White House political adviser David Axelrod granted an interview to Ron Brownstein of National Journal that qualifies as either hyper-spin or an almost clinical state of denial. For example, Axelrod tells Brownstein, “It’s almost impossible to win a referendum on yourself. And the Republicans would like this to be a referendum. It’s not going to be a referendum.”
Yes it will. When a political party controls the presidency and, by wide margins, the House and the Senate, the midterm election will be a referendum on the stewardship of that party. There’s no way to get around that. What’s particularly revealing is that Axelrod and his colleagues, rather than welcoming a referendum on their year in office, are terribly afraid of it. They know that if the dominant issues of the 2010 midterm election are how well Democrats have governed, they will absorb tremendous damage.
Axelrod makes this point in a slightly different way when he says:
If the question is what we’ve been able to achieve, which I think is substantial, versus the ideal of what people hope for or hoped for, that’s a harder race for us. If the choice is between the things we’ve achieved and we’re fighting for and what the other side would deliver, I think that’s very motivational to people.
In other words, if people measure us against perfection, we will fall short. But people won’t be measuring Obama and Democrats against perfection; they will be measuring him/them against the standards Obama set up — for example, insisting that unemployment would not exceed 8 percent in 2009 (it is now 10 percent); that the stimulus package would “create or save” 3.5 million jobs over the course of two years (2.8 million jobs have been lost since it was signed into law); that the deficit and debt would go down on his watch (Obama’s budget will double the debt in five years and triple it in 10 years); and so forth.
Mr. Axelrod also tells Brownstein that next on his checklist is “finish this health care bill successfully.” And after that? “Then we have to go out and sell it. I think we can run on this.”
The problem is that the president has been trying to “sell” ObamaCare for more than half a year. He has spoken out on its behalf repeatedly and in every forum imaginable. And the more Obama attempts to sell the Democrats’ health-care plan, the more unpopular it becomes. After a prolonged and intense debate on this issue, here’s what they have to show for it: “The president’s marks on handling health care, with reforms still under debate in Congress, are even lower [than his overall job approval rating of 46 percent] — just 36 percent approve, while 54 percent disapprove,” according to the latest CBS News poll. “Both of these approval ratings are the lowest of Mr. Obama’s presidency.”
If Axelrod and the Obama White House really believe the problem here is with their sales job rather than with the product they are trying to sell, then they are living in an alternative universe. ObamaCare is responsible in large measure for the devastating Democratic losses in the Virginia and New Jersey governors races. The political environment is so bad right now that even Ted Kennedy’s Senate seat is viewed by Republicans and Democrats as endangered. This is a remarkable political development.
Finally, Mr. Axelrod says this:
In certain ways we are at the mercy of forces that are larger than things we can control. If we see steady months of jobs growth between now and next November, I think the picture will be different than if we don’t. I think Ronald Reagan learned that lesson in 1982. We’re not immune to the physics of all of this. But I’m guardedly optimistic that we are going to see that progress.
Here’s a pretty good rule of thumb: when senior White House political advisers begin to use phrases like “we are at the mercy of forces that are larger than we can control” and “we’re not immune to the physics of all this,” you can assume they are in deep trouble. That is especially the case for those who work for a president who proclaimed that his victory would mark the moment “when the rise of the oceans began to slow and our planet began to heal.”
Now Obama and Axelrod portray themselves like corks in the ocean. They invoke the laws of physics to explain why unemployment is in double digits. It turns out it is a quick journey from political messianism to political fatalism.
Axelrod’s words are a revealing (if unwitting) concession: he and his colleagues understand that they are overmatched by events and, in office for less than a year, they are scrambling to find excuses for the problems they face. But the fault, dear David, is not in the stars, but in yourselves. There will be a high political price to pay for this — perhaps starting next week but almost certainly by next November.
Lieberman’s courage is considerable. Even in my most cynical mood, I would not question his concern as a patriot for America’s security. However, my gut tells me that he remains a Democrat not for his stated reasons. On social(albeit outspoken against the degredation of entertainment culture) and economic issues, he has been a very mainstream liberal and therefore would feel very uncomfortable in a party that, basically, is right of center on most of those issues.
Paul: I think you are probably right about why Lieberman remains a Dem. And I think Lieberman realizes that the national security wing of the party will likely never come back.
Why? My guess is Lieberman knows he is utterly alone and cannot by himself sustain anything resembling a strong national security ‘wing’ of the party. He is more like a single feather barely hanging on to the edge of a broken wing, fighting to stay on for dear life in a nasty blizzard. There may be a few other minor voices in the wilderness, but none of any seniority or celebrity come to mind. And it’s not just in Congress: where are the think tanks with a Democratic Party bent that support the kind of approach Lieberman espouses, not to mention newspaper editorial boards, foundations, lobbying groups, etc?
There are none b/c most of us believe it’s a hopeless cause. When people ask me why I’m no longer a Democrat, I say I didn’t leave the Democratic Party — they left me.
