Where Obama Went Wrong

[Beet]

More likely than not, after Tuesday night, the Republicans will take the Senate. They also will control the House, most Governorships, most state houses, and SCOTUS. The Democrats will still have the White House and the Federal Reserve (thanks to Obama). Still, with most Democrats still hesitant to attach themselves to him, Obama will be pretty lonely with his 41% approval rating. So where did he go wrong?

First of all, I feel that he failed by not trying hard enough to reach out to the GOP and achieve bipartisan compromises, such as a "grand bargain" on deficit reduction; failing to approve the Keystone pipeline, and threatening to take unilateral action on immigration. Whether the Republicans would ever have agreed to work with him is not the point; the main thing is that he should have looked willing to work with them, rather than as a man who has given up on Washington.

Secondly, I feel that the Democrats are allowing too many distractions from core economic issues. Let's face it, the "War on Women" is a niche Democratic issue, similar to how certain scandals like Benghazi are for the GOP. They will kick up our base, but they don't appeal to a broad swath of voters, who care more about things like health care, taxes, and spending.

Thirdly, I believe Obama has misread public opinion when it comes to foreign policy. As many as 45 percent of Americans now want to send in ground troops against ISIS, up significantly over the past month. Most no longer think an air campaign only will work. The past decade has been defined by backlash over the Iraq War, but regardless of what Americans tell pollsters, they still want a strong president who stands up for U.S. interests abroad and can deliver quick, clear victories.

Thoughts?

[King]

lol @ the idea there was any opportunity to compromise. The Teabaggers and McConnell's master plan made it impossible.

The War on Women won the 2012 election. Midterm turnout just isn't right for it.

Obama swung into unpopularity because of Edward Snowden, wasting time with gun control legislation, and he never recovered.

[Person Man]

More likely than not, after Tuesday night, the Republicans will take the Senate. They also will control the House, most Governorships, most state houses, and SCOTUS. The Democrats will still have the White House and the Federal Reserve (thanks to Obama). Still, with most Democrats still hesitant to attach themselves to him, Obama will be pretty lonely with his 41% approval rating. So where did he go wrong?

First of all, I feel that he failed by not trying hard enough to reach out to the GOP and achieve bipartisan compromises, such as a "grand bargain" on deficit reduction; failing to approve the Keystone pipeline, and threatening to take unilateral action on immigration. Whether the Republicans would ever have agreed to work with him is not the point; the main thing is that he should have looked willing to work with them, rather than as a man who has given up on Washington.

Secondly, I feel that the Democrats are allowing too many distractions from core economic issues. Let's face it, the "War on Women" is a niche Democratic issue, similar to how certain scandals like Benghazi are for the GOP. They will kick up our base, but they don't appeal to a broad swath of voters, who care more about things like health care, taxes, and spending.

Thirdly, I believe Obama has misread public opinion when it comes to foreign policy. As many as 45 percent of Americans now want to send in ground troops against ISIS, up significantly over the past month. Most no longer think an air campaign only will work. The past decade has been defined by backlash over the Iraq War, but regardless of what Americans tell pollsters, they still want a strong president who stands up for U.S. interests abroad and can deliver quick, clear victories.

Thoughts?

lol @ the idea there was any opportunity to compromise. The Teabaggers and McConnell's master plan made it impossible.

And I have no idea how Obama could have done any better on Foreign Policy. Maybe should have pivoted on the idea of war. Iraq wasn't bad because it was a war, it was bad because it was a divisive war. However, there was inborn risks that though most people want a "war" against ISIS, the only bipartisan thing and the only ally-uniting thing about Obama wanting to lead the war, would be its opposition.


Keystone XL is risky and won't add that much to the economy and would drive away the base but it wouldn't be THAT risky and it would LOWER gas prices and thus perhaps lower other exploration?

Immigration reform was something he should have definitely done, though.

[bedstuy]

lol @ the idea there was any opportunity to compromise. The Teabaggers and McConnell's master plan made it impossible.

The War on Women won the 2012 election. Midterm turnout just isn't right for it.

Obama swung into unpopularity because of Edward Snowden, wasting time with gun control legislation, and he never recovered.

