With the clock running down and real problems emerging on the legislative front, the president is beginning to meet with key congressional Democrats representing different factions. At New York I took a shot at suggesting what he needs to get them to understand:
We have breathlessly been told by all the Beltway insider outlets that Joe Biden has summoned various congressional Democrats to the White House in hopes of saving his 2021 legislative agenda, which is on the brink of disaster thanks to the irreconcilable demands of competing factions. For once, the eternal “Democrats in disarray” narrative is accurate. On September 27, the House is scheduled to vote on the Senate-passed infrastructure bill, a vote rebellious House “centrists” extorted from Speaker Nancy Pelosi in order to get the votes for a must-pass budget resolution. They are quietly backed by rebellious Senate centrists. Multiple House progressives, who have their own cheering gallery in the Senate, are promising to kill the infrastructure bill if it comes up before the fiscal year 2022 budget reconciliation bill is enacted, which won’t happen for weeks. The one sure thing is that if this transpires, House Republicans will make certain there are not enough votes for the bill in their ranks to save it.
Biden should find some way to recycle his famous words to Obama about Obamacare.
The success or failure of the governing coalition Democrats managed to secure in 2020 (and in those two crucial Senate runoffs in 2021) is about to be determined by what happens in the next few days and weeks. If they fail, there will be no tomorrow, no Plan B. Next year will be a lot like 2010, when Democrats lost the ability to pass legislation against Republican obstruction and then got clobbered at the polls. It took them eight years to recover from that debacle. Another one could be staring them in the face.
Biden remembers that, and so do many Hill veterans. He needs to impress on them that this is no time to listen to hammerheaded pollsters or greedy donors or Twitter activists. Like it or not, Biden has defined the paired infrastructure and reconciliation bills as central to his presidential legacy and to his party’s case for maintaining power. He needs to make every Democrat tempted to sabotage either bill feel that his failure would be theirs as well, whether or not they lose their own seats in 2022, which some undoubtedly will if the Biden agenda implodes.
Obviously, the president must acknowledge and show respect for the fact that legitimate differences of opinion exist in his big-tent party. But lawmakers posturing and grandstanding in order to get a shout-out at Politico as big-time wheeler-dealers are not legitimate or worthy of respect. Biden needs to challenge congressional Democrats very directly on this: Let’s go a week without any name other than mine and Nancy’s and Chuck’s appearing in the national political media. If they are questioned about intra-Democratic negotiations, they should refuse comment, go vague, or say “watch and learn.”
Why is this important? Because the centrist-progressive (and on some issues House-Senate) dynamics are reciprocal and virtually guarantee escalation. A ceasefire in factional hostilities requires some peace and quiet.
Whether it’s centrists placing some arbitrary “cap” on the size of a reconciliation bill they can accept or progressives making their votes for reconciliation contingent on inclusion of this or that priority, the proliferation of absolute and totally irreconcilable demands is what has really brought congressional Democrats to the brink of disaster.
Biden needs to show Democrats he understands how and why this is happening: It’s mostly the result of the extremely small margin of control in both Houses — which in fact, objectively speaking, gives every senator and every group of a few House members the power to destroy their party’s agenda. In the past, if that had happened, leaders might have been able to offset intraparty hostage taking by securing votes from the opposition. That’s just not practicable in the current environment. Even on the so-called bipartisan infrastructure bill, Republicans are now making it clear they would love to see it go down to defeat and will work to produce that outcome.
But while expressing empathy for the temptations facing individual members, Biden has to insist that the public demands and threats stop right now and promise with whatever cold anger he can muster that there will be real consequences for those who go rogue at this sensitive moment. Successfully negotiating the size and shape of the reconciliation bill, for example, is going to be excruciatingly hard if the landscape is constantly shifting because Problem-Solver X or Progressive Caucus Y has laid down some personal marker through a press release or a staff leak.
