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2009-12-01 12:59:07
John F. Harris Mon Nov 30, 5:45 am ET
Presidential politics is about storytelling. Presented with a vivid storyline,
voters naturally tend to fit every new event or piece of information into a
picture that is already neatly framed in their minds.
No one understands this better than Barack Obama and his team, who won the 2008
election in part because they were better storytellers than the opposition. The
pro-Obama narrative featured an almost mystically talented young idealist who
stood for change in a disciplined and thoughtful way. This easily outpowered
the anti-Obama narrative, featuring an opportunistic Chicago pol with dubious
relationships who was more liberal than he was letting on.
A year into his presidency, however, Obama s gift for controlling his image
shows signs of faltering. As Washington returns to work from the Thanksgiving
holiday, there are several anti-Obama storylines gaining momentum.
The Obama White House argues that all of these storylines are inaccurate or
unfair. In some cases these anti-Obama narratives are fanned by Republicans, in
some cases by reporters and commentators.
But they all are serious threats to Obama, if they gain enough currency to
become the dominant frame through which people interpret the president s
actions and motives.
Here are seven storylines Obama needs to worry about:
He thinks he s playing with Monopoly money
Economists and business leaders from across the ideological spectrum were
urging the new president on last winter when he signed onto more than a
trillion in stimulus spending and bank and auto bailouts during his first weeks
in office. Many, though far from all, of these same people now agree that these
actions helped avert an even worse financial catastrophe.
Along the way, however, it is clear Obama underestimated the political
consequences that flow from the perception that he is a profligate spender. He
also misjudged the anger in middle America about bailouts with weak and
sporadic public explanations of why he believed they were necessary.
The flight of independents away from Democrats last summer the trend that
recently hammered Democrats in off-year elections in Virginia coincided with
what polls show was alarm among these voters about undisciplined big government
and runaway spending. The likely passage of a health care reform package
criticized as weak on cost-control will compound the problem.
Obama understands the political peril, and his team is signaling that he will
use the 2010 State of the Union address to emphasize fiscal discipline. The
political challenge, however, is an even bigger substantive challenge since the
most convincing way to project fiscal discipline would be actually to impose
spending reductions that would cramp his own agenda and that of congressional
Democrats.
Too much Leonard Nimoy
People used to make fun of Bill Clinton s misty-eyed, raspy-voiced claims that,
I feel your pain.
The reality, however, is that Clinton s dozen years as governor before becoming
president really did leave him with a vivid sense of the concrete human
dimensions of policy. He did not view programs as abstractions he viewed them
in terms of actual people he knew by name.
Obama, a legislator and law professor, is fluent in describing the nuances of
problems. But his intellectuality has contributed to a growing critique that
decisions are detached from rock-bottom principles.
Both Maureen Dowd in The New York Times and Joel Achenbach of The Washington
Post have likened him to Star Trek s Mr. Spock.
The Spock imagery has been especially strong during the extended review Obama
has undertaken of Afghanistan policy. He ll announce the results on Tuesday.
The speech s success will be judged not only on the logic of the presentation
but on whether Obama communicates in a more visceral way what progress looks
like and why it is worth achieving. No soldier wants to take a bullet in the
name of nuance.
That s the Chicago Way
This is a storyline that s likely taken root more firmly in Washington than
around the country. The rap is that his West Wing is dominated by
brass-knuckled pols.
It does not help that many West Wing aides seem to relish an image of
themselves as shrewd, brass-knuckled political types. In a Washington Post
story this month, White House deputy chief of staff Jim Messina, referring to
most of Obama s team, said, We are all campaign hacks.
The problem is that many voters took Obama seriously in 2008 when he talked
about wanting to create a more reasoned, non-partisan style of governance in
Washington. When Republicans showed scant interest in cooperating with Obama at
the start, the Obama West Wing gladly reverted to campaign hack mode.