Yeah, typical concern trolling based on a fantastical apologetic David Brooksian fantasy.
 
Obama tried way too hard to accommodate Republicans.  Politics isn't based on reality anyway, it's about manipulating reality and using your rhetoric to sway people to your version of reality.  So, the solution is just to be far more steadfast and just try to make honest arguments for our worldview.  There is no compromise either with scoundrels like Boehner or radicals like Ted Cruz, the only solution is to defeat them.

That's where Democrats go wrong, they expect the media, Republicans and the public to be fair.  Nothing could be further from the truth.  The way that you win is to make every winning argument you can and pull no punches.  Obama has never used the media or his office to argue for his policies because the administration seems convinced that would be over-exposing him or denigrating the office.  The sad truth today is that politics is a zero-sum game, there's is nothing gained by trying to be fair or even-handed.  As Herm Edwards once said, "You play to win the game! Hello!  You play to win the game!"

[Beet]

lol @ the idea there was any opportunity to compromise. The Teabaggers and McConnell's master plan made it impossible.

The War on Women won the 2012 election. Midterm turnout just isn't right for it.

Obama swung into unpopularity because of Edward Snowden, wasting time with gun control legislation, and he never recovered.

Yeah, typical concern trolling based on a fantastical apologetic David Brooksian fantasy.
 
Obama tried way too hard to accommodate Republicans.  Politics isn't based on reality anyway, it's about manipulating reality and using your rhetoric to sway people to your version of reality.  So, the solution is just to be far more steadfast and just try to make honest arguments for our worldview.  There is no compromise either with scoundrels like Boehner or radicals like Ted Cruz, the only solution is to defeat them.
...
As Herm Edwards once said, "You play to win the game! Hello!  You play to win the game!"

Isn't this a little contradictory? If you guys are so cynical, why do you even care about politics anyway? Got a personal stake in it? Or are you just like Eraserhead who claims to follow it for the goofs? If you guys have honest views then argue for them for sure, but they should be able to prevail in a fair and even handed debate.

[IceSpear]

His mistake was not stopping the GOP into oblivion in 2009 back when they had a 30% approval rating and he had a 65% approval rating. Instead he "reached across the aisle", let them water down or obstruct everything despite being a rump minority, and gave them all the help they needed to have a resurgence.

[King]

I'm not cynical about it. Obama did the right thing. No grand bargain was in reach, his only opportunity to reach "compromise" with the Republicans was to give them everything from flat tax to Medicare privatization.

In the end, his legacy of not doing anything with the GOP Congress and instead bulldozing Obamacare and higher EPA standards into implementation will prove to be a positive effort.

Sometimes inaction is a positive action. As a Democrat, it is better for his beliefs to let gridlock be gridlocked than waste time with the Teabaggers.

[bedstuy]

lol @ the idea there was any opportunity to compromise. The Teabaggers and McConnell's master plan made it impossible.

The War on Women won the 2012 election. Midterm turnout just isn't right for it.

Obama swung into unpopularity because of Edward Snowden, wasting time with gun control legislation, and he never recovered.

Yeah, typical concern trolling based on a fantastical apologetic David Brooksian fantasy.
 
Obama tried way too hard to accommodate Republicans.  Politics isn't based on reality anyway, it's about manipulating reality and using your rhetoric to sway people to your version of reality.  So, the solution is just to be far more steadfast and just try to make honest arguments for our worldview.  There is no compromise either with scoundrels like Boehner or radicals like Ted Cruz, the only solution is to defeat them.
...
As Herm Edwards once said, "You play to win the game! Hello!  You play to win the game!"

Isn't this a little contradictory? If you guys are so cynical, why do you even care about politics anyway? Got a personal stake in it? Or are you just like Eraserhead who claims to follow it for the goofs? If you guys have honest views then argue for them for sure, but they should be able to prevail in a fair and even handed debate.

I don't really see your point, politics is about power.  

Your arguments should be right because you approach the world in a thoughtful way.  Your rhetoric shouldn't necessarily be even-handed or fair.  If the other side isn't going to play fair, it's ridiculous to obey some code of chivalry when the winner gets to dictate policy for everyone.

