My major complaint with Barack Obama (I can argue ideology here, but I’m trying to be the journalist) was his lack of ability or interest to lead. People saw bits and pieces of this during the early days after his inaugural – promoting czars instead of cabinet members and leaving whole branches of administration virtually unfilled while he dallied about with his stimulus package and other governmental nonchalance.
This came to bear in greater forms overseas – we had the iPod incident with the Queen, the Churchill bust incident, the “no special relationship” incident and who can forget the reset button – just from memory. One hasty author could write chapter upon chapter on the noxious and equivocating Cairo speech, when Obama stood in the sand and expressed a woman’s right to be oppressed and claimed Islam invented Geometry or something.
While a head of state without a head is concern for any American, conservative or progressive, the left is finally getting around to noticing the problem. Not through harm done to foreign policy or in the cabinet, but because its grand trans-formative vision isn’t being carried out.
The New Editor shares this bit from progressive blogger John Aravosis:
When you have a President who is constitutionally, or intellectually, unable to stand for anything, and a congressional leadership that, rather than disciplining its own members and forging ahead with its own agenda, cedes legislative authority to a president who refuses to lead, you have a recipe for exactly what happened last night.
Sound familiar? Republicans were shot down as racist for commenting on Obama’s rather transparent and Teflon nature of being “all things to all people,” which in reality means you are nothing to nobody. The candidate of projection, running thousands of commercials in the Midwest calling for middle class tax cuts and handgun rights; simultaneously smearing these people as “bitter.” Obama the candidate was whoever you wanted him to be, President Obama is nothing to nobody and clearly not interested in leading. Democrats are now finding this aspect troubling in the guise of a salesman unable to unload that jalopy of a health care bill.
Question though – if this monstrosity was polling at around 60-percent, does anyone doubt its passage? Democrats can point fingers at their candidates, but they should start with themselves. The base drove them to the left in the wake of the 2000 and 2004 elections (remember the F*** Middle America signs on the coasts?), the party acted accordingly. America, by and large and especially fiscally – is still a center-right country. The leftward tilt of the party since 2000, the Bush-Gore conspiracies, the rubber-band reaction to the Iraq War, the smearing of American soldiers on the floor, Code Pink, Katrina, gay marriage, and down-your-throat politics of Alinsky – the party was kidding itself if it believed it could behave the same way once it had the reins. Simple fact, the Democrats the last eight years lost all interest in leadership – not just Obama and not just Harry Reid or Nancy Pelosi. Any semblance of leadership, we wouldn’t be blowing the debt through the roof and they would have given up on this unpopular health care bill.
Even Bill Clinton – child of the 60s – signed Welfare reform, slashed capital gains and created the “regime change” philosophy.
For this country to survive, the Democrats have to be dragged back to the center. The two-party system can’t survive if one party is set on destruction. This is the beginning of that process. Meanwhile, the Republicans are being dragged back to fiscal common sense. Evidence? Tea parties are out-polling both parties.
This is the beginning of a major battle – between Democrats and the independents and conservatives for the future of the progressive movement, as well as a battle inside the Republican hierarchy for control of the party between the red state wing and the country club sect. It will carry through the next several elections. When all is said and done, I don’t know where we will be, but it certainly can’t be any worse than we are now.
UPDATE : College Widow, in the comments brought up splitting the vote with a third party. I don’t believe in third parties, never have. There’s no telling what would happen in Washington if a Perot would win. Where does a Perot fill out a staff, build a congressional alliance, create a cabinet and deal with two opposition parties with complete control of the legislative process. I think the two party system ultimately works as long as both parties are sane – that issue has been in doubt for years.
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Very prescient and well stated!
What Rufus said…too early to be original. Nice post, John FN. I’m all for third parties but I am concerned about splitting the vote and thus electing a liberal as with Perot. I’m not a party loyalist but want to see a founding-principles conservative get us back to a gov’t. based on Natural Law.
concerning the blogger quote: Is this the left pissing its pants because Pres. Wonderful hasn’t turned us into Canada yet?
I really don’t mind traditional liberal politics – it’s part of the grease that makes democracy run. But this fantasyland left wing crap that has crawled out from under the rocks. It’s refusal to deal with reality and instead live in its head is dangerous. It’s become sadly evident they cannot lead, since the very ideas they are indulging in are not connected to anything real or quanitifable.
You mean rampant dream-land Utopianism does not a political party make? But it’s “hope and change” and about feeling better about yourself, not reality. Who needs reality?
JohnFN,
I’m agnostic regarding parties; 2, 3, 5, 84… What you state about a nascent 3rd party is true; there are so many hurdles that it would almost be neutered at the outset, but in time a new party can become viable if it truly has support. I think many of our current issues are due to us only having two parties.
