Obama the Compromiser

[SingingMongoose]

So, it's been said on this board that Obama would make a bad president because he wouldn't "compromise." I thought I would re-read a January 2007 Harper's Magazine article by Ken Silverstein, and relate to you all what bits of it I found interesting.

In mid-September [of 2006], Congress approved a bill he co-authored with Oklahoma's arch-conservative senator, Tom Coburn...

I wonder if stubborn radicalism is part of Obama's strategy...

Obama said that the "blogger community," which by now is shorthand for liberal Democrats, gets frustrated with him because they think he's too willing to compromise with Republicans. "My argument," he says, "is that a polarized electorate plays to the advantage of those who want to dismantle government. Karl Rove can afford to win with 51 percent of the vote. They're not trying to reform health care. They are content with an electorate that is cynical about government. Progressives have a harder job. They need a big enough majority to initiate bold proposals."

There's a perception on these boards that Obama is coming at things from the angle of socialism. What does lobbyist Mike Williams, vice president for legislative affairs at The Bond Market Association, have to say?

"A big issue for us since 2000 is predatory lending. He worked on that issue in Illinois; he was the lead sponsor of a bill there. I talked to him about that. He had a different position from ours. There's a perception out there that the Democrats are anti-business, and I talked to him about that directly. I said, 'There's a perception that you're coming at this from the angle of consumers.' He was forthright, which I appreciated. He said, 'I tried to broker the best deal I could.'" Williams still had his differences with Obama, but the conversation convinced him that the two could work together.

Robert Harmala's impression of Obama came after being invited to see him speak by Lockheed Martin lobbyist Larry Duncan. Did Harmala find Obama to be a particularly stubborn pinko?

"There's a reasonableness about him," he said. "I don't see him as being on the liberal fringe. He's not going to be a parrot for the party line."

You know, I've been wondering how inexperienced Obama has so handily out- fund-raised Clinton. Is it only electoral momentum?

In one of his earliest votes, Obama joined a bloc of mostly conservative and moderate Democrats who helped pass a G.O.P.-driven class-action "reform" bill. The bill had been long sought by a coalition of business groups and was lobbied for aggressively by financial firms, which constitute Obama's second-biggest single bloc of donors.

Can Mike Williams enlighten us again?

Although the Bond Market Association didn't lobby directly for the legislation, Williams took note of Obama's vote. "He's a Democrat, and some people thought he'd do whatever trial lawyers wanted, but he didn't do that," he said. "That's a testament to his character." Obama has voted on one bill that was of keen interest to William's members: last year's hotly contested bankruptcy bill, which made filing for bankruptcy more difficult and gives creditors more recourse to recover debts. Obama voted against the bill, but Williams was pleased that he did side with The Bond Market Association position on a number of provisions. Most were minor technical matters, but he also opposed an important amendment, which was defeated, that would have capped credit-card interest rates at 30 percent. "He studied the issue," Williams said. "Some assumed he would just go along with consumer advocates, but he voted with us on several points. He understood the issue. He wasn't close-minded. A lot of people found that very refreshing."

I wonder what kind of Democrats Obama tends to endorse?

Most conspicuously, Obama backed Joe Lieberman over Ned Lamont, his Democratic primary opponent in Connecticut, endorsing him publicly in March and contributing $4,200 to his campaign. The Hope-fund also gave $10,000 to Tammy Duckworth, a helicopter pilot in the National Guard who lost both legs in Iraq and who is running for the seat of retiring G.O.P. Congressman Henry Hyde in Chicago's western suburbs. Despite her support from the party-establishment, an enormous fund-raising advantage, and sympathy she had due to her war record, Duckworth won the primary by just 1,100 votes over a vocal war opponent named Christine Cegelis. (When asked about her stand on the Iraq war by a reporter, Duckworth had replied, "There is good and bad in everything.")

I should note that Ken Silverstein was writing for Harper's Magazine, which is about as liberal as it gets for hifalutin east-coast magazines. I wonder what he thinks of Obama?

I recall a remark made by Suds Terkel in 1980, about the liberal Republican John Anderson, who was running as an independent against Ronald Reagan and Jimmy Carter: "People are so tired of dealing with two-foot midgets, you give them someone two foot four and they start proclaiming him a giant." In the unstinting and unanimous adulation of Barack Obama today, one wonders if a similar dynamic might be at work. If so, his is less a midgetry of character than one dictated by changing context.

Changing context, you say? Will it enlighten us regarding comparisons made between Obama and past figures, such as Jimmy Carter or George McGovern?

Gone are the days when, as in the 1970s, the U.S. Senate could comfortably house such men as Fred Harris (from Oklahoma, of all places), who called for the breakup of the oil, steel, and auto industries; as Wisconsin's William Proxmire, who replaced Joe McCarthy in 1957 and survived into the 1980s, a crusader against big banks who neither spent nor raised campaign money; as South Dakota's George McGovern, who favored huge cuts in defense spending and a guaranteed income for all Americans; as Frank Church of Idaho, who led important investigations into CIA and FBI abuses.

