor. Obama was a great candidate, and even Democrats like myself who did not vote for him in the primary, came around his campaign, we understood the stakes. A brief word on the stakes here, for me it was always health care reform, I truly believe that a much more comprehensive plan than is proposed is needed, that it is the central tool by which we can battle spiraling deficits, and is a moral imperative of our nation to each citizen. More then anything else this was what I wanted accomplished most. Followed in second by an aggressive infrastructure campaign that we haven’t seen since the heyday of the Cold War.

And to his great credit, he provided the rhetoric and leadership during those months that made it a pleasure to say I supported him. Even as President Elect he took and announced bold steps that helped to build confidence in Wall Street and to a lesser extent Main Street, that help was going to come.

And, the real shame here, is that legislatively, Obama does have a good number of victories to point out. But the complete lack of message from the White House has left those victories as though they never even happened. Obama and others decided that they not only had the political capital and will to pass health care reform, but also a great enough concentration of the two to make it the center-piece of Obama’s first year in office. Early on he spelled out his plan for Reform. It has dominated the airwaves and media since he put his weight behind it, from the Joint Congressional address, to his televised press conferences, the President put all of his chips on red. Failure to enact health care reform, could very likely, in my mind certainly, mean an effective end to his Presidency, barring god forbid some great national crisis, or hopefully for us all, a spectacular economic recovery and growth period.

Both ends of Pennsylvania Avenue, in my estimation, have failed to articulate any leadership. Obama has gone to the Hill a few times, meets with Congressional leaders, but has so far been unable to persuade them to move in his direction, or has not tried hard enough.

When Obama began to make his statements in the Presidential campaign and early in his administration about what he wanted from health care, I was puzzled. I understood that Obama was not going to persue a plan as radical as I’d like, but from the start he hedged what the bill would seek to do, stripped himself of measures he would seek. All the while, from a political standpoint, literally cutting fingers off of his hand. It’s not hard to see why before you negotiate you bring everything to the table, and then work out what can stay and what has to go, you don’t remove those potentially objectionable elements for your opposition before you even begin.

Maybe in some way, this is a validation, that Obama in sincere when he says we need to move past partisanship, and that he is serious about pragmatic solutions that both parties can get behind. But it’s a validation without victory, and validation without a chance of success.

I’ve been thinking to myself if I were working for the GOP what is the best lesson from this special election? To delay and block, and prevent health care reform from passing for just 5-6 more months. Because if we approach summer, with no bill signed by the President, the GOP can take advantage not just of growing sentiments that lean in the direction, but general disillusionment with the Democratic party, and probable low turnout for Democrats nationwide.

2008 was not a realignment, I thought that 2010 could be, and maybe it can be salvaged; but right now many people are voting in anger. We’d be foolish to not attribute Obama’s victory in large part to the great anger American’s had over the state of the economy, and John McCain’s inability to develop a credible voice on the matter. Going into early September, pre-Lehman, the polls were very tight. So it’s not surprise that until conditions improve, until people associate the Democratic party with fixing the economy and more importantly legislative success, we are headed for failure in November.

Now as we head into the week where the President will give his State of the Union, what will he do? Earlier it seemed like the natural course, would be to persuade House members to pass the Senate version of the bill, and work out the sticky details this spring and summer during budget reconciliation. But the President has already spoken on this topic: http://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/01/20/he-wasnt-the-one-weve-been-waiting-for/

“I would advise that we try to move quickly to coalesce around those elements of the package that people agree on. We know that we need insurance reform, that the health insurance companies are taking advantage of people. We know that we have to have some form of cost containment because if we don’t, then our budgets are going to blow up and we know that small businesses are going to need help so that they can provide health insurance to their families. Those are the core, some of the core elements of, to this bill. Now I think there’s some things in there that people don’t like and legitimately don’t like.”

Now what does he even say, to me this would have been the ideal moment to celebrate the passage of health care reform, and turn without delay to a forceful populist-style speech on what the President is doing for the economy. In fact, that is likely to be the major point, but how feasible is it to propose a serious legislative agenda for financial reform–when the centerpiece of the President’s first legislative year remains in doubt.

Domestically, politically, Democrats are facing a huge leadership deficit, they want to talk about what Teddy would have thought, I think in this instance anger, betrayal, and bewilderment that the Democratic leadership has been unwilling to do what is necessary to advance legislation. For example, Reid should have threatened the nuclear option on filibusters, and force some kind of compromise agreement like what was done during the Bush judicial appointments. (For what it’s worth I think the filibuster as used, primarily since the rule change that President Wilson pushed for, is pretty abhorrent to democracy anyway.) If they loose their seats, at least they can do so for having passed something that people truly hate, instead of losing a seat over failure to act, only able to point a finger at 41 Republicans and ask them to stop calling them names.

