THE STUMP DECEMBER 14, 2011
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With the caveat that I've only been loosely following the political news these last six months, and have been completely out of it these last two weeks, this quote from Stephanie Cutter, Obama's deputy campaign manager, at a briefing for reporters struck me as interesting [h/t Mike Allen]:
"[F]or this same group of people that you're talking about [independents], what they do like about this president is that he's no longer waiting for Congress to act. He's looking at his own executive power to figure out where he can move things forward. … [W]e've seen that have a great impact with precisely this group of people, on key issues that they care about.”
Now obviously the White House and the re-election operation have been on a version of this theme for much of the fall--hence the whole “we can’t wait” campaign. Still, this quote seems to go a bit further, suggesting that one of Obama's real mistakes the previous two-and-a-half years was spending too much time waiting for Congress to act. I wonder if they’re actually trying to concede this to voters who believe he's been too passive, or if the wording was just incidental.
Also, it's an interesting departure in the Obama political operation's specific reading of independents. The reading used to be that independents want Obama to engage with the other side. Now the reading is that they want Obama to kick some ass, or at least take unilateral action. I think that's the proper reading. But, still, hard to deny that it's different. (Of course, one can argue that the independents themselves have changed, which is plausible...)
11 comments
I was hoping all along that the President would do what he did during his campaign: intellgiently articulate to the American people our needs, the purposes and actions of our government and the justifications therefore, as opposed to invading another country for mysterious reasons and then announcing afterward that the world is better off.
- Nusholtz
December 14, 2011 at 3:17pm
Why did Obama and the Democrats in the Senate let the Republicans get out front on the payroll tax cut? The way it's being reported, the Republicans are the ones who want to enact a working class tax cut, and it's the Democrats who are do-nothings. [I've commented before that last year was the time for the debate on an income tax cut vs. a payroll tax cut (i.e., a wealthy person's tax cut vs. a working person's tax cut) because the wealthy person's tax cut was about to expire giving the Democrats all the leverage. What leverage do the Democrats have now over a payroll tax cut, a tax cut the Republicans would be happy for the Democrats to "defeat". Scheiber, you may have been holed up writing a book for the past year or so, but you have returned right where you last saw Obama and the Democrats, lost in the political wilderness.]
- rayward
December 14, 2011 at 3:22pm
"Now the reading is that they want Obama to kick some ass, or at least take unilateral action. I think that's the proper reading." So true. But why did it take Obama 3 years to realize that independents aren't what David Brooks et al. was telling him they were?
- josh_y
December 14, 2011 at 3:25pm
Rahm Emmanuel had to leave first. Also, December 2010 was a wake-up call. Which was repeated in April 2011 with the "Shut Down Government" fiasco, followed by an agonizing May through August "Won't Raise the Debt Ceiling" fiasco. Followed by a 3 month negotiation which then failed. These things tend to tell a man who wants to compromise -- "Look, the other side is just using your desire for compromise to damage America. Quit it!" The issue is NOT "unilateral action". The issue is that Obama's policies need to be implemented to help America, and the Republicans in Congress are preventing that.
- AllanL5
December 14, 2011 at 3:37pm
"Why did Obama and the Democrats in the Senate let the Republicans get out front on the payroll tax cut? The way it's being reported, the Republicans are the ones who want to enact a working class tax cut, and it's the Democrats who are do-nothings." Ray, I have to disagree with you on that one. The reporting is generally that the Republicans have passed a payroll tax cut but that it is conditioned on the White House back-tracking on the Keystone XL pipeline -- the same pipeline that generated a bunch of controversy several months ago, with opposition coming not just from the usual environmental lefties but from Republicans in the Midwest. I think the take-away to most people who are not partisan Republicans is that this is an irrelevant poison pill in the legislation, and that Obama is justified in telling the Republicans to stuff it. In any case, it's not like the approval of the pipeline would create immediate tax revenue or result in cuts to government spending that would pay for the payroll tax cut -- it's simply sticking an orange into an apple cart. This is a challenge to the White House, but one that it can easily parry back to the House in two news cycles or less.
- wildboy
December 14, 2011 at 3:59pm
Wow. A hard to interpret comment from a deputy campaign manager is the tnr signal for a whole new BHO. You betchum. Like interpreting Soviet policy by who stands three apparachniks to the right of Putin on May Day. Give it up Noam. BHO ain't gonna do an HST. You'll get the same BHO who proposed an inadequate stimulus called "just right" and a disastrous "compromise" on debt limit extension to avoid a government shutdown and possible economic crisis. To paraphrase Churchill re Chamberlain and the Sudetenland appeasement: BHO chose dishonor to avoid an immediate economic crisis. He will get an economic crisis. As predicted, that economic crisis is rapidly approaching with declining US stimulus spending, retrenchment of spending by State governments and now accelerated by an approaching collapse of many EU economies-- and perhaps of the EU itself. It may come yet sooner with the non-passage of a 2012 omnibus spending bill. Albeit, a better bet is that BHO signs a disastrous bill that once again puts off the crisis, but once again makes it worse when all options run out.
- drofnats1
December 14, 2011 at 4:06pm
Wow. A hard to interpret comment from a deputy campaign manager is the tnr signal for a whole new BHO. You betchum. Like interpreting Soviet policy by who stands three apparachniks to the right of Putin on May Day. Give it up Noam. BHO ain't gonna do an HST. You'll get the same BHO who proposed an inadequate stimulus called "just right" and a disastrous "compromise" on debt limit extension to avoid a government shutdown and possible economic crisis. To paraphrase Churchill re Chamberlain and the Sudetenland appeasement: BHO chose dishonor to avoid an immediate economic crisis. He will get an economic crisis. As predicted, that economic crisis is rapidly approaching with declining US stimulus spending, retrenchment of spending by State governments and now accelerated by an approaching collapse of many EU economies-- and perhaps of the EU itself. It may come yet sooner with the non-passage of a 2012 omnibus spending bill. Albeit, a better bet is that BHO signs a disastrous bill that once again puts off the crisis, but once again makes it worse when all options run out.
- drofnats1
December 14, 2011 at 4:06pm
The parenthetical comment at the end begs its own entry. Is it remotely possible that even the most blinkered, clueless so-called "independent" has finally figured out that the Repugs have no real interest in doing anything but eliminating Obama, destroying government as much as necessary to do so?
- cspencef
December 14, 2011 at 4:56pm
"Like interpreting Soviet policy by who stands three apparachniks to the right of Putin on May Day." What decade is it again, Drofnats?
- wildboy
December 14, 2011 at 5:04pm
@wildboy - Apparently 2011 crashed into 1961, allowing Putin to be the Premier of the Soviet Union.
- Dausuul
December 14, 2011 at 6:19pm
I don't think they're trying to concede the point to voters, but I don't think the wording is incidental either. I think you weren't supposed to see what they left unsaid and fill in the blanks.
- GSpinks
December 14, 2011 at 6:31pm