What I mean by honest is just standing up for what we believe.  Not telling people we're Republican light, not telling people Obamacare isn't that bad, instead saying Obamacare is good and using every weapon in our rhetorical arsenal to win people over.  But, it's fine to use every cheap rhetorical trick you can.

[Beet]

The problem is if both sides are using cheap rhetorical tricks, what gives you the advantage? It can only be if you have the better argument. And that can only emerge through some sort of objective process of debate. The idea that progressives are somehow going to out-demagogue, out-cheap trick the right wing, with its control over its vast media apparatus, is absurd.

[tmthforu94]

In my biased opinion, the key failure of the Obama administration was that he never left campaign mode to become a leader. Republicans are also to blame for pressuring him to do that, but I think this is the legacy he is leaving. A great campaigner, a poor leader...a mediocre President.

[Clarko95 📚💰📈]

lol @ the idea there was any opportunity to compromise. The Teabaggers and McConnell's master plan made it impossible.

The War on Women won the 2012 election. Midterm turnout just isn't right for it.

Obama swung into unpopularity because of Edward Snowden, wasting time with gun control legislation, and he never recovered.

No. It was the economy, just like it is every election. Voters remembered that it was just 4 years earlier that the economy went to hell under George W. Bush and his housing bubble of 2001 - 2006. The economy recovered just in time in 2012 that people gave Obama another term, and Mitt Romney's biography only reminded them of why they don't trust Republicans on the economy.

Women were just one part of Obama's coalition. A very important part, yes, but so was every other part. The Coalition of the Ascendant is large enough to deliever a solid victory when all of them turn out, but each group composing that coalition (gays, Hispanics, Blacks, Asians, poor people, working class, etc.) is individually strong enough that if just one of them peels away, it's over. When the gender gap was broken down by marital status, it revealed that while there was a difference in the way men and women voted, the biggest driver of the difference and Obama's margin in the female vote was their economic status, which is directly tied to marital status. Married men and women (married couples tend to more financially established) gave a majority of their votes to Romney, while unmarried men and women gave their votes to Obama. Obama successfully painted Romney as an out-of-touch flip-flopper who would give tax breaks to the rich and start wars everywhere well before Aiken and Mourdock threw gasoline on the embers. The election was essentially over in early 2012 when Romney emerged from the primaries bloodied, unemployment was falling, and Team Obama's smear campaign had already been in full-gear.

It always was, is, and will be about economics. That's why Udall is faltering in Colorado this year: he thought muh birthcontrol and the War on Women was the winning point, as opposed to just one nail in the coffin. Gardner on the other hand, did moderate on birth control and abortion, but also discussed the economy, healthcare, energy, foreign policy, etc.

And back to the original topic: it's the economy. Unemployment has fallen and 10 million jobs have been created since 2010, but wages and growth are still weak and a vast pool of underemployed and discouraged workers still exists. In 2012, the recovery was shifting out of low gear into medium gear, so people saw this as a positive sign and gave Obama another chance. But we've been stuck in medium gear and have failed to shift into high gear for the past 2 years, and that is why people have once again soured on Obama. It's been 6 years and he doesn't have GWB to kick around anymore. Add into all of this ISIS, a resurgent Russia, rocky ACA rollout, all the "scandals" from last year, Ebola, etc. etc. etc. and you see why.

The Congressional GOP never wanted to compromise with Obama while they just controlled 1/3 of the legislative process, because they'd be forced to give up more than they could gain with the scales tipped in favor of Obama and the Senate Dems. When they failed to destroy him in the run-up to the 2012 election, they are biding their time out until the take the Senate this year and will control 2/3 of the legislative process, where they will have the high ground and can pin intransigence on Obama, because the American people elected them to accomplish their agenda, right guys?

It wasn't about compromise, the War on Women, gun control, etc. It's the economy, stupid! Every other issue you guys listed is important in and of itself, but when compared to the overriding issue that is Americans' financial situation, it is just another nail in the coffin. That is where Obama went wrong: he lost people on the economy in terms of message and policy.

