Obama's prospects in 2012

1 - I'm much less sanguine about BO's reelection prospects.  In March 2009 he had a choice of how to pursue recovery, and he explicitly decided to side with the banks.  The bet he made was that he could help them out, keep them happy, and that rest of the economy would right itself in time for the 2012 election.  He could eat his cake and have it too.  So rather than making real structural reform of finance, he decided to continue to bail them out both with money and with regulatory "forbearance" (which is to say, not enforcing the law).  He and his advisers talked up the "recovery," the Fed helped reinflate asset prices, and he basically played a big game of "extend and pretend," trying to keep things roughly stable until they would eventually heal on their own.

And over the last 6 months he's doubled-down on that bet, letting the GOP define the economic discussion as being about the deficit.  He's pivoted away from focusing on job growth and instead is focused on deficit reduction and austerity.

It's not at all clear this bet will pay off.  The recession has been substantially longer than he or his advisers anticipated, and it's looking far more fragile.  There's been some small economic growth, but unemployment is still up (and the decreases that have come are because people are leaving the workforce, not because jobs are being added faster than population growth) and the numbers from April and May are looking pretty bad.  There are big risks on the horizon: the Euro crisis, the risk of another Arab uprising blowing up oil prices again, banks' various frauds finally getting a little bit of investigation.  And if you think deficit reduction and fiscal austerity will help this, take a look at how that's working for Lithuania, the UK, Greece, Ireland ... yeah.

If the economy is still in the toilet, if unemployment is over 9-10%, Americans may well blame it on BO.

2 - On uprisings.

There actually has been a fair bit of pushback in this country.  The Tea Party is ... well, yeah.  But it's a big populist movement, grown angry at the rule of elites and oligarchs, and pushing back against that.  Their specific suggestions are pretty strange, as is often the case with populist movements, and their energy has largely been co-opted by the existing oligarchic power structure on the right.  But it's still a clear case of the people at the bottom getting together to push for ... something.

I think it's worthwhile to think about why there isn't a similar movement on the left.  Honestly, I think it's because BO took that energy and hope and desire for change, rode it to DC, and then promptly sold out to the existing power structure.  And he's done an incredible job of selling the left on this notion that he's been trying hard, but been stymied at every turn.  The guy is clearly very smart and knows that he has the ability to motivate popular support for issues that are important to him by appealing directly to the people.  If he wanted to push through a real liberal agenda, he would have.  He hasn't, and it's because he doesn't actually want to.  He wants to sound like he's trying while he plays the "extend and pretend" game for the existing power structure.  And by doing that he's effectively emasculated any attempt at real change from the left.

-------

Thanks J and very interesting thoughts: "[Obama] wants to sound like he's trying [to enact change] while he plays the 'extend and pretend' game for the existing power structure." It makes me want to cry when I think about BO's record and how true that seems.

Yeah I guess if Scott Brown and Michelle Bachman got elected mostly out of voter backlash for the Dems, anything can happen to BO in 2012. But at least the birther question and other BS have mostly been put to rest, so I doubt Obama will get swift-boated by a non-issue. As you said, it will boil down to unemployment and GDP growth. I agree with your recounting of economic events under BO, but for Americans who are upset at our lack of progress, there's only so much a president can do. BO can't force the banks to lend and firms to hire, even as they're rolling in cash waiting for good opportunities. A president can't control what crazy stuff happened in the European financial world, nor events like the Arab Spring and tsunami (both of which seriously affected global markets and business confidence). And a president definitely can't force Congress to enact real financial reforms or whatnot. The merits of his various corporate rescues is another big discussion, but at least BO got some stimulus passed in his first year before Congress seized up.

But I agree that the facts suggest BO consciously avoided taking liberal causes "to the streets" and rally popular support. This was supposed to be a turning point for America! Some groups have analyzed BO's voting record during his time in the Senate, and ranked him as part of the top 10 most liberal senators. But that is probably a deceptive/simplistic conclusion, and many commentators would feel that BO is more centrist than Hillary. The US left deceived itself if it thought that BO would be their liberal activist. But there are some important non-partisan and economy-critical issues like infrastructure spending, education, and trade that he didn't spend much time on, or just continued the Bush rhetoric. Health care ate up a lot of his attention, and now it's the deficit. I think BO is plagued by too much pollster advice and a desire for bipartisan accord. Many little birds are chirping in his ears, some high-level people have resigned from his admin., and maybe he's drowning in conflicting views (that's just a fact of modern politics). He wants to please people and he wants people to like him, but he should have known from Day 1 that he had a target on his back. Ironically, he just hasn't shown that much leadership and audacity.

The buck stops with him and I can understand if voters partially blame him for a weak or illusory recovery. But what the heck would McCain/Palin have done that would have been any better for the people? His economic team was pretty much Bushies, right? I just don't know if BO has "ruined" the nation so badly (as the GOP claim) to warrant a regime change. I don't think the GOP candidates have described any policies that would show real improvements over BO's (but of course there is a ton of campaign left). While I am fairly disappointed in BO's record, I don't see a better alternative. But angry centrist voters struggling to make ends meet may feel differently.

