Obama: The Anti-Reagan

I haven't posted here in a long, long time, but a friend texted me that Obama is losing him. Time to get back on it.

Obama is the anti-Reagan. The superficial contrasts are obvious, apart from the skin color; Obama is a young president; Reagan was our oldest. Reagan came from the heartland, Obama literally from the geographical fringe of the country. Reagan was a movie star; Obama is a policy wonk. Reagan had a long history with both America and the conservative movement long before he became president; Obama sprang into Democrat consciousness literally overnight with one speech. They had similar family backgrounds, both from dysfunctional or non-traditional families of modest means. But where Reagan was divorced and a famously distant father, Obama is a devoted family man, with zero skeletons in his closet.

It is on policy political strategies where the differences are, of course, most important. The policy differences are obvious, although the argument could be made that Obama shifted closer to Reagan after he was elected. On the other hand, just about any president could be accused of changing in ways that make their constituencies uncomfortable.

But what was gone unnoticed and unremarked - probably because it's very difficult to tell - are the stylistic and strategic differences. Both, of course, are excellent public speakers, but the similarity basically ends there. Reagan had three basic beliefs: lower taxes, smaller government, and a strong defense. He believed in capitalism and the basic goodness of the American people. That was pretty much it.

Obama's political philosophy cannot, on the other hand, be reduced to a slogan, and he's barely tried to do so. He believes in the broad spectrum of liberal ideas; feminism, civil rights, gay rights, empowering the poor, protecting the environment, etc. The closest he's come to a tag line of late is "Winning The Future," which translates into a very poor choice of acronym, and which seems to be fading quickly. In 2008, he was all about hope and change, the epitome of nebulous campaign promises. It's hard to pin Obama down to specifics, either in terms of policy or even tenets of his ideology. Many of his supporters are uncomfortable with this, because it looks like he's waffling, or not making a commitment, or compromising too early or too often.

The other great contrast between Reagan and Obama is in terms of political strategy. Reagan would outline a basic goal, give uplifting but vague speeches, challenge his opponents directly, and refuse to compromise. But then he would compromise at the last minute, declare victory, and move on, so it looked like he won. This is one reason conservatives idolize him. They buy into the myth that he was a rigid ideologue, when he was also very much a realistic, pragmatic politician.

Obama is famously willing to compromise, and constantly reaching out to his political opponents, trying hard to reach consensus, broker deals, make sure everyone is involved in the process. Again, many of his supporters are uncomfortable with this approach, because it looks like he's compromising when he doesn't have to, or he's letting his opponents dictate parts of the agenda.

But the most important difference between Reagan and Obama - and this is where Obama beats Reagan, hands down - is that Obama is an absolutely masterful political tactician. Obama is very good at seeing the big picture politically, and defining a successful strategy. Hillary Clinton learned this too late - the 2008 campaign was a great strategic success. Obama and his team mapped out how they were going to win, followed the plan, and won.

But what is almost impossible for the public to see is how good Obama is with political tactics. His work on gay rights is the best illustration of this. He campaigned on ending the ban on gays serving in the military. For a long time, it looked like he wasn't doing much to advance that cause, and his supporters were grumbling. He had set up a commission to look into it, and the commission was set to issue its report in early December, 2010. That would be after the election, but before the new Congress took office. The results of the commission's study therefore would not be released in time to be an issue in the election, but they would be released in time for Congress to act on them.

I don't remember exactly how repealing the ban went down. It happened between Christmas and New Year's, when the American public is not paying much attention to politics. There was some kind of parliamentary maneuvering going on, but the Democrats got enough Republicans on board to make it happen. I think some of the Republicans who voted for it were about to retire, so they could "vote their conscience." I seem to recall Joe Lieberman being a strong advocate of it.

I have roughly the same perspective on his actions on the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA). There isn't much Obama can do on this. It's not going to be repealed by Congress any time soon. Obama's position on gay marriage is "evolving," which is a very politically convenient way of not making a commitment for it, but not rejecting it either. That may even be true. But it's a classic politician's finesse - he doesn't want to piss of his gay supporters by coming out (sorry, couldn't resist) against gay marriage, but he's also aware that there are many independents and conservatives who are strongly against it. So he had his Attorney General come out with a hair-splitting position - the Dept. of Justice will not defend part of it in court, but they will continue to enforce it. I'm not quite sure how it works, and I work for a law firm.