[bedstuy]

The problem is if both sides are using cheap rhetorical tricks, what gives you the advantage? It can only be if you have the better argument. And that can only emerge through some sort of objective process of debate. The idea that progressives are somehow going to out-demagogue, out-cheap trick the right wing, with its control over its vast media apparatus, is absurd.

That's nonsense. 

What objective process of debate is there?  None.  We're just supposed to kill them with kindness and people will know that Democrats are right because they're so meek and scrupulously objective?  You don't win people over by leaving them to an objective assessment, you give them a sales pitch.  Is there a car company that doesn't advertise or claim their car is better because they trust the public to test drive them and listen to the objective opinions of car experts?  Of course not, they would go out of business.  And, there is something to having a brand based on honesty and trustworthiness.  But, this shame about making a sales pitch is just timid and dumb. 

And, how do we get the advantage?  We're right, we have smarter people on our side and we have no other choice besides try to win in the political arena.  It's like my favorite Paul Wellstone quote,

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That's what politics is about, passion and the willingness to make that sales pitch to the public.  Obama has been too timid to make that sales pitch.

[bedstuy]

In my biased opinion, the key failure of the Obama administration was that he never left campaign mode to become a leader. Republicans are also to blame for pressuring him to do that, but I think this is the legacy he is leaving. A great campaigner, a poor leader...a mediocre President.

What would "being a leader" entail exactly?

[Mr. Smith]

Obama and the Democrats went wrong by just assuming the policies alone without argumentwould sway the people, and assuming compromise could be reached with the GOP that wished him to be one-term only.

In 2008 and to extent 2012, he managed to get some counter buzzwords to sway the conservatives and moderates and fire up the left to vote for him over Romney.

In between actually running however, he's been purely on the defense, trying to play the long game, hoping the entire GOP will just Palin themselves into oblivion, which isn't quite happening...almost there,but not quite.

But until it's as explicit as Sarah Palin or Todd Akin, the American populace will continue to catch on only to the buzzwords.

And the Dems running away from Obama are even worse about all these things.

[AggregateDemand]

Obama makes the same mistake all liberal Democrats make. He doesn't care what his policies actually do to people. Instead, Democratic policy exists solely to buy elections. When it backfires, they dig-in their donkey hooves, and they refuse to fix what they've done. To make matters even more absurd, they insist that letting the Americans keep their money is the genesis of all of our problems, not terrible government spending programs. Strange because people keep less of their money each year, and terrible government spending spreads like malignant cancer.

The donkey is a poignant symbol because the Democratic Party is as incorrigible and useless as an old donkey. They never cease to make Republicans look like the most competent, noble patriots to ever run for office.

Obama threw away his presidency when he signed ACA and neglected employment issues. Anyone can play golf while QE and oil-stimulus slowly rebuild the American economy at an extraordinary cost. He's shown no leadership of any kind.

[anvi]

Instead of giving a bill of particulars, I'll boil it down to one thing.  It's not so much a particular place where he went wrong, but more about one vulnerability that has caught up with him time and again.  I think Obama himself is less skilled at crafting good policy and detailed negotiating than is needed in a president now.  He has had to farm too much of that work out to people on the Hill and his VP and cabinet and special crisis appointees.  Insofar as he has done that, he has actually fallen victim to their failings when things don't work out, and it's made him less persuasive at the negotiating table, with both Pubs and Dems, than he has been at the stump.  In that sense, I think the lack of legislative experience factor hurt him more in the long run than I believed it would in 2008.  All that being said, I think he has gotten an unfairly bad rap both from his own side of the aisle and from the opposition, and he will probably look better in the long run than in the stretches of a terribly bad fifth year of his term.  But, he just needed to be better at the nuts and bolts of governing than he was when he first ran.  I still would have favored him over Hillary in 2008 because I really didn't like where she was on the Iraq war.  But, all things considered, staying in the Senate for another term and a half and running in 2016 instead of 2008 might have prepared him a lot better for being president.