Nate Silver’s analysis here is spot on: the policies the Democrats have advocated are shockingly centrist, Republicans have been uniform in their brilliant opposition and the Democrats have no messaging and no symbols. I don’t really understand how you can run such a good campaign, and then be so bad on messaging, but Obama has found a way.

On symbols, I’d point out what Morone said in that talk I’ll post soon: “Advocates need to think big, Morone explained. The sixth commandment requires Americans to keep in mind that healthcare reform is about symbols: the nature of American society, our ideals, life and death. Responding to Republican claims that Obama’s plan will kill grandmothers by saying “it’s not true,” Morone said, was a very poor response. “Democrats are so in the weeds of the politics, they’re not very good at the symbols,” he said. Symbols require a philosophy, a victim, a plan, and a demon like, Morone joked, the insurance companies. “It’s not fair, but it’s effective.”” Why doesn’t Obama give a passionate speech (Well, the man can’t muster passion about anything) about people in this country dying because they don’t have health care….instead of say, throwing around a lot of statistics.

We can not underestimate the level of ardent resistance Barack Obama and his “New New Deal” will come under from the GOP. The field marshals are already warning the troops for the battle ahead, at CATO they predict that any passage of a form of universal health care, could mean the end of the GOP. CATO quotes Norman Markowitz who says:

The best way to win over the the portion of the working class in the South or the West that supported McCain and the Republicans is to create important new public programs and improve the social safety net. National health care [and other measures] will bring reluctant voters into the Obama coalition. That is how progress works.

The GOP of course has been down this road before. After the successful FDR administration Republicans were forced to support what had become national institutions like Social Security. Recall that even Bush, nearly a half century later, could do nothing to change the basics of the program. At all levels of government Republicans became the usual minority. With the exception of Eisenhower, Democrats would dominate the White House until Nixon’s election, and the House until 1995 with only 2 terms being controlled by Republicans 1947 and 1953. We have lived in a time where Republicans have come out of the desert. Starting with Reagan in 1980 the GOP made significant electoral gains, reestablished themselves as a national party, and a pro-business, pro-opportunity party. Voters in 1992 chose Clinton, in large part because of the failure of the GOP to turn the economy around.

It was at this moment that a Democratic revival should have began, it was here that an opportunity similar, though all together separate, from where we find ourselves now, emerged. Had Clinton been able to pass universal health care, and other prominent big government supported programs, a new generation of solid Democrats could have emerged. The 1992 Electoral Map bears a striking similarity to Obama’s. Though they won in some different places, the facts were the same as Markowitz alludes to: passage of national programs could have turned voters in places like Missouri into Democratic voters for years to come.

Of course, Clinton squandered this opportunity in the first two years, and then hamstrung with a newly energized GOP in control of Congress, worked in incremental steps to advance small pieces of what was once a larger agenda of reform.

The battles to start in January over the Obama Stimulus plan are battles for whether or not the GOP will survive for the next 20-30 years, or whether they will remain a minority party once more. Failure to institute meaningful and fundamental change like universal health care, will create another opportunity for the GOP to return.

They will return like they did the last time. It’s no wonder that some conservatives believe the key is to return to heavy conservatism and religiosity: those were bedrocks to their strategy of return in the 80s and 90s. I don’t believe that the Obama win was necessarily a refutation of these tactics, after all dirty campaigning and fear, uncertainty, and doubt have been campaign staples for as long as democracy has existed. Instead I believe that a unique electoral climate, created by the failures of the modern conservative movement that are now killing our economy, created an opportunity for Democrats to get a second chance. This began with the midterms in 2006, and culminated on November 4th.

The question now is can we deliver. At every turn they will try to block large-scale reform, sounding the calls for compromise and bipartisanship. Giving into their demands and instituting anything less than a fundamental shift in how government helps its people is failure. The American people will suffer, the promises of change will be unrealized, and the American voter makes no distinction between the party to blame, only who was in charge when things stayed the same.

There’s been a lot of talk in the media of late, brought on by a big push with advertising from the Bush Administration and the GOP, of the Employee Free Choice Act ending secret ballot union elections. The GOP would have you believe that EFCA destroys workers rights, and subjects them to pro-Union intimidation.

The fact is that these claims are bunk.

As Ezra points out what the EFCA does is give the workers more rights, and doesn’t alter the the rights/powers of union leaders. Right now when it comes to the period before a union is formed, all of the power rests in the hands of management.