It's all very confusing.

Which is exactly the point.

The fact that these processes - of repealing the ban on gays in the military, and challenging DOMA - were confusing is part of Obama's political strategy. Republicans had a hard time finding a point to challenge repealing the ban on gays in the military, other than the vote itself - which took place at the end of a lame duck session. Who would argue against a commission set up to study the issue? Now that the law has been passed, the Pentagon still has to draw up plans for implementation. Once it's official, most gay members of the military will probably come out slowly. The whole process is long, drawn out, and involved lots of people besides Obama himself - Bob Gates at the Pentagon, Harry Reid in the Senate. It's an incendiary issue, but Obama's process - long, bureaucratic, mostly behind the scenes - obscured the opportunities for heated rhetoric, and therefore diffused the anger. There is time between when the debate happened, when the law passed, and when it's implemented, giving the American people time to adjust to the issue.

But homosexuals in the military will be a fact of life by November 2012, and Barack Obama will take the lion's share of the credit. He'll tell his gay supporters that he delivered on a key campaign promise.

We see the same thing in DOMA. Obama's DOJ is not defending it, but is enforcing it. The DOJ informed Congress that it could DOMA in court if it wanted to, but that, of courses, puts the pressure to do so on John Boehner. I can barely follow it, and I work for a law firm. But it's a win-win for Obama. If DOMA is partially overturned, he will declare victory, but claim that it was a decision by a court. If he doesn't win, he can claim that he tried, but that it's either the fault of Republicans, or a court. Tactically, it's great. But it's very difficult to understand unless you are a hardcore political geek.

One problem with this approach is that while it confuses his opponents, it also confuses his supporters, even those who are smart and fairly politically savvy, like Matt Damon and other celebrities. This article explains why he and other celebrities are disillusioned. Unfortunately for both Obama and his supporters, it's in the media's best interest to play up how disappointed Obama fans are. But this particular article is both incredibly sloppy and clearly intent on playing up the disappointment. The picture of Matt Damon shows him scowling, to accentuate the point that he's unhappy. But the wall on the background reads "TIFF," or Toronto International Film Festival. That takes place in September. Since then, Matt Damon has been nominated for an Oscar, and photographed dozens, if not hundreds, of times. He's generally a very upbeat guy. But they somehow managed to find a picture of him looking unhappy.

Barbra Streisand is quoted as being unhappy that Obama didn't use executive privilege to repeal Don't Ask Don't Tell. The quote is from some time "in December," i.e. before Congress repealed it. I think we can safely assume that Barbra Streisand is now happy with Obama's strategy to repeal DADT given that THE STRATEGY ACTUALLY FRICKIN' WORKED. Matt Damon is not happy about testing kids in schools. Neither am I, but that's a product of the Bush administration, and Obama has not been able to undo it. Jane Lynch is disappointed that Obama has not been able to do anything about gay marriage. The quote from her is from early January, again, well before Obama ACTUALLY DID SOMETHING ABOUT GAY MARRIAGE.

Other celebrities who are unhappy with Obama about a particular issue include Hugh Hefner, Spike Lee, and Robert Redford. You know what? Give me 10 minutes, and I can find a whole bunch of celebrities who are unhappy with Obama. There were lots of liberals unhappy with Clinton. Lots of conservatives grumbled about Reagan. That's the nature of politics. As someone (I think Maria Cuomo) said, you campaign in poetry, and you govern in prose. The nuts and bolts of actually governing are always less exciting, and infinitely more frustrating, than the campaign. Obama waits a long time to move before he does so. But in the process, he's refining his plans and laying the groundwork. Which is difficult, if not impossible to see. But absolutely necessary.

What's the best possible evidence that Obama moves quickly? This is a man who went from being an Illinois state senator to being president of the United States in four years.

There is one more similarity between Obama and Reagan: both of them were seriously underestimated by their opponents. And, occasionally, their supporters.

This Would Be A Good Time Not To Freak Out

So Scott Brown won the race to replace Ted Kennedy as a senator from Massachusetts. It's a bit odd for me to write that sentence, because I have a cousin named Scott Brown, and he isn't in politics, and lives about as far away from Massachusetts as you can in this country (he lives out here in Southern California). He does have a tough job; he does PR for Chrysler.