With the clock running down on the endgame for the 2021 legislative saga, Biden and his closest congressional allies really need to adopt a strategy and demand universal support for it right now, even if that means some backtracking by congressional factions. If the infrastructure bill is going to be salvaged, Biden has to bluntly tell progressives the days of “linkage” between reconciliation and infrastructure are now over: The infrastructure bill will be on the House floor next week and it has to pass. But at the same time, Biden needs to tell centrists that while he and Pelosi and Schumer will listen to everyone’s point of view on reconciliation, he needs commitments of support now for the final product, and to threaten permanent ostracism by the entire federal government (within the limits of the law) for anyone who refuses to comply.
In asking Democratic factions and individual members to give up their leverage over one another, Biden will supply his own leverage to keep the party united. It’s probably the only thing, at this point, that will work. And what does the president have to lose in making some exceptional promises and threats of his own? He’s a 78-year-old man who has spent nearly a half-century putting himself in the position to enact the kind of legislative package that is at stake right now. If he loses it, his presidency will at best be hollow and short, and his party will go into the wilderness. Only he can stop that from happening.
Stay on Point-
I have to say up front I am an Obama supporter… and I keep coming on blog sites, not to root for my candidate, but to try and understand why others are not as inspired as I am. I want to understand the various reasons folks support Clinton… fear, as you outline seems to me the saddest motivation of all.
The campaign you envision, is in fact the one the Clintons have been running. Race cards, unions, sex, changing the rules, etc… Wedge issue divisiveness as practiced in Politics today is backfiring, and hurting both of the Clintons – check the recent news cycles and polls.
Worry not about the Republicans in the fall, but rather consider that the name Clinton is nearly as polarizing as the thought of a black man with the name Barrak Hussein Obama… One of the troubles with old school scorched earth politics as usual is that the loads of new voters that the recent primaries have brought in have been extremely consistent in saying what brought them out is “Change”
Clinton, and what her campaign has come to represent in a Bush-Clinton-Bush-Clinton line-up is going to be a tough sell to keeping that turn out come November.
The point of the analysis above is to point out in a subtle and statistical way is to demonstrate how the Obama campaign is rising above this out dated model to do what his campaign has promised to do from the start – and before if you remember his Key note speech – to paraphrase it, “no longer consider us a collection of red states and blue states, but the United States of America.”
In closing, don’t listen to fear and a list of things that should have nothing to do with an election – but act as a truly informed voter and listen to the man speak and decide if he stands for the country you would most hope to live in. If not, please tell me why the candidate of your choice has inspired you to believe they are best to serve as leader of our country.
I wish and hope that Obama’s net actually catches enough to win. So far, it looks like the traditional divide and conquer is doing just that.
I think McCain appeals to a lot of the same independents and disgruntled Republicans that Obama is angling for, and as long as McCain remains viable it will be hard for Obama to pull them into his net.
Below are a few points for those of you who are considering voting for Obama as the Democratic candidate to pursue the Presidency. Please read and consider these points thoroughly before casting your vote:
1. Obama is a Diversion;
2. Over the last two years, the large powerful conservative new agencies owned by influential Republicans have purposely given Obama either neutral or positive news reporting in his run for presidency, amplifying his exposure and ratings amongst Democrats;
3. The neutral/positive news reporting of Obama has split Democrats in choosing between Clinton or Obama as the Canidate to run for President;
4. The conservative news agencies and powerful Republicans politicians are trying to manipulate the Democrats to choose Obama to run for President;
5. When Obama is chosen to run for President, the conservative news agencies WILL turn on Obama by inciting (through negative reporting) the fears of Americans, and the Presidency will go to a Republican candidate;
6. Please do not be manipulated and vote for Clinton (or urge them to unite). Democrats should unite together behind Clinton or else the Republicans will literally steal the presidency.
Obama and Clinton should unite or Obama should step-down to ensure a Republican is not elected to the presidency.
This is in no way anti-Obama.(Bless you Obama for running; however unfortunate the timing, considering the above).
The point of the above is to make us Democrats aware. We dealt with very similar manipulation the last eight years (remember Karl Rove?) and need to wake up. There is much at stake to let the powerful Republican politicians manipulate our vote.
This is no means an attack on Republican citizens or Obama supporters, and much respect to you. Please consider the above points.
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