[pbrower2a]

More likely than not, after Tuesday night, the Republicans will take the Senate. They also will control the House, most Governorships, most state houses, and SCOTUS. The Democrats will still have the White House and the Federal Reserve (thanks to Obama). Still, with most Democrats still hesitant to attach themselves to him, Obama will be pretty lonely with his 41% approval rating. So where did he go wrong?

First of all, I feel that he failed by not trying hard enough to reach out to the GOP and achieve bipartisan compromises, such as a "grand bargain" on deficit reduction; failing to approve the Keystone pipeline, and threatening to take unilateral action on immigration. Whether the Republicans would ever have agreed to work with him is not the point; the main thing is that he should have looked willing to work with them, rather than as a man who has given up on Washington.

There was never going to be a grand bargain. The best that President Obama could do was to make offers to a phantom GOP, moderates who no longer exist.  When he had majorities in both Houses of Congress (but for only two years) he could govern much like FDR, his model for dealing with an economic catastrophe.

What the Republicans wanted was someone to accede to rescuing Big Business from its own foibles quickly -- only to turn on him at the first opportunity because they would have the resources for buying the political process.    

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The Republicans will, in their audacity (which may succeed or fail) bring it back. They will support the most repressive regulation of sexuality outside of the Islamic world, perhaps even going so far as to attempt to ban contraception. After all, the only possible growth in a stagnant economy is from population growth that forces more real estate construction, highway building, energy consumption, and urban sprawl -- not to mention higher prices and lower wages.

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The Republicans will surely tie any military activity to shifting taxes from the rich to the non-rich, eviscerating unions, degrading the environment, outlawing abortion and same-sex marriage, and who knows what.  

We are in for the worst two years of American politics since 1859 and 1860.

[muon2]

The problem is if both sides are using cheap rhetorical tricks, what gives you the advantage? It can only be if you have the better argument. And that can only emerge through some sort of objective process of debate. The idea that progressives are somehow going to out-demagogue, out-cheap trick the right wing, with its control over its vast media apparatus, is absurd.

I agree, but would add that beyond an objective process of debate there needed to be a true process of negotiation that goes beyond nominal listening sessions. The base voters on both sides are prone to slap -INO on the party label for anyone who would split the difference on thorny questions. Yet those base voters don't represent the majority of the electorate who say they want cooperative governance.

One problem I have noticed among moderate voters is that they have come to expect black-or-white statements from their candidates, perhaps driven by the aforementioned base. They want to judge them on the basis of clear cut positions, yet the voters often have far more complex desires themselves that often include ideas from both sides of the political spectrum. When a candidate tries to mirror the actual voter with a nuanced response, they can be accused of dodging the question or confusing the voter.

Complicated issues that deal with a diverse society require sophisticated policy solutions. A sound-bite society isn't conducive to that government that can deliver those solutions.

[pbrower2a]

Obama makes the same mistake all liberal Democrats make. He doesn't care what his policies actually do to people. Instead, Democratic policy exists solely to buy elections. When it backfires, they dig-in their donkey hooves, and they refuse to fix what they've done. To make matters even more absurd, they insist that letting the Americans keep their money is the genesis of all of our problems, not terrible government spending programs. Strange because people keep less of their money each year, and terrible government spending spreads like malignant cancer.

Buying elections? What about the Koch syndicate and (as of 2015) dynasty in all but name.
Operating behind the scenes by buying TV time to flood with Orwellian propaganda may not be how the Romanov family did things, but the Koch family has learned that being as visible as the Romanov family is ultimately suicidal. 

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As meaningless as the Republicans adopting as their logo an animal that equals Man in intelligence while using the most anti-intellectual rhetoric possible to appeal to the least-learned voters. So much for symbolism. (What I say about elephants is true; elephants even have the same lifespan as humans, respect for the elderly, and a family structure much like ours!)

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The only way that the Republicans were going to solve the issues of employment were quick-buck rip-offs and cutting wages to levels near starvation. No thanks!

Unemployment is now below what it was at the peak of the Dubya-era boom in real estate and lending fraud.

[Starbucks Union Thug HokeyPuck]

Obama's hardly gone wrong anywhere.  The impending retaking of Congressional control by the awful party can be summed up in three words.