I have to admit that I didn't see this one coming, but in this respect, I think I am in good company, that company being pretty much every other Democrat in the country. I wasn't following this race until very recently; again, like all my fellow Dems, I suspect. Also like my fellow Dems, I am going to be looking for an explanation, although I am going to try to avoid any kind of intra-party blaming. I am not going to take sides in a moderate-vs.-progressive flame war.

My take on it is that Democrats took the voters of Massachusetts for granted, and if there is one thing that can be said to be an iron law about politics in a democracy, it is that voters hate being taken for granted. It is said that you should not speak ill of the dead, and, of course, a death is a time to remember mostly good things about a person. But I think Democrats, in all their praise of Kennedy, forgot that he was, besides being a great senator, an alcoholic womanizer who got his Senate seat because of his family. My gut tells me that many people voted for a Republican because they really were desperate for a change. I can understand that. I have had many experiences with feeling suffocated by an overwhelming sense of liberal superiority. I went to an elite East Coast liberal arts college in the 80's - I get why lots of people find liberals often insufferably arrogant.

I've also heard that Martha Coakley ran a terrible campaign and Scott Brown ran a brilliant one. I didn't follow it, but I'm going to accept that as fact. I don't know the minutiae, and I'm not that interested.

What I am interested in is the future, and I think that still looks good for Democrats. They still have a brilliant and charismatic leader; they still have large majorities in both the House and Senate. What they don't have - yet - is a strong record of accomplishment.

Obama has been compared on many occasions to Reagan, and it's instructive to remember how bad Reagan had it in the early 1980's. Inflation, unemployment, and interest rates were all very high. The recession was horrible. There were serious doubts about the future of this country. Reagan, to his credit, beat inflation, high interest rates, and unemployment. He was also, of course, responsible for a horrible deficit and many other ills. I don't know how much credit goes to Reagan for all of that, and how much goes to people like Paul Volcker, who was chairman of the Fed at the time.

I find the comparison with Reagan apt for another reason: Democrats didn't realize it at the time, but they were losing their ideological legitimacy. America was still in the throes of the post-60's era. Liberals were winning most cultural debates - feminism, civil rights, challenging authority, etc. - but they were losing the battle over the role of government in society. Reagan touched a nerve when he told people that government had gotten too big. It took Democrats several lost elections to realize that. I think they went too far in accommodating conservatives in this regard, but they needed to make a correction.

Today, Obama faces the same challenge: conservatism as an ideology has run out of steam, intellectually, politically, and morally. Obama's problem is that he doesn't have a cadre of people articulating the replacement. That will be the subject of my next post.

The Assholes and Idiots Theory Redux

For my 1,000th post, I wrote about something I like to call the "Assholes and Idiots Theory." The original post is a little long, so I thot I would provide a condensed version.

The Assholes and Idiots Theory is quite simple, and says that in every political party, movement, coalition, or sufficiently large organization, there are a certain number of assholes and idiots, and that one of the duties of the leaders of that party/movement/organization is to contain the assholes and idiots. The Assholes and Idiots Theory makes no distinction as to ideology; there are just as likely to be assholes and idiots on the left as on the right.

Assholes are people who believe that they have the right to impose their will on other people, regardless of how those people feel about it. Assholes tend to be addicted to anger; they're usually furious about something. They also tend to blur ethical or legal lines when trying to impose their will. One reason that there seems to be so much anger on the right now is that the last administration completely failed to contain either the assholes or idiots. Of course, the reason why is not hard to figure out: Bush & Cheney didn't contain the assholes or idiots in the GOP because, of course, they were both. They didn't just not contain the assholes and idiots: they appointed them.

Idiots are people who believe that they are smarter than reality, and that their ideas about how the world should work are absolutely right, whether or not there is any empirical evidence to support it, and even in the face of evidence to the contrary.

Assholes and idiots tend to oppose compromise. This does not mean that people who oppose compromise are automatically either assholes or idiots; far from it. There are often very good reasons of principle and policy to oppose compromise on specific issues. The trick for leaders is knowing when people are opposing compromise out of principle or for good reason, and when they are doing so because they are either assholes or idiots.

People who are assholes and/or idiots will almost never admit to it. Which is why containing them is so difficult, but also why it is so important.