Many citizens in the state of Colorado are likely interested in environmental issues, but may not be pacifists, or fans of a big, federal government, or unions. Well, tough luck. If you’re primary concern is the environment you’ve got to vote for Democrats and you get all that other stuff with it, whether you want it, or not. You may be a fiscal conservative, limited government advocate, but libertarian regarding social issues. Well, too bad. If fiscal issues are your primary concern you’ve got to elect Republicans and that means you get the religious right thrown in at no extra cost.
Imagine a Congress with green party congresspeople, and christian democrats, and labor party congresspeople and fiscal conservatives and strict constitutionalists and pacifists and isolationists… They’d all have to form coalitions based on the issue at hand. Politics makes for strange bedfellows. Today most issues split sharply down party lines. Maybe we need more coalitions and some stranger bedfellows?
I’m going to agree with you. A nascent third party would render one of the two major parties meaningless – the Perot-ization of the vote, if you will. Maybe down the line more parties would lead to less polarization along the aisle, but getting to that point would be way too painful and the political costs too high. Conservatives have for years lamented Perot for the outcome in 1992. I keep waiting for some crazed DU poster to off Ralph Nader. Not to mention, places like Italy and otherwise have quite a multitudinous system and the government barely functions, which depending on your view may be a feature instead of a bug.
One of the reasons the Libertarians seemed like a viable option back in the ’80s was because they talked about how they were going to get local candidates elected. How they were more than one guy at the top running an ego trip (think Buchannan, Perot, Nader, Anderson, Wallace, etc.) But except for a couple of legislators in Alaska, nothing ever came to it, and then they discovered that licentiousness was more fun than economics.
Well stated at the end of the post. I am no third party fan. THe people shrieking hysterically about third partys are idiots. Why do you ask? If you mention Ross Perot and his being one of the reasons Clinton got elected twice they start spitting and snarling. I try to tell these people look, get involved with the GOP primary process and get good candidates into the General Election. Thats where the Tea Party people could be helpful. But getting them to understand that DC only has so much power and when you see a Rubio running neck and neck with the GOP hqs annointed one Charlie I Love Obama Crist that means that there is widespread support for the GOP to go back to what Reagan described as the party of bold colors, and contrast to the dull, grey Dems.
Stephanie, Raoul and JohnFN,
You all make good points, but don’t fixate on 3rd, or 4th or 5th parties as “the” problem. We need good candidates at the local level. I absolutely agree a 3rd party candidate at a high level (President, Senator) does more harm than good without a well established party base, but if your local Republican rep is a piece of sh*t, don’t vote him in just to keep the Dem out. Look at the recent race in New York. Scozzafavabeans was an awful candidate. Hoffman was a much better choice. I wouldn’t vote for Scozzafava if she were running for dog catcher. So, locally we need to vote for candidates who are going to honor State and Federal Constitutions and who believe in limited government. If the Republicans don’t catch on, and a bunch of Hoffmans come along, well, the Hoffmans will figure out how to group together and form a party to get more power.
At the Presidential level a 3rd party vote is a waste. John McCain is not really a Republican, but he’s much more of a Republican than Barack. Voting for Ron Paul would be a waste. But, at the state and municipal level back the best candidate. After a few election cycles the Republcans and Democrats will either wake up, or they’ll be pushed aside by what the people really want. Supporting pinheads like Dede Scozzafava because Newt Gingrich says so is a sure fire way to make sure nothing ever changes.
I was listening to Hugh Hewitt and realized that CA GOP elite have dubbed “moderate” (read: liberal) Republican Carly Fiorina the party rep against Boxer, while the Tea Party crowd is behind DeVore.
When Tea Party polls almost twice the GOP, I really do not understand how pushing someone the conservative – libertarian Tea Party folks would hate is a winning strategy. Do they really think they are going to win over enough “moderate” Republicans in LA & San Francisco to overcome the votes they’ll lose everywhere else? Do they think another “moderate” GOP-er is going to do anything to bring about limited gov’t?
It strikes me that the CA GOP is behaving like the popular definition of a crazy person – they keep doing the same thing over and over again, expecting a different result.
Furthermore, the CA GOP should realize that Democrat strategists are going to play the “Fiorina was fired from HP” card, whether its true or not.
Daniel,
My point exactly. We’ve got to force the Dems and Repubs to slate candidates that meet the ideals of the parties. If they don’t, we can’t just roll over and take it any more. This must change. Now. All politics as usual will get us is politics as usual. No 3rd party candidates for Pres, but we need to get Conservatives in the legislatures (State and Federal) and I don’t care what party they list after their names. Ideally, they’ll be Republicans, that’s the quickest way to consolidate power, but if they are Republicans like McCain, what’s the point?