Well, it’s conceivable that the weathervane types and theoretical bipartisans, many of them self-styled security experts, could rally around Lieberman following a severe chastisement of the defeatists and other global testers, possibly in the context of a security crisis or new emerging threat. Levin, Bayh, Webb, possibly some new blood… even Clinton and Kerry… Stranger things have happened. Once upon a time, Harry Reid might have been among them, but, like Al Gore and John Edwards, by now he’s probably sawn the leg off behind him, and will go to retirement as a latter-day Copperhead.
CK: Webb has the background, all right, but has so far shown himself to be an incredible lightweight and has tied himself to the liberals’ defeat and retreat narrative (while all the time denying that this is the upshot of his position, of course). I once thought Bayh had some hope too, but since 2004 he’s become a very conventional lefty on foreign policy, no doubt b/c he realizes there is no other way to climb the ladder in his party. Levin has long been slavishly devoted to the Council for a Livable World/Center for Defense Information school of thought, which means he truly believes the world’s problems can usually be traced back to Washington. He could well be the most irresponsible chairman of the Armed Services Committee in a very long time. There was never any real hope for him.
Gary Hart was also thought to be a defense intellectual and not a McGovernite, mostly b/c he kept telling everyone that’s what he was, but in reality Hart was and is a very dovish guy who felt we were as much to blame for the Cold War as the Sovs were, and if only we’d eschew a first strike doctrine, and if only we delivered more aid to country X … you get the picture.
Used to be, when I worked on the Hill, that House members like the now-infamous John Murtha were considered the tough guys on defense and foreign policy, but he and others of his ilk were much more about securing pork for their districts than anything else. Les Aspin tried to come off as tough, with his ‘Democrats can’t be Dr. No’s’ idea, but it was all needle-threading and trying to recast the debate, a la James Fallows, to make cutting defense spending seem honorable and smart.
I just can’t think of anyone else who could join with Lieberman without breaking a sweat, but so far, it’s not happening. No doubt we’ll come up with someone!
It’s sad, so sad, a sad sad situation, Jon S, no doubt. I guess it’s my own version of pessimistic hopefulness, but I don’t expect politicians, least of all Democrats like those I named, to stake too much on consistency. I’m not saying I expect any of the ones I named ever to command myrespect on security issues, but I can see them staggering over to Lieberman’s side, convincingly or not, after the surrender front finally falls completely apart and memory of it dims.
From talking to Democrats, I get the impression that loyalty to the party, and specifically not being Republican or conservative in any way, are so much a part of a Democrat’s self-image – and, in many affluent circles, essential to one’s social and even familial standing – that many Democrats are incapable of questioning (from the right, of course) the party’s mainstream position on any issue, even if that position became defined as mainstream only recently, and even if the person himself previously held the opposite position before it was declared verboten. This explains the rage directed to Lieberman even by Democrats who originally supported the war and, in CT, voted for Lieberman in 2006, when his position on the war was still just barely tolerable in the Democratic Party.
It may sound like heresy on this blog to make the following suggestion, but I do think that a Hillary presidency would be relatively close to a mainstream, i.e. a secure America, defense and foreign policy. In my opinion, her left-wing reputation, a deservedly one, is due to domestic policy. She has shifted more toward the middle as Obama has given her an opening. To be sure, a political move, but she really has never seemed uncomfortable with those positions, as he does when he tries to seem more moderate: his foolish effort of wearing the lapel flag again. No, of course she’s not Lieberman, but neither is she on the Obama left in defense and foreign policy issues. I can see her tapping into Brookings and establishment international Wall Street people for foreign policy. Not a muscular policy that I would like, but not an Obama that I would loath and fear.
Paul Zisserson: I think David Frum of NRO made pretty much your point – that a Hillary Clinton administration probably would not be a outright catastrophe on foreign policy from a right-of-center (or at least center-right) perspective – a month or two ago. The point seems moot now, since it is difficult to see how Hillary could get the nomination at this point. Remember, the Democrat pols have a strong self-interest in not drawing the rage of black voters and the nutroots to themselves, even if they think Obama would be a weaker general election candidate than Hillary.
It’s not our place (unless we’re Democrats) to fix the Democratic Party, if the party has another idea.
If many conservatives are deluded enough to remain Democrats come what may, that shows Republicans need to work harder to perfect their own message and get it across. At least in Congress, we now have a return of the me-too Republicans who want to be understudies to the Democratic thieves.
lieberman is evil. he would make a great comunist. whether it is war, high taxes, open borders, late trimest abortions, or trying to ban vilent video games and the howard stern show, there is no measure of state power he doesn’t seek, and no part of our christian culture he doesn’t wish to destroy.
lester,
be careful about masquerading as a Christian. Even doing it as a Moby is probably enough for your mullah masters to issue a fatwah aginst you.
steve- you love the government