There are several strategies leaders, particularly presidents, use for containing assholes and idiots. Reagan had great credibility as a conservative, so he could compromise without completely alienating his base. Also, despite my strong feelings at the time, he was a decent human being, and not all that stupid. Clinton mostly contained the assholes and idiots because he had some credibility as a liberal on social issues (particularly race and feminism), and because he was just a damn good politician. Clinton also made it clear from the beginning that he would be willing to criticize those on the left. This was why the "Sister Souljah" moment was so important. Not that Sister Souljah herself was either an asshole or an idiot. But by criticizing her, Clinton read the public right; he angered some liberals, but not enough to lose them when it came time for the election, but he also scored points with moderates.

The assholes and idiots seem to be out in force on the right these days, although I see it that way because I'm a good liberal. Obama's strategy for containing the assholes and idiots among his opponents seems to be to stay calm and collected in contrast. Not a bad strategy, when your opponents are yelling and screaming. The most effective, but most expensive, weapon against assholes and idiots is time: idiots are eventually exposed as deeply wrong and in conflict with reality, while assholes eventually alienate too many people to have a base of support. Obama doesn't have much time in the health care debate, but he does have another three years before the next election. Which is crucial, because there is one crucial ingredient in using time to contain assholes and idiots. It is not enough that they prove themselves wrong. You have to prove that you are right. Which means that you have to be right.

Jack Kemp, 1935-2009

Jack Kemp, the former Representative from Buffalo who championed supply-side economics and tax credits as a way of boosting economic growth, died Saturday. I am not a fan of Kemp's legacy of lower taxes and constant pressure for more tax cuts. All of us want lower taxes, and cutting taxes may have made sense back in the late 70's, early 80's. But the side effect - or maybe direct effect - of those tax cuts was to make it very difficult to balance the budget, and very easy to be dismissive of budget deficits. We are still paying the price of that idea, and we will be paying it for decades.

But I always liked Jack Kemp as a person. Besides seeming to be a genuinely nice guy, he was a "bleeding heart conservative," a man who campaigned among African-Americans when he was the GOP VP candidate in 1996. He really believed that the Republican party could successfully reach out to African-Americans. This compassion came from - of all places - football, and his experience as a quarterback.

He wanted the VP nomination in 1988, but George H. W. Bush chose Quayle. I don't know why Bush passed on Kemp, but I can speculate - Kemp probably would have overshadowed Bush, and he was a rival for the nomination in '88. Democrats should probably be thankful that Bush didn't choose him, because if Kemp had been Bush's VP, he would have been the frontrunner for the nomination in '96, and Dole most likely would not have been the nominee. So Kemp would have been #1 on the ticket, instead of #2, and he would have given Clinton a stronger race, even with Ross Perot in the race.

I didn't know that Kemp was originally from LA until I read his obit. I also didn't realize that he went to Occidental, same as Obama. Must be something good about that place.

You have to respect a Republican who accepted the job of Secretary of Housing and Urban Development, and then actually took it seriously. He was one of a kind.

Notre Dame, Obama, the Roman Catholic Church, USC, and abortion

President Obama has been invited to speak at Notre Dame at their commencement. He will be receiving an honorary degree. That's great. Very nice. Presidents speak at commencements all the time, and receive honorary degrees all the time. Perfectly normal.

Except that Obama supports a woman's right to choose an abortion, which conflicts with the doctrine of the Catholic Church. That's a bummer for some right-wing Catholics, who have stated their opposition. Unfortunately for them, 97% of the graduating class of seniors support giving Obama an honorary degree. Of course, the fact that George W. Bush supports the death penalty, which also conflicts with Catholic doctrine, didn't stop the university from inviting him and giving him an honorary degree.

My favorite part of the debate came in one of the letters to the editor in the NY Times. The letters were in response to an Op-Ed piece by Richard Allen (Reagan's National Security Advisor), who opposes giving the degree to Obama. Notre Dame gave a degree to Reagan when he spoke. Most of the letters disagreed with Allen, for the same reason I just listed. Then there was this letter, from a member of the Notre Dame class of 1958:

Next the traditionalists will want to vet the orthodoxy of Notre Dame’s quarterbacks. Well, maybe not if we’re 11 to zip and U.S.C. is coming to town.

