The New Republic

This is truly strange. What were some people expecting, the 'Introduction of Utopia Act' by summer 2009?

- ironyroad

October 5, 2010 at 6:58pm

In other news, Ralph Nader prepares his Presidential bids for 2012, 2016, and 2020. ...

- jimbomoron

October 5, 2010 at 7:01pm

You could make the argument that Obama and the Democrats could have achieved even more, especially given the very rare advantages they started with. But a close to universal health insurance bill is the biggest liberal achievement since Medicaid in 1965.

- RHSerlin

October 5, 2010 at 7:51pm

We see that mentality in posts out here, often enough. It is just nuts.

- liberal reformer

October 5, 2010 at 8:14pm

There is a much easier explanation than "60% of democrats are depressives or idiots or Naderites (or all of the above.)" Few people credit Obama and the democrats with success because this term's accomplishments are such a well kept secret. Congressional democrats are mostly running away from health care reform, even those who voted for it. The administration has done little in promoting its policies in public, before, during or after passage through Congress. Almost all media attention has been on the dirty deals necessary to get a few bills past, and the (mostly uncontested) GOP claims of fiscal irresponsibility. Nobody knows what's in the health care reform or the financial reform, and people still confuse the stimulus and TARP. In the end, the stimulus did save jobs and was run efficiently, and TARP may well make money for the Treasury, but no democrats are out screaming the news from the rooftops. If I didn't read the NYTimes (carefully) and blogs like this, I wouldn't know either. No one is out there selling the democratic brand, and in fact no one has been since Nov 2008. The problem is not with the average liberal, but with party leaders who haven't controlled the message and rallied the base.

- stanalama

October 5, 2010 at 8:46pm

"No one is out there selling the democratic brand, and in fact no one has been since Nov 2008. The problem is not with the average liberal, but with party leaders who haven't controlled the message and rallied the base." Right On. And who is the No-One-in Chief?? BHO, aka Compromiser-in-Chief. One could alsp point out that the author of the article is a whiney Democrat whining about Progressive Democrats who he and other Obama acolytes argue (on odd numbered Tuesdays) should act like Blue Dogs. It's a Carteresque version of "blame the voters" excuse for failures largely of BHO and Senate Dems--- neither of which give any real signs of changing their well-established behaviors. Incoherent, timid, and ineffecvtive politically--- but better thasn the crazy Republicans--- is not exactly a stirring political strategy to activate the base you make clear you prefer not to support.

- drofnats1

October 5, 2010 at 10:26pm

"But a close to universal health insurance bill is the biggest liberal achievement since Medicaid in 1965." A bill that might be implemented mostly 3-5 years hence that provides insurance rather than health care is the best thing liberals have done since 1965??? And the best liberals and the Nation can look forward two in a 3-10 year Great Recession?? If so, liberals/ Priogressives better kick out many of the current Dems pdq-- starting at the top.

- drofnats1

October 5, 2010 at 10:34pm

While Stanalama's comments strike me as dead-on, there's also a large disparity between what has been accomplished and what and what -needed- to be accomplished, given the problems the country is facing; as well as, at least arguably, what -could- have been accomplished. Part of what's so depressing about it all is that it seems quite apparent that just about nothing of import will be accomplished next session, despite the great need. Re: what could have been accomplished: It's hard to say what more might more have actually been done, given the structural difficulties of today's Washington, especially the Senate, but I'd note that, had Obama taken Rahm's advice in early July, and pushed Finance committee to bring Healthcare to the floor at that time, it could easily have cut six weeks off the final negotiating process, meaning it all would have been taken care of by the time of the special election in MA, and we wouldn't have lost -another- six weeks or so. Boom--three more months of legislative calendar in a relatively favorable political environment. As for what -needed- to be accomplished, well, the country still faces a number of large problems that haven't been dealt with, that seem to need liberal solutions that we are not going to get. That is cause for dissatisfaction. Meanwhile, Chait's constant repetition that this is "the most successful period of liberal governance in four decades" is true only because it says so little; it's a simple fact that not a whole lot of substantive liberal legislation passed during the period Chait names (with the partial exception of a trickle of important regulatory and environmental laws dating from the seventies), so he's deliberately choosing a short stick to measure Obama against, which strikes me as dishonest. The 111th session was a period of Democratic/Liberal control unprecedented since 1967 (1977-8 doesn't really count, since Carter ran against his own party and was uninterested in pursuing a liberal agenda, i.e. Healthcare--the center-left didn't control the executive branch well-enough to push big-ticket items), and we Democrats had a right to expect more, as well as a need for it. When that control was jeopardized by a semi-unprecedented use of the filibuster (as any idiot--or most idiots, anyway--could have forseen), everything should have been wagered on a push to change the senate rules in order to weaken that procedural maneuver enough for necessary legislation to pass (i.e. a larger stimulus). Changing the rules to demand 57 or 58 votes for cloture probably would have been enough. If you reach a little farther back, in order to measure Obama and the 111th congress against a more appropriate, and higher, measuring stick, the early Johnson era, he fares poorly (since Johnson had a liberal House and 68 Democratic senators in the 65-6 legislative session, this bar is probably unfairly high; nevertheless, it should be part of the conversation).

