Is Obama Really a Big Loser?
Sixteen years ago tonight, I was in the newsroom of The New York Post, where I was the deputy editor, preparing the front-page wood (headline) for the next day’s paper. For the early edition, we went with the news that George Pataki had defeated Mario Cuomo in the race for the governorship of New York, but by ten o’clock it was clear that an even bigger story was unfolding on the national stage: the Republican party, led by the firebrand Newt Gingrich, was regaining control of Congress, delivering a stunning rebuke to President Bill Clinton.
After tossing around a few ideas, I settled on a simple one-word headline-”LOSERS”-imposed on a picture of the Clintons smiling. It was a cruel design that personalized the election result in a provocative way, but it was cruelly accurate. Although they weren’t on the ballot that night, the two-for-one Clintons, who two years previously had swept to power largely on the strength of their (comparative) youth, novelty, and inspiring rhetoric, were the biggest casualties by far, or so it seemed at the time. In the days that followed, many commentators wrote their obituary-only to see Team Clinton rebound and trounce Bob Dole in the 1996 election.
Watching the results come in tonight, I found the parallels with 1994 almost eerie. In 1994, the Republicans picked up fifty-three seats in the House and seven in the Senate, giving them control of both chambers for the first time since 1954. As I am writing these words, the networks are predicting very similar Republican gains. Now consider the votes of independents-the key voting group, always. In 1994, they went 55 percent Republican, 41 percent Democrat. Today, according to CNN’s exit poll, they went 55 percent Republican, 41 percent Democrat.
Sure, the faces are different this time, but not so different. In ‘94, Newt Gingrich was the face of Republican insurgency; tonight it is Rand Paul, the new Republican Senator for Kentucky, who told CNN: “There are no rich, there are no poor, there are no middle class. We are all interconnected in the economy.” (No, he didn’t appear to have been drinking.)
So can Obama come back from this drubbing? That depends on the answers to three more questions. Does he have Bill Clinton’s political skills? Will the Republicans self-destruct? What will happen to the economy?
On the first one, the jury is very much out. Clinton, for all his faults-possibly, because of all his faults-knew how ordinary Americans respond on the emotional level, as well as the intellectual level. Obama is a top-notch classical orator, but on a day-to-day basis he isn’t a very effective communicator. Plus, he gives the impression that he disdains the idea of employing dark political arts, which are often necessary to survive, let alone succeed, in Washington. With his presidency on the line, Clinton summoned Dick Morris and bamboozled the Republicans with his strategy of triangulation. Can Obama get down and dirty? We shall see.
In a way, things would have been easier for him if the Republicans had won the Senate as well, which would have allowed him to position himself in 2012 as the anti-Capitol Hill candidate. In a country where Congress’s approval rating is usually in the teens (or lower), winning control of the legislature is a virtual guarantee of unpopularity ahead.
Which brings me to the Republicans’ strategy. The midterm vote wasn’t so much an endorsement of the GOP as a protest vote against Obama and the Democrats. But now that the Republicans control the House, they can no longer afford to remain simply the party of no. Gingrich made that mistake in 1996, when he closed down the government during a row over budget cuts, only to see his popularity, and that of his party, plummet.
Now that Capitol Hill is divided, we face what one prominent Republican described to me today as “two years of guerrilla warfare.” Sending the message that he was determined to avoid repeating Gingrich’s errors, John Boehner, the Speaker-elect of the House, put out the message that there was to be no gloating or dancing in the streets. He also gave a dignified victory speech. So far, so good. But with a big intake of freshmen Representatives, Boehner now presides over an uneasy alliance of business conservatives, social conservatives, and Tea Party activists. Selling the American public on the notion that this lot could run the White House might not be so easy.
Still, absent another big terrorist attack or some other foreign-policy disaster, the path of the economy will be what matters most. If the shaky recovery gathers strength, and unemployment is falling steadily going into 2012, Obama will be in much better shape. But if the economy stalls, or, worse, enters a double dip recession, the chances of him being re-elected are slim.