The examples of Chicago-style politics include their delight in public battles
with Rush Limbaugh and Fox News and the U.S. Chamber of Commerce. (There was
also a semi-public campaign of leaks aimed at Greg Craig, the White House
counsel who fell out of favor.) In private, the Obama team cut an early deal
to the distaste of many congressional Democrats that gave favorable terms to
the pharmaceutical lobby in exchange for their backing his health care plans.
The lesson that many Washington insiders have drawn is that Obama wants to buy
off the people he can and bowl over those he can t. If that perception spreads
beyond Washington this will scuff Obama s brand as a new style of political
leader.
He s a pushover
If you are going to be known as a fighter, you might as well reap the benefits.
But some of the same insider circles that are starting to view Obama as a bully
are also starting to whisper that he s a patsy.
It seems a bit contradictory, to be sure. But it s a perception that began when
Obama several times laid down lines then let people cross them with seeming
impunity. Last summer he told Democrats they better not go home for recess
until a critical health care vote but they blew him off. He told the Israeli
government he wanted a freeze in settlements but no one took him seriously.
Even Fox News which his aides prominently said should not be treated like a
real news organization then got interview time for its White House
correspondent.
In truth, most of these episodes do not amount to much. But this unflattering
storyline would take a more serious turn if Obama is seen as unable to deliver
on his stern warnings in the escalating conflict with Iran over its nuclear
program.
He sees America as another pleasant country on the U.N. roll call, somewhere
between Albania and Zimbabwe
That line belonged to George H.W. Bush, excoriating Democrat Michael Dukakis in
1988. But it highlights a continuing reality: In presidential politics the safe
ground has always been to be an American exceptionalist.
Politicians of both parties have embraced the idea that this country because
of its power and/or the hand of Providence should be a singular force in the
world. It would be hugely unwelcome for Obama if the perception took root that
he is comfortable with a relative decline in U.S. influence or position in the
world.
On this score, the reviews of Obama s recent Asia trip were harsh.
His peculiar bow to the emperor of Japan was symbolic. But his lots-of-velvet,
not-much-iron approach to China had substantive implications.
On the left, the budding storyline is that Obama has retreated from human
rights in the name of cynical realism. On the right, it is that he is more
interested in being President of the World than President of the United States,
a critique that will be heard more in December as he stops in Oslo to pick up
his Nobel Prize and then in Copenhagen for an international summit on curbing
greenhouse gases.
President Pelosi
No figure in Barack Obama s Washington, including Obama, has had more success
in advancing his will than the speaker of the House, despite public approval
ratings that hover in the range of Dick Cheney s. With a mix of tough party
discipline and shrewd vote-counting, she passed a version of the stimulus bill
largely written by congressional Democrats, passed climate legislation, and
passed her chamber s version of health care reform. She and anti-war liberals
in her caucus are clearly affecting the White House s Afghanistan calculations.
The great hazard for Obama is if Republicans or journalists conclude as some
already have that Pelosi s achievements are more impressive than Obama s or
come at his expense.
This conclusion seems premature, especially with the final chapter of the
health care drama yet to be written.
But it is clear that Obama has allowed the speaker to become more nearly an
equal and far from a subordinate than many of his predecessors of both
parties would have thought wise.
He s in love with the man in the mirror
No one becomes president without a fair share of what the French call amour
propre. Does Obama have more than his share of self-regard?
It s a common theme of Washington buzz that Obama is over-exposed. He gives
interviews on his sports obsessions to ESPN, cracks wise with Leno and
Letterman, discusses his fitness with Men s Health, discusses his marriage in a
joint interview with first lady Michelle Obama for The New York Times. A photo
the other day caught him leaving the White House clutching a copy of GQ
featuring himself.
White House aides say making Obama widely available is the right strategy for
communicating with Americans in an era of highly fragmented media.
But, as the novelty of a new president wears off, the Obama cult of personality
risks coming off as mere vanity unless it is harnessed to tangible
achievements.
That is why the next couple of months with health care and Afghanistan
jostling at center stage will likely carry a long echo. Obama s best hope of
nipping bad storylines is to replace them with good ones rooted in public
perceptions of his effectiveness.