As Think Progress notes:

– 92% of employers whose workers try to organize force workers to attend anti-union meetings and workers are disciplined or fired for leaving.
– 78% of employers force employees to meet with their supervisor to be interrogated about whether they want a union and asked to reveal which co-workers are union supporters.
– 75% of employers hire union-busting consultants to advise them on how to run an effective anti-union campaign.
– 51% of employers threaten to close the plant if workers vote for the union.
– 25% of employers actually FIRE at least one worker for supporting the union, even though it is against the law.

Standing with workers means supporting the EFCA. If 30% of the membership wants a secret ballot, they get one. What EFCA effectively does is allow workers to bypass the long process of forming a union that management needs to recognize in a CBA. The way it will work is easy: 50% of the employees will want a union, and the NLRB will allow them to hold a card-check election, which in this case is basically an absentee election. Those who do not want their vote known publicly, could mail the cards to the NLRB. What’s more a union can be dissolved instantly through the same process.

The need for the EFCA is to balance the extreme power that employers have over employees considering a union from punishment shifts, mandatory no meetings, and the stats mentioned above. Though there could be scenarios where workers will pressure each other the amount of pressure being exerted will still be less than the power management has. Not passing the EFCA is akin to allowing one party to spend money in an election to win votes, and the other party to sit inside all day and hope people remember them.

That this is the first time the GOP has pretended to care about the rights of employees seeking to unionize should be cause enough for viewing their motives as suspect.

The New York Times had a political memo this morning on Rubinomics. The article poitns out that Geithner, Summers, Orszag and Fronman all have deep Rubin ties. The Times is correct that these individuals have diverged some on policy and the moderate stances they have held in the past; however, I want to know why there is not one liberal economist being put in a key economic post. Now I know that Obama is moderate on economics, as am I, but in a world where Lincoln is his model, and rigorous argument is his ideal, why can’t he appoint one true liberal economist?

I am not a protectionist, and I think that America’s grand manufacturing industry is in a long decline of diminishing comparative advantage, but we should run the biggest deficit in history next year. We should run a New New Deal. We should pass universal health care (which apparently a la Kristol’s 1994 memo, might destroy the republican party for a generation). Now, sure, Larry Summers has come to that position:

As for Mr. Summers, he has “truly evolved,” Mr. Bernstein [an economist at Economics Policy Institute] said, based on his reading of Mr. Summers’s columns in the Financial Times this year. Both men have been advisers to Mr. Obama, and at a recent meeting, Mr. Bernstein recalled: “I told him, ‘Boy, Larry, your views on trade, on income inequality, on stimulus spending, they’re approaching ours at E.P.I.’ And he sort of huffed and puffed, and said, ‘Oh well, changing circumstances.’ ”

But where is the Bob Reich. Rubin and Reich may well have both moderated over time, and “the two Bobs” have come together, but where is the possible dissenting voice on economic issue. Who is the true champion for liberal economics, even more domestic spending than Summers or Geithner think necessary? I don’t know that there will be one.

Ed Kilgore, at the Democratic Strategist, has penned a quick rundown of the issues involved in the GA-SEN run off election, and whether or not the President-Elect will get involved. Kilgore sums up the for and against camps:

The argument against direct intervention in GA by Obama is that the last thing he needs right now is to become embroiled in a highly partisan election that would be interpreted as the first personal defeat of his soon-to-be presidency. It’s also possible a high-profile Obama presence in the race would produce a large turnout for white conservatives eager to give him an early black eye.

The argument for it is that a Republican win will be interpreted as a rebuke to him no matter what he does, and that direct involvement is the only way to give Martin a fighting chance.

As Kilgore points out, and others have noted, both camps are framing the run-off in terms of either aiding or checking the Obama Administration. The question of his involvement though could be best understood coldly in a risk-reward scenario.

If Obama makes a full fledged campaign effort for Martin, it seems logical that turnout among Democrats will increase, especially among African American voters. As the article mentions, much of Obama’s GA ground game is still in place to support Martin, and there have been no shortage of surrogates coming to Martin’s aid.

However, involving himself directly with the campaign, seems to be to be too great a risk to take. It looks promising that Franken will win the recount in Minnesota, and the media is increasingly putting focus on when and who Obama will name to lead the economic recovery. Involving himself in what frankly will be seen as a parochial matter, will only damage a brand of pragmatic reconciliation, unity, and action. A Chambliss win will not be portrayed as a rejection of Obama on the national stage.

However, with threats this week from Senator Mitch McConnell to use what little tools he has left to obstruct judicial appointments and bills, a 60 seat majority would provide for an unprecedented period through which to enact reform. But this is a job for the DSCC.

