In my opinion, I’d much rather see legislature passed than just a warm fuzzy reassurance from the oval office. Though it’s been a slightly bumpy ride I’m still proud to say that Obama and the Democratic Party has my vote.
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 utterly failed to communicate his successes. They cited factors like the president’s cool demeanor and suggested that he hadn’t 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 Mr. 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, Mr. 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 were unavoidable. Stubborn joblessness and anemic growth have thus far resisted intervention and defined the administration.
But to whatever extent Mr. Obama controlled the fate of his young presidency, Mr. 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,” Mr. 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.”
- New York Times (read the entire article here)