- Curran1

October 5, 2010 at 10:43pm

Social Security took several years after 1935 to kick in fully. What's your problem? That Americans are now like 5-year-olds who want their candy NOW!!!! and burst into floods of tears when they don't get it?

- ironyroad

October 5, 2010 at 10:44pm

If I recall correctly, only 9% of Republicans thought this Congress had achieved more than previous Congresses. These would be the same Republicans who are horrified by the Democrats' supposed overreaching.

- hilzoy

October 5, 2010 at 11:36pm

Irony- I don't care much about when exactly most of the AC and PP Act kicks in, but letting most of it wait four years makes the accomplishment less tangible to the average poll-respondent, who is being asked to measure how much Congress has done. Most people don't have the time to follow politics closely, and given the lack of salesmanship or attention to other accomplishments like financial reform, it begins to become understandable why the stat Chait quotes is low.

- Curran1

October 5, 2010 at 11:51pm

If Chait tells me 2/3 of Ds think this congress has not achieved more than other congresses, and hilzoy tells me that only 9% of Rs think this congress has achieved more than previous congresses, I begin to get the feeling there are a whole lot of people who do not perceive this congress's body of work as an "achievement". Are these folks thinking of Oliver Cromwell's statement to the long parliament: In the name of God go!

- lsernoff

October 6, 2010 at 12:18am

I thought all that effort into redesigning credit card statements was an accomplishment until I saw the end result - drofnats is not the sole cynic here. It seems Congress should have built on the Lily Ledbetter Fair Pay law by focussing on the economy, not health care reform that expands Medicaid, thus inviting all these lawsuits from states who want no more unfunded mandates coming from the lawyers posing as politicians in Washington.

- K2K

October 6, 2010 at 12:44am

I thought all that effort into redesigning credit card statements was an accomplishment until I saw the end result - drofnats is not the sole cynic here. It seems Congress should have built on the Lily Ledbetter Fair Pay law by focussing on the economy, not health care reform that expands Medicaid, thus inviting all these lawsuits from states who want no more unfunded mandates coming from the lawyers posing as politicians in Washington.

- K2K

October 6, 2010 at 12:44am

"Few people credit Obama and the democrats with success because this term's accomplishments are such a well kept secret"...sorry, but I'm calling horse shit on this, and by extension everything else. Is there a Faux News segment that doesn't recite the litany of the decimations of freedom passed by the Kenyan Stali-Nazi and his band of brown coats? No. Is there a single liberal on this board that can't keep themselves from itemizing all the ways the Compromiser in Chief has let down the liberal base? No. Everybody's talking all sorts of shit, right or wrong, about all the things that have gotten done: opinions just vary but center around either too much or too little. You've got idiot pragmatists who think Obama is too polarizing, conservatives who claims its Obama's fault that they're being obstructionists, and liberals who are amazed at the shortness of Mister Wonderful's Magic Wand; speaking of the magical 60, who's the libtard that voted against the bill because it didn't go far enough? WTF?! THATS why Obambi had to play Compromiser in MF Chief. And, in the mean-time, people like miss-what's-her-face are just flat-out pissed because Obambi didn't wave his magic wand and turn this economy upside down overnight, so they're continuing to struggle to make ends meet and no one in DC seems to give a rats ass because the Republicans are too busy saying NO to every word that comes out of Barack Obama's mouth and Democrats are too busy wetting themselves.

- GSpinks

October 6, 2010 at 1:02am

Now even the New Yorker is piling on: see the article by Ryan Lizza on how Obama and his advisors undermined Kerry, Lieberman, and Graham and their global warming proposal. The most damning news in the article is that Obama and his advisors undermined the proposal unwittingly.

- rayward

October 6, 2010 at 8:32am

- I understand people who would never vote for a Democrat screaming "Government is to big." and follow with "Obama didn't create enough jobs.". It's clear to Democrats that a majority of people vote against their better interests. They are idiots and flawed thinkers. But the least satisfied Democrat can't make a case for expressing a lack of confidence in the final weeks before an election or justify why a demoralized electorate provides them a more favorable position in the future. When the results are tallied we will ask ourselves: "How did my actions of lack of action contribute to the outcome I desired?". I'll probably be around after November if anyone needs help with that question, so don't change your names.

- michaelg

October 6, 2010 at 9:33am

Dro is tireless in retailing his fantasies. He laments that Barack Obama hasn't changed his ways. Well, Barack Obama got himself elected president, and dro couldn't even make it for the post of dogcatcher. In dro's cramped cranium, all Obama would have had to do to achieve a far more leftward health care bill is to jump up and down and scream at the world. Now, Jonathan Chait has been brilliantly instructing him in the structural realities of domestic politics but he learns nothing. Now who is more profound, dro or J. Chait? I know the answer to that one.

- liberal reformer

October 6, 2010 at 8:03pm