Senator Schumer and the DSCC should make it a priority to support Martin with full financial support, including donations from other Democrats who have election money left over, and no races for 6 years. This is a test of how hard the Senate Democrats will back Obama, and failure for the DSCC to get involved with their full weight will suggest an unwillingness to go to the mattresses to provide the framework needed for ushering in reform.

Timothy Geithner is expected to take up the treasury positions, according to NBC News and WSJ. This isn’t a surprising pick, but I think it is a good one. He’s a known and trusted quantity to the markets, but he is not an insider. I think that we should be comforted by his years of public service and what kind of man that suggests he is, vs. the possibility of another big business Paulson like Secretary. I’m also relieved it isn’t Larry, not only because he is a brash, blunt man unfit for careful nuanced times, but also I think that the more the Obama camp can minimize the harking back to the Clinton days the better. I think that is true even though Hilliary will be Secretary of State. Geithner is quite young, 47, and worked in the Treasury department from 1988-2000, suggesting that he may well know the department better than any Secretary in recent memory.

So the big four seem to be shaping up to be Clinton, Geithner, Gates and Holder. I’m looking forward to hearing about Education (maybe Arne Duncan), Labor (maybe David Bonier) and housing and urban development. Although the media is focused on the big names and the big positions, the national security, foreign policy and economic teams, I think these other positions have large, important and often overlooked roles. If you read the newspapers carefully, you know that these positions have control over a vast area of regulation that are no less important because they aren’t on the front pages.

People on all sides of opinion seem to be going crazy over the amount of leaks coming out of the Obama Transition team, especially with regard to whether or not Senator Clinton will be nominated as Secretary of State. For example take this now over-extended entry at the Huffington Post, going through the various gyrations of what has been leaking to date.

We’ve heard it all, it’s a done deal, it’s not happening, the problem is Bill, Bill turned over all of his records, it’s yes, it’s no, and on and on we go.

I do think that this is pretty much as close to a done deal as can be had right now. Recall that this speculation, while feeling like a long time, has been going on now for about a week, with the actual vetting seeming to have taken place beginning around Tuesday of this week.

Indeed, there is now a “leak” that uses the exact same language being bandied about the media, seen here in the AP:

President-elect Barack Obama plans to nominate Hillary Rodham Clinton as secretary of state after Thanksgiving, a new milestone for the former first lady and a convergence of two political forces who fought hard for the presidency.

The senior adviser, speaking on condition of anonymity because the president-elect is not prepared to officially announce the nomination, said Obama believes Clinton would bring instant stature and credibility to U.S. diplomatic relations.

I also don’t think these leaks are coming entirely from the Clinton camp, or that she is trying to gain leverage, simply put she has none to gain. Senator Kennedy in a reversal from where he once stood along with the Democratic Senate Leadership are considering what leadership role she could play should she stay in the Senate. Obviously she has a decision to make, and she gains no leverage in either direction at this point, she needs to make a monumental and life defining choice, but hey let’s just hope she does it in 24 hours since Obama asked her, and how could she say no.

But what does this say about the once leak proof Obama campaign? Greg Sarget at TPM Election Central argues that it’s an issue of planned vs. unplanned leaks. While I think this is true, I still think it misses the point all together, which is these leaks don’t hurt anything.

Let’s imagine for a moment a government that didn’t have any leaks? I think that ideally we shouldn’t use unnamed sources, that conversations should be on the record, but the media climate and the rules of the game say otherwise, and often times leaks, whether unofficial or planned are an important part of how we get our news. To think that we should allow the Obama Transition and soon to be Administration to operate in a leak free world, and indeed be distressed when leaks are happening is to want to play a part in the game that we don’t play in the first place.

Leaks are fundamental to our free press, for better or worse at this point. There are good ones and bad ones, planned and unplanned, and even illegal, but without this information coming out, we’d be far worse, and further in the dark for what our government is planning. I trust Obama as President, but I like to know that there will always be leaks to know what’s going on.

I think this story by Chris Bowers at Open Left deserves some much needed attention. Chris writes:

Kind of remarkable that every time Democrats seek elite media and political credibility for having a “bi-partisan” cabinet, they turn to Republicans to manage the Pentagon. Kind of makes you think that Democrats believe Republicans are better at managing both national security, and what is by far the largest department of the federal government. There have been no Democratic Defense Secretaries since 1996, and only eight years of Democratic Defense Secretaries since 1968.

This post comes after the Financial Times indicates that chatter points to Obama working out the details that would allow current Defense Secretary Robert Gates to remain in an Obama Administration.