Today, money has all but wrung such dissent from the Senate. Campaigns have grown increasingly costly; in 2004 it took an average of more than $7 million to run for a Senate seat. As Carl Wagner, a Democratic political strategist who first came to Washington in 1970 remarked to me, the Senate today is a fundamentally different institution than it was then. "Senators were creatures of their states and reflected the cultures of their states," he said. "Today they are creatures of the people who pay for their multimillion-dollar advertising campaigns. Representative democracy has largely been taken off the table. It's reminiscent of the 1880s and 1890s, when senators were chosen by state legislatures who were owned by the railroads and the banks."

Well, that's his opinion, I guess.

 

[rayboyusmc]

Please don't post factual data. I confuses the other side.

The Swiftboater crowd will continue to put out as much crap as they can no matter that it is true or relates to Obama's ability to be a real president.

 

[Gunny]

Please don't post factual data. I confuses the other side.

The Swiftboater crowd will continue to put out as much crap as they can no matter that it is true or relates to Obama's ability to be a real president.

I'm just about to put that lameass "swiftboater" bullshit in the word filter. That's the best you got is some lame accusation based on no real truth?

It doesn't matter what Obama thinks, nor what any of you sheep want to tell yourselves he is going to do. He will either conform to the bureaucracy of get chewed up and spit out. It's all boils down to "Can he represent the machine?"

But you keep thinking junior is going to make a difference. Ought to give you some peaceful nights sleep.

 

[rayboyusmc]

Please explain why the word Swiftboater is not relevant, Gunny. The actions by the right in this case created a whole new word. They will try and do the same thing to Obama. The flag lapel is just a beginning.

Somehow, it made it seem like a little rich boy who got into the guard by special intervention was a better patriot than a rich boy who went to Vietnam, got three purple hearts and a silver star.

Now that is really effective classis spin bullshit and should be remembered. Atwater would have been proud of that before he got cancer.

You don't like people to bring up this stuff because it happened in the past? What hasn't?

 

[Annie]

Please explain why the word Swiftboater is not relevant, Gunny. The actions by the right in this case created a whole new word. They will try and do the same thing to Obama. The flag lapel is just a beginning.

Somehow, it made it seem like a little rich boy who got into the guard by special intervention was a better patriot than a rich boy who went to Vietnam, got three purple hearts and a silver star.

Now that is really effective classis spin bullshit and should be remembered. Atwater would have been proud of that before he got cancer.

You don't like people to bring up this stuff because it happened in the past? What hasn't?

Seems the Swiftboat Vets were pretty non-partisan, just anti-Kerry. You have different, please post.

 

[rayboyusmc]

The Swift Boat Veterans for Truth got plenty of press nationally in broadcast news stories, but there were other Swift Boat Veterans who disagreed with them. In fact all but one of the Swift Boat Veterans who had served under the direct command of Kerry, and had spoken out, vigorously defended Kerry's Vietnam record.

I would put more faith in those who served directly with the man, than those who didn't. Only one disagreed, hmmm. Maybe he was the only honest one?

Kerry screwed up by not coming right back in their face. He blew it and now we have the wonderful economy, war, etc from his majesty, George.

Again, you compare the patriotism of a man who hid out in Alabama to one who actually went to Vietnam and served in combat. That is how partisan our politics have become.

 

[Annie]

I would put more faith in those who served directly with the man, than those who didn't. Only one disagreed, hmmm. Maybe he was the only honest one?

Kerry screwed up by not coming right back in their face. He blew it and now we have the wonderful economy, war, etc from his majesty, George.

Again, you compare the patriotism of a man who hid out in Alabama to one who actually went to Vietnam and served in combat. That is how partisan our politics have become.

All but one, you WOULD think that he was the ONLY one truth telling. My god man, you are unbelievable.

 

[rayboyusmc]

[QUOTEAll but one, you WOULD think that he was the ONLY one truth telling. My god man, you are unbelievable.][/QUOTE]

That was sarcasm, Kathy. He was the only one denigrating Kerry. The rest of Kerry's crew, backed him up.

So if one says Kerry was bad and all the rest of his crew say that ain't so, maybe the Swiftboaters were a bunch of partisan hacks.

 

[SingingMongoose]

That's the best you got is some lame accusation based on no real truth?

Oh Gunny, you're truly a master of the ironic double-entendre.

It doesn't matter what Obama thinks, nor what any of you sheep want to tell yourselves he is going to do. He will either conform to the bureaucracy of get chewed up and spit out. It's all boils down to "Can he represent the machine?"

I think the essential point of Ken Silverstein's original article was that Obama has conformed to the machine, albeit a corporate one. I'm merely disputing the downright goofy claim that he's a stubborn radical.

Seems the Swiftboat Vets were pretty non-partisan, just anti-Kerry.

The only non-partisan swift boat vets weren't a part of that organization. Did you know that John P. O'Neill (one of the group's founders) was originally hired in 1971 by Nixon aide Charles Colson? Were you aware that their media contact, Merrie Spaeth, was a well-known Republican activist and former director of Reagan's Office of Media Liason? Perhaps you've heard that Gannon International (a major Republican donor), whose president and vice president were swift boat vets, was the company under whose name the swift boat site was registered?