Democrats.  Are.  Pussies.

That's it.  They don't defend anything they do.  They don't brag about anything they do.  They run from their accomplishments at the hint of a GOP ad campaign.  They stand up to nothing and nobody from the right. 

This same rinse-and-repeat cycle of Republicans coming into power and putting the country on the path to ruin, a reactionary swing to the Democrats, and a subsequent forgive-and-forget en masse for the GOP will continue forever until liberals stand up for their accomplishments and their ideals. 

I'm afraid it is not all that more complicated than that. 

[IceSpear]

Obama's hardly gone wrong anywhere.  The impending retaking of Congressional control by the awful party can be summed up in three words.

Democrats.  Are.  Pussies.

That's it.  They don't defend anything they do.  They don't brag about anything they do.  They run from their accomplishments at the hint of a GOP ad campaign.  They stand up to nothing and nobody from the right. 

This same rinse-and-repeat cycle of Republicans coming into power and putting the country on the path to ruin, a reactionary swing to the Democrats, and a subsequent forgive-and-forget en masse for the GOP will continue forever until liberals stand up for their accomplishments and their ideals. 

I'm afraid it is not all that more complicated than that. 

Obama doesn't count in the "Democrats are pussies" critique? Like I said earlier, he could've marginalized the GOP back in 2009, and instead chose to give them a hand and help them regain power.

[Starbucks Union Thug HokeyPuck]

Obama's hardly gone wrong anywhere.  The impending retaking of Congressional control by the awful party can be summed up in three words.

Democrats.  Are.  Pussies.

That's it.  They don't defend anything they do.  They don't brag about anything they do.  They run from their accomplishments at the hint of a GOP ad campaign.  They stand up to nothing and nobody from the right. 

This same rinse-and-repeat cycle of Republicans coming into power and putting the country on the path to ruin, a reactionary swing to the Democrats, and a subsequent forgive-and-forget en masse for the GOP will continue forever until liberals stand up for their accomplishments and their ideals. 

I'm afraid it is not all that more complicated than that. 

Obama doesn't count in the "Democrats are pussies" critique? Like I said earlier, he could've marginalized the GOP back in 2009, and instead chose to give them a hand and help them regain power.

Part of the President's job is to be somewhat agreeable with both sides.  Could he have been tougher on the right?  Sure, but you want some of your attack dogs and idealists to come out of the legislature, where they are all scattering left and right away from everything their supposed party leader has done. 

[Mister Mets]

Partly, he went wrong when he was a national figure. He was a fairly liberal member of the Senate, an easy guy for Republicans to oppose when he was in the White House. As a Democratic member of the Senate, he voted against Roberts, because he disagreed on ideology. That sets a precedent for Republicans to oppose much of what he does.

The bigger problem was his preference for massive bills for instituting change. If a bill has hundreds of pages of text, individual Republicans are more likely to find dealbreakers. It also meant there weren't opportunities to pass legislation with bipartisan support, although that wasn't really a goal of his.

I'm not very convinced of the argument that the Affordable Care Act, for example, needed to be so massive, because it needed all the unpopular stuff in order to work. There are plenty of things that could have been passed separately.

[King]

I'm not very convinced of the argument that the Affordable Care Act, for example, needed to be so massive, because it needed all the unpopular stuff in order to work. There are plenty of things that could have been passed separately.

There's only one unpopular clause in the whole bill and it's the individual mandate, which is the most important part of it.

[Frodo]

First of all, I feel that he failed by not trying hard enough to reach out to the GOP and achieve bipartisan compromises, such as a "grand bargain" on deficit reduction; failing to approve the Keystone pipeline, and threatening to take unilateral action on immigration. Whether the Republicans would ever have agreed to work with him is not the point; the main thing is that he should have looked willing to work with them, rather than as a man who has given up on Washington.

WTF?!  He bent over backwards to accommodate Republicans when he was trying to push the Affordable Care Act through Congress, and (perhaps frightened by the growing Tea Party movement) they still voted against it.  And to add insult to injury, they then claimed that he was the one who was being overly partisan about it.  

It's a pity you are now accepting their narrative....