Damn right! Orthodoxy would be out the window in a heartbeat if Notre Dame were playing like the pathetic losers they have been for the past couple of years and one of the best teams in college football were on their way (the USC-Notre Dame rivalry is one of the great rivalries in the country, because they are two of the only large private schools in the country. Neither is a state school, which is unusual for schools of their size. USC plays Notre Dame every season). Notre Dame hates losing to USC. There's a little bit of the Midwest-Southern California rivalry thing going on, too.

So I managed to get Obama, abortion, Ronald Reagan, George W. Bush, the NY Times, and USC football into one blog post! It's a good day.

Ron Reagan endorses Obama

Ron Reagan (yes, that Ron Reagan) has endorsed Obama. I know next to nothing about the man (not much of a bio on Huffpost, Ron), except who his father was, but apparently he has a radio show on Air America, so I'm going to assume that his politics are generally somewhat different from his Dad's. He is joined by Ken Duberstein, who was Ronald Reagan's last chief of staff. At this point, I think the only Reaganite who hasn't endorsed Obama is Nancy.

I am so glad I am not a conservative or a Republican right now.

Obama as a celebrity

The latest meme from the McCain campaign seems to be that Obama is a celebrity, with all the attendant baggage and negative implications that comes with that word, i.e. the misbehavior of certain Hollywood stars, etc.

Seems like an odd criticism from the party that elected Ronald Reagan, a former movie star, President.

Talking to enemies - Reagan's surprising approach

A big question looming over the presidential race is whether or not we should talk to our enemies. Conservatives seem to think that doing so is a sign of weakness; Barack Obama, on the other hand, says that he would. What few people seem to remember is that Reagan was strongly in favor in engaging our enemies in dialogue, particularly the Soviet Union. In public, he was known for such inflammatory rhetoric as referring to the USSR as an "evil empire." Behind the scenes, he took a different approach. Melvyn Leffler provides the details in last Sunday's LA Times:

Housed in the Reagan Presidential Library and Museum is a trove of evidence concerning his efforts to talk to the nation's enemies, including a series of letters that he wrote to Soviet leaders, often in his own hand to underscore their authenticity.

It wasn't a popular idea:

Within his administration, Reagan's desire to talk to the enemy encountered bitter opposition.

The importance of Reagan's determination to talk cannot be understated. I'm quoting at length:

As Reagan's determination to talk to the country's main adversary grew, he came to understand the evil empire in ways that surprised him. The Soviets, he learned, were frightened of his actions. Indeed, we now know from British and U.S. intelligence reports that the autumn of 1983 was the second-scariest time in the Cold War. That's when the U.S. military exercise Able Archer tested command and communications procedures for firing nuclear weapons in wartime, raising fears in the Kremlin that Reagan might be preparing a surprise attack.

Reagan was astonished. He wrote in his autobiography: "Three years had taught me something surprising about the Russians. Many people at the top of the Soviet hierarchy were genuinely afraid of America and Americans. Perhaps this shouldn't have surprised me, but it did."

Was his new insight correct? He began asking visiting emissaries: Were the Soviets really afraid of U.S. power? Again and again, he was told that they were.

All of this started to pay off when Gorbachev showed up. It's easy to lose sight out just how revolutionary Gorbachev was. He really did change the fundamentals of the Soviet Union, and laid the ground for the dismantling of Communism.

While he was president, I thot of Reagan as a dimwitted, stubborn, absent-minded, warmongering old fool. It wasn't hard to justify that; he made all kinds of simple mental mistakes, he didn't seem to be interested in complex theories, to say the least, he took lots of naps, he was a little slow on the uptake. But he was a nice guy. And that seemed to be the basis of his success - he just charmed people. But to me, this was bizarre. OK, he's a decent human being, but is that enough to be president? In retrospect, he was thinking a lot more than I gave him credit for.

From the outset of his presidency, Reagan grasped that strength was a backdrop for talks but that little could be achieved without talking to the country's key adversaries. The enemy might be evil, but common ground might be found. The adversary might be evil, but change might come. Political systems might be oppressive, but they were not forever. One had to have confidence in one's values. One had to have patience and perseverance. One had to talk. Talking to your enemy did not mean giving away the kitchen sink; it meant gauging his nature, taking his measure and determining what next to do.

He may not have been deep, but he had some common sense that I didn't realize at the time. Which, in a lot of ways, is much more important than the ability to crunch big numbers of wander through theoretical matrices. Turns out all of us - liberals and conservatives - can learn something from Reagan.