Which means the economic policy decisions that have to be made in the next few months are vital. Will there be another stimulus package? What will happen to the Bush tax cuts? How will the Federal Reserve’s policy of quantitative easing play out? On such questions President Obama’s fate probably depends.
source
Mods, this is a post-election analysis, not election coverage.
After tossing around a few ideas, I settled on a simple one-word headline-”LOSERS”-imposed on a picture of the Clintons smiling. It was a cruel design that personalized the election result in a provocative way, but it was cruelly accurate. Although they weren’t on the ballot that night, the two-for-one Clintons, who two years previously had swept to power largely on the strength of their (comparative) youth, novelty, and inspiring rhetoric, were the biggest casualties by far, or so it seemed at the time. In the days that followed, many commentators wrote their obituary-only to see Team Clinton rebound and trounce Bob Dole in the 1996 election.
Watching the results come in tonight, I found the parallels with 1994 almost eerie. In 1994, the Republicans picked up fifty-three seats in the House and seven in the Senate, giving them control of both chambers for the first time since 1954. As I am writing these words, the networks are predicting very similar Republican gains. Now consider the votes of independents-the key voting group, always. In 1994, they went 55 percent Republican, 41 percent Democrat. Today, according to CNN’s exit poll, they went 55 percent Republican, 41 percent Democrat.
Sure, the faces are different this time, but not so different. In ‘94, Newt Gingrich was the face of Republican insurgency; tonight it is Rand Paul, the new Republican Senator for Kentucky, who told CNN: “There are no rich, there are no poor, there are no middle class. We are all interconnected in the economy.” (No, he didn’t appear to have been drinking.)
So can Obama come back from this drubbing? That depends on the answers to three more questions. Does he have Bill Clinton’s political skills? Will the Republicans self-destruct? What will happen to the economy?
On the first one, the jury is very much out. Clinton, for all his faults-possibly, because of all his faults-knew how ordinary Americans respond on the emotional level, as well as the intellectual level. Obama is a top-notch classical orator, but on a day-to-day basis he isn’t a very effective communicator. Plus, he gives the impression that he disdains the idea of employing dark political arts, which are often necessary to survive, let alone succeed, in Washington. With his presidency on the line, Clinton summoned Dick Morris and bamboozled the Republicans with his strategy of triangulation. Can Obama get down and dirty? We shall see.
In a way, things would have been easier for him if the Republicans had won the Senate as well, which would have allowed him to position himself in 2012 as the anti-Capitol Hill candidate. In a country where Congress’s approval rating is usually in the teens (or lower), winning control of the legislature is a virtual guarantee of unpopularity ahead.
Which brings me to the Republicans’ strategy. The midterm vote wasn’t so much an endorsement of the GOP as a protest vote against Obama and the Democrats. But now that the Republicans control the House, they can no longer afford to remain simply the party of no. Gingrich made that mistake in 1996, when he closed down the government during a row over budget cuts, only to see his popularity, and that of his party, plummet.
Now that Capitol Hill is divided, we face what one prominent Republican described to me today as “two years of guerrilla warfare.” Sending the message that he was determined to avoid repeating Gingrich’s errors, John Boehner, the Speaker-elect of the House, put out the message that there was to be no gloating or dancing in the streets. He also gave a dignified victory speech. So far, so good. But with a big intake of freshmen Representatives, Boehner now presides over an uneasy alliance of business conservatives, social conservatives, and Tea Party activists. Selling the American public on the notion that this lot could run the White House might not be so easy.
Still, absent another big terrorist attack or some other foreign-policy disaster, the path of the economy will be what matters most. If the shaky recovery gathers strength, and unemployment is falling steadily going into 2012, Obama will be in much better shape. But if the economy stalls, or, worse, enters a double dip recession, the chances of him being re-elected are slim.
Which means the economic policy decisions that have to be made in the next few months are vital. Will there be another stimulus package? What will happen to the Bush tax cuts? How will the Federal Reserve’s policy of quantitative easing play out? On such questions President Obama’s fate probably depends.
source
Mods, this is a post-election analysis, not election coverage.