The struggles of a Legislative President

Matt Bai

Democrats in Washington are divided and somewhat puzzled over President Barack Obama's fading popularity. They reject, of course, the Republican view that the president is basically a closet socialist whose disdain for free enterprise has alienated voters. But that's about as far as the consensus goes.

In conversations over the past few weeks, some of the party's leading strategists told me that it all comes down to messaging, or — here's that ubiquitous word again — “framing”. The president who ran such a brilliant campaign, they argue, has failed to communicate his successes. They cited factors like the president's cool demeanour and suggested that he had not used the right words or shown the proper empathy.

But when I put the same question to John Podesta, the former White House chief of staff who led Obama's transition team, I heard what sounded like a deeper and more persuasive explanation. You might call it the “legislative box” theory.

Like other Democrats, Podesta, who now runs the liberal Center for American Progress and is arguably the most influential Washington Democrat not currently in government, assumes that many of the president's struggles are unavoidable. Stubborn joblessness and anaemic growth have thus far resisted intervention and defined the administration.

But to whatever extent Obama controlled the fate of his young presidency, Podesta believes that his most consequential decisions on domestic policy stemmed from one overarching conviction — that the president's most important job in a crisis, requiring nearly single-minded attention, was to pass huge legislation.

“By focusing on getting big legislative accomplishments, which was understandable, they necessarily gave up a larger image of him as president,” Podesta said, referring to White House advisers. “They cast him as the prime minister. They were kind of locked into the day-to-day workings on the Hill.”

Predecessors

This was not a given. All presidents have laws they want to pass, but they have broader thematic priorities, too. Ronald Reagan saw a renewal of American optimism as a vital goal. Bill Clinton publicly hammered away at his ideas about economic transformation and “reinventing government”.

Unlike his recent predecessors, however, Obama had spent his entire political career in legislative posts, and he seemed determined, above all else, to clear the congressional hurdles that had thwarted the others. He chose a vice-president and a chief of staff who were masters of the legislative arena, and he filled his most senior posts (aside from those occupied by long-time advisers) with former congressional aides.

Obama's central strategy was to concentrate on cajoling Democratic lawmakers into passing a series of bills — the stimulus package, the health care overhaul, a new set of financial regulations. Rather than spend a lot of time rallying public support for the agenda, Podesta said, the administration expected to get an “updraft” from an improving economy; the bet was that, as unemployment came down and consumer confidence rose, public opinion would more or less take care of itself.

“That strategy was built on the no-economic-stall option,” Podesta said. “In other words, the idea was that you didn't have to get the unemployment rate to a certain number, but you had to get unemployment going in the right direction, and people would feel that, and it would be palpable.”

The problem, as Podesta says, is that “we're all still waiting for that.”

And so, without the modest economic revival Obama and his aides expected, voters saw trillions of dollars being spent and wondered whether there was a coherent strategy for growth. Obama, whose skills as an explainer were so instrumental in winning the office, did little sustained explaining of the crisis outside Washington.

The strategy had other implications for Obama's image. As Podesta points out, part of the president's significant appeal to voters — “a big part of the secret sauce of getting him elected” — was his promise to transcend perennial partisanship.

A more national, outward-looking strategy for creating a “post-partisan” dynamic might have included White House partnerships with Republican governors or even with conservative foundations or industry groups. Because the president effectively boxed himself in to a Capitol Hill-only strategy, though, he handed the Republican minorities in Congress the power to sabotage his goal.

“Once you became a legislative president, which is arguably what you needed to do, you couldn't deliver on the non-partisanship promise,” Podesta said. “And it's something people wanted.”

It's not hard to extend Podesta's theory about the legislative box to other areas in which the administration has faltered. One of the real surprises of the Obama era, for instance, has been the President's sharp break with the business community. Perhaps it should not be so surprising, though, when you consider that Obama's focus on legislation has forced him to be responsive, above all else, to the shifting tides of populist sentiment in Congress.

Think of it this way: If your singular goal is to pass bills, and Democratic lawmakers are in a frenzy this week over AIG's bonuses or Goldman Sachs' investments, then you might feel forced to castigate big business, too.

Much of Obama's anti-corporate rhetoric was probably calibrated more to lawmakers than to business leaders, but what the executives heard were declarations of war against U.S. industry.

Perhaps the most damaging consequence of the legislative box is that it left Obama, who still regards himself as an outsider and a reformer, looking like a congressional insider — which is about the last thing voters, and independent voters in particular, wanted him to be.

“At the end of the day, they set out to do a lot, and got a lot done,” Podesta said. “If the unemployment rate were at 8.5 per cent and we were creating 2,50,000 or 3,00,000 jobs right now, it would feel a lot different.”

But that hasn't happened, and if Podesta is right, panicky voters wanted a president, rather than a legislator in chief, to make sure they understood why. — © New York Times News Service