Re: the Tea Party, I have to disagree that it is a grassroots effort. As we've emailed about in the past, it is mostly funded and organized by big business Libertarians (and fueled by big business right wing media "outrage"). Sure the local events and rallies are populist, but it's definitely not Tunisia. Heck let's be honest, most revolts since the Colonial Era were not truly populist, but led by educated elites who saw an opportunity to topple the group in power. They just offered the poor masses enough rhetoric and promises for them to follow. Sadly, the European fascists may have been the most populist uprisings in recent history.

I also hate to say this, but I think the Tea Party is more about racism than people want to admit. If Biden or Hillary were in charge, I don't think we'd see this level of angry mobilization. Maybe with Hillary, since she is a female and her name carries a lot of baggage from '90s politics. Some people find it easy to blame all of America's problems on a Kenyan socialist and his evil conspiracy network. Seeing a proud, successful black couple on TV all the time, getting the glitz and glory, can make some people's blood boil.

And you brought up a very perplexing point - where is the liberal Tea Party equivalent? They weren't even visible during the worst of the Bush years. There was the anti-war crowd, the gay movement, the greens, etc., but there wasn't a cohesive, enthusiastic movement to "take back America" and restore our values/prestige from a bad leader. Maybe the liberal message/narrative is too fragmented and complex compared to the Tea Party's. Well, the left doesn't have the benefits of strong media channels, huge funding, and outspoken personalities (it seems like ultra-left politicians and commentators are dismissed as quacks, yet Beck and Palin are somehow god's truth?).

I guess the swelling liberal energy was all harnessed by the BO campaign as you said, but disappointment after disappointment since 2008 has caused it to dissipate. I think church and small business groups are major pillars of the Tea Party, and the liberals don't have anything equivalent. They have women, gays, students, urban poor, and minorities, who happen to be the least powerful in our society. They had the labor movement, but it's been so maligned in the mainstream press, and clearly you can see it's part of the right wing agenda to exterminate it. The left can't really criticize the churches and business groups (even though there's plenty to talk about), because that would be seen as un-American heresy. This is a big problem for the future of the Dems, which is probably why they are covertly turning to big business to support them instead. The days of the FDR or LBJ Dem Party are long gone.

--------

there is a leftist movement in this country.  it just doesn't have the corporate backing like the tea party.  what about the people who rallied for the release or at least trial for bradley manning?  how about the people that were beaten and arrested at that rally?

what about the rally i went to yesterday called for by lynn woolsey calling for the end of these 5 wars? couple of hundred there.

what about the people who've marched on wall street, regularly? 

How about the arresting of Chris Hedges and several Iraqi vets a couple of weeks ago for chaining themselves to the white house fence?

What about wisconsin and all the other state houses that had huge rallies when their governors starting placing blame for the bad economy on unions?

They just don't get media attention.  but there are plenty on the left outraged at both BO and republicans.

-------

Thanks for reminding us, L. Yes I agree about the deliberate lack of media attention and I know people are protesting in many places. But let's be honest, the protests are restricted to about 10 states (and mostly CA/NY). If the GOP didn't declare war on unions, all of those Midwest people would have stayed home. But their survival was on the line, so they rose up. If we lived in KS or AK, we wouldn't find a trace of liberal activity.

The Tea Party is in every single US state, and even has de facto reps in Congress. Sure the left has Bernie Sanders (and used to have Kucinich), but the TP has the spotlight now (because there is more energy in their movement, and it aligns with corporate media interests). The traditional GOP is scared of the TP, and they will factor into who wins the nomination. Centrist Dems barely pay attention to the left. And on the liberal front, the anti-war folks don't talk to or support the gays, and the greens don't have much in common with the immigration reformers. We don't have a cohesive, unified, organized network. There's plenty of money with the Sierra Club, Amnesty Int'l, MoveOn, Soros, etc. but they're not joining forces because their agendas don't overlap (at least not in present form). Dems have never been good at team play. Sure the TP benefits from corporate support and almost has a franchised structure (and yes, I know the TP is also very diverse and fragmented), but they generally share a common (if unrealistic) goal: reduce gov't and make America more like Reagan's vision. They don't have much of a clue how to get there (lawfully) and how to fix our current problems, but they're united in their distaste for Washington and desire to clean house. We can't really say that for the left since BO took office. 

It's tough because a lot of the left's argument is empirical and not rhetorical. Climate change, social programs, civil rights, and such are complex issues involving data and statistics that can't be summed up on a bumper sticker. All the TP needs to do is draw a Hitler mustache on Obama or coin some phrase like "death panels", and people get the gist of it. The TP is checkers and the left is chess, but checkers is more fun for the everyday guy. Some people say that leftist snobs who dismiss the TP do so at their own peril, but right now I'm comfortable saying that they're not at the level of Bill Buckley. Seriously, they're more like the European fascists without the racial agenda (which is both a compliment to their populism/propaganda and a caution for what they may become). But regardless the TP is a "party", while the liberals haven't come together yet.