JONATHAN COHN SEPTEMBER 27, 2010
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If you've read any of my reporting on President Obama's campaign to pass health care reform, then you know that David Axelrod frequently played the role of West Wing skeptic. Armed with poll numbers showing that middle-class Americans really didn't care much about expanding health insurance coverage, he repeatedly warned Obama that he pursued comprehensive reform at his own peril.
Obama heard the advice and ignored it. And, as Noam Scheiber notes in his profile of Axelrod, that wasn't an isolated incident. On issues ranging from budget earmarks to the Wall Street bailout, Axelrod made the political case for going in one direction--only to see Obama go in the other.
Whether Obama made the right decisions in those cases depends on your perspective. Personally, I'm glad Obama pursued health care reform, despite the polling numbers. At the same time, I wish he had heeded Axelrod's advice about coming down harder on bank executives. But I think it speaks well of Obama that, as a general rule, he's shown such a proclivity for doing what he thinks is right rather than what he thinks will impress the voters.
But let me back to Axelrod for one more second. Noam raises another point that I've mentioned before but feel is worth some emphasis, particularly now. Axelrod may have been wary of health care reform, because of its political downside. But that was his job: To provide the president with a clear, accurate picture of public opinion. To sugar-coat the numbers and suggest health care would be anything but difficult would have amounted to political malpractice.
More important, on the substantive question of whether health care reform was the right thing to do, Axelrod never needed convincing. And that's in part because the issue was intensely personal for him:
Last spring, chief of staff Rahm Emanuel began pursuing a series of deals with interest groups—insurers, pharmaceutical manufacturers, hospitals—to grease the passage of health care. When Axelrod eventually turned to the issue, he became frustrated. The deals Emanuel was negotiating were moving the legislation forward. But they risked provoking a public backlash. “During the campaign we fought against insurance companies,” Axelrod said in discussions with Emanuel and the president. “After the deals with insurance companies, the deals with Pharma—all these people are supposedly our friends.”
It’s possible that Axelrod was speaking strictly in his role as a communications adviser. Certainly no strategist would relish explaining how “changing Washington” had given way to co-opting special interests. But there appears to have been a deeper revulsion at work. For one thing, Axelrod had been fighting the health care - industrial complex since his Tribune days, when his daughter’s medical bills consumed a quarter of his salary. And while he craved the end result of health care reform, the process had a way of mocking his principles. “David has a very idealistic streak,” says the official. “He does not see politics as the art of the transaction. He sees it much more in a human context, that people are motivated by a connection to something bigger than themselves. That view is just very different from passing legislation like health care, where you have to cut deals.”
The fact that Axelrod can identify so closely with the concerns of middle-class Americans makes him a particularly valuable asset in a White House that, quite frankly, could use a bit more raw populism in its economic policy. If indeed he leaves next year, I hope the president replaces him with somebody equally attuned to what non-wealthy people think.
By the way, this seems like a good time to recommend Noam's profile if you haven't read it yet. Noam is a friend, so perhaps I'm biased, but I think it's one of the best pieces of political journalism that I've read in a very long time.
8 comments
If press reports are (including what's been posted on TNR) are correct, expect this administration to become less populist, not more, if Anne Mulcahy takes Summers job. Image and optics do matter. Making some enemies, for the right reasons, from time to time, also helps. I wish this administration would do that occasionally. They prefer to stiff loyal supporters but coddle their critics.
- tnmats
September 27, 2010 at 6:01pm
It seems like they cut so many deals on health care, they were left without a winning hand.
- Nusholtz
September 27, 2010 at 8:10pm
Schreiber's profile of David Axelrod was impressive as it succinctly articulated the genesis and evolution of D.A's political m.o. This review of the profile was weak. While this review accurately reflects the fact that D.A. "has a populist streak" and that he "can identify" with the concerns of the middle class, it misses what I perceive to be the primary issue. Specifically, Schreiber portrays Obama as a "pragmatist" and a "technocrat." Given that Obama campaigned on the "change we can believe in" referendum, to suggest that Obama is simply a politician who repeatedly ignored D.A.'s guidance is a manifestation of superficial thinking. From my perspective, although Axelrod remains outwardly loyal to Obama, I suspect that Axelrod perceives that Obama betrayed the ideals of his campaign. Of course, it is no coincidence that Schreiber referenced the campaign and subsequent governing profile of Chicago Democrat Jane Byrne. Although Schreiber does not explicitly state that the trajectory of Obama's presidency is similar to that of Byrne and tries to distinguish between the two politicians, the fact that Byrne, who campaigned in one way and governed in another, was used as a comparator, is pretty brutal.
- Ari111
September 27, 2010 at 8:18pm
Aaargh ... stiff loyal (!) supporters, coddle critics, etc. etc. etc. All of you people who think you're getting screwed over - Obama's done a LOT for the progressive agenda, despite an unbelievably cohesive opposition. The only thing he's not done is defend himself and speak out more forcefully about his positions (and about the wrongness of the other side's).
- NR409654
September 27, 2010 at 8:18pm
To NR409654: History has shown that, for any president, a subset of individuals who supported that particular president were disappointed with the manner in which he governed. Moreover, and I think that most people would agree, there are idealists who may not appreciate the "sausage-making" that occurs/is required in order to enact legislation (Note: I'm not suggesting that applies to the participants in this particular discussion). Additionally, I think that most, if not all, individuals would agree that Obama has been forced to deal with "an unbelievably cohesive opposition." Nonetheless, I think that this particular article, given the subject and the breadth and depth of the matter, highlights some of the concerns that supporters of Obama have experienced relative to critical issues that he has faced during his presidency, such as the bank bailout and the management of the healthcare bill. This article does not simply say that Obama "stiffed" his supporters. The manuscript is much more subtle in that regard in that it juxtaposes Axelrod's raison d'etre with Obama's and, well, I guess that you'd have to draw your own conclusions as to what Schreiber intends...
- Ari111
September 27, 2010 at 8:54pm
Sorry I was not clearer - my comment was a response to tnmats.
- NR409654
September 27, 2010 at 9:19pm
"The only thing he's not done is defend himself and speak out more forcefully about his positions (and about the wrongness of the other side's)." Exactly, optics and perception. They matter.
- tnmats
September 27, 2010 at 10:41pm
tnmats is right. If Obama thinks he can succeed as president without playing the hardball politics of narrative and perception, then he's got another think coming. The president not only doesn't tell his story well, neither he nor the Dems in general has made any cohesive and sustained effort to counter the lies being told by the GOP. In politics, any narrative not countered is a narrative that sticks.
- scrubby
September 28, 2010 at 9:33pm