I agree with Bowers here that the eventual effect of this is wrong. Of course it could be that Gates is the exact person Obama wants to head his Pentagon, but surely if one is worried about transition issues Secretary Gates, “an old-fashioned patriot”, in Mr. Obama’s own words could be called upon to remain on past January 20th as a contractor or special adviser. Choosing the right people is important, but there are other roles Gates could fill to use the knowledge and experience he has.

Democrats are not going to be able to take back the issue of National Defense if we insist on allowing Republicans, even moderates, to head the Defense Department. Obama should chose a qualified and experienced Democrat, Sam Nunn?, to step up and lead a Pentagon that will refocus itself on stopping al Qaeda, bringing our troops home safe, and modernizing for the future of warfare.

I wrote below about the need for the equality movement writ large to not write off populations that voted yes on 8, but instead to mobilize and build inroads to create a successful electoral movement. But it’s important noting what Think Progress has been keeping track of.

There is now a large scale effort underway by Christian fundamentalists to drive as large a wedge as possible between African Americans and gay people. Their strategic aim is simple, make sure that African Americans never see any commonality with the equality movement.

Former Arkansas Governor Mike Huckabee on The View said the following:

HUCKABEE: It’s a different set of rights. People who are homosexuals should have every right in terms of their civil rights, to be employed, to do anything they want. But that’s not really the issue. I know you talked about it and I think you got into it a little bit early on. But when we’re talking about a redefinition of an institution, that’s different than individual civil rights.

BEHAR: Well, segregation was an institution, too, in a way. It was right there on the books.

HUCKABEE: But here is the difference. Bull Connor was hosing people down in the streets of Alabama. John Lewis got his skull cracked on the Selma bridge.

Of course these claims aren’t true, gays have suffered tremendous violence motivated by hate. In 2007 according to the FBI,16.6% of reported Hate Crimes were against gay people. And incidents in Laramie, Wisconsin, among many, many others prove that gay people have also been targeted and killed for who they are.

This violence based line of argument is disgusting and serves to do nothing more than to divide along racial lines.

Well it seems that the lame duck senate won’t even vote on the auto rescue. I agree with what Gary said below. The shareholders of these companies should be wiped out for putting up with years of mismanagement. I think the Congress should, in the short term, take over the companies and put someone in charge of reorganization, maybe a bankruptcy judge. If the Big Three’s failure is going to rock all Americans psychologically, then Congress can just pass a law to do the same thing and call it something else–I don’t care, just don’t give these incompetent management teams continuing control.

“No matter how hard we work, not matter how hard we try, the House of Representatives is going home tomorrow,” Reid said yesterday. “We have to face reality.” Which begs the question: what did this session of Congress do exactly? They made a lot of noise and did nothing. It began as an emergency sessions to put a “down payment” on the to come Obama package. Instead we have had some Washington style fighting about TARP and the auto industry.

Now, sure, Oil is below $50 a barrel. That might sounds like a good thing, but it also might means possible deflation, and there has definitely been a huge decrease in consumption. As the Times says “The speed of the falloff is a testimony to the world’s dire economic straits” and what has Congress done–nothing. I’m not saying that should do anything about Oil prices (although this may lead to the periodic disregard for environment issues), but that we’re in serious economic times and they’ve done nothing.

All but dead are the real stimulus proposals—assistance to states in the form of higher federal Medicaid payouts, money for infrastructure projects etc. Many observers are saying we need a stimulus package, and a big one to boot (Krugman says we should run a trillion dollar deficit), but neither Senate Democrats nor Republicans gave a $100 billion package much consideration on Monday.

So as the Economist put is “So, lots of deadlock, acrimony and short-sighted bickering. I can’t think of a more suitable way for the 110th Congress to end.”

This piece from McClatchy is distressing.

Assembly Speaker Karen Bass said Wednesday that she is “appalled” at the hostility that has been directed at African-Americans since the passage of Proposition 8.

[...]

But during a meeting with The Bee’s Capitol bureau, Bass said that lost in the post-mortems over Proposition 8 is that black support for the measure was “a generational issue” that divided younger and older African-Americans.

There is a lot to say regarding Prop. 8 and the response to it, but this one point is worth making without entering into a long drawn out discussion. States that have the initiative process when these matters are at stake need to seek to build effective coalitions. Continuing to demonize African-American voters, runs the risk of alienating the younger and supportive generation, and creating a possible backlash from moderate Democrats and others who support equality.

The sad and simple fact of the matter is that the No on 8 crowd, mobilized far too late, with not enough urgency, money, or effort. For now the issue will go back to the California Supreme Court, but in other states the lessons of Prop. 8 should be absorbed, the fight only begins after the Courthouse.