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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

Complaints from inside talk radio

I know you used to listen to a lot of talk radio T, so I thought you might be interested in this. It's about as cynical as you might expect, but the account actually comes from a guy that worked in a talk radio station...

http://www.milwaukeemagazine.com/currentIssue/full_feature_story.asp?NewMessageID=24046&pf=yes

Conservative talk show hosts would receive daily talking points e-mails from the Bush White House, the Republican National Committee and, during election years, GOP campaign operations. They’re not called talking points, but that’s what they are. I know, because I received them, too. During my time at WTMJ, Charlie would generally mine the e-mails, then couch the daily message in his own words. Midday talker Jeff Wagner would be more likely to rely on them verbatim. But neither used them in their entirety, or every single day.

Charlie and Jeff would also check what other conservative talk show hosts around the country were saying. Rush Limbaugh’s Web site was checked at least once daily. Atlanta-based nationally syndicated talker Neal Boortz was another popular choice. Select conservative blogs were also perused.

A smart talk show host will, from time to time, disagree publicly with a Republican president, the Republican Party, or some conservative doctrine. (President Bush’s disastrous choice of Harriet Miers for the Supreme Court was one such example.) But these disagreements are strategically chosen to prove the host is an independent thinker, without appreciably harming the president or party. This is not to suggest that hosts don’t genuinely disagree with the conservative line at times. They do, more often than you might think. But they usually keep it to themselves.

......
Hosts are most dangerous when someone they’ve targeted for criticism tries to return the fire. It is foolish to enter into a dispute with someone who has a 50,000-watt radio transmitter at his or her disposal and feels cornered. Oh, and calling a host names – “right-winger,” “fascist,” “radio squawker,” etc. – merely plays into his or her hands. This allows a host like Sykes to portray himself as a victim of the “left-wing spin machine,” and will leave his listeners, who also feel victimized, dying to support him. In essence, the host will mount a Hillary Rodham Clinton “vast right-wing conspiracy” attack in reverse.

A conservative emulating Hillary? Yep. A great talk show host is like a great college debater, capable of arguing either side of any issue in a logical, thorough and convincing manner. This skill ensures their continuing success regardless of which political party is in power. For example:

• In the talk show world, the line-item veto was the most effective way to control government spending when Ronald Reagan was president; it was a violation of the separation of powers after President Clinton took office.

• Perjury was a heinous crime when Clinton was accused of lying under oath about his extramarital activities. But when Scooter Libby, Vice President Dick Cheney’s top aide, was charged with lying under oath, it was the prosecutor who had committed an egregious act by charging Libby with perjury.

• "Activist judges" are the scourge of the earth when they rule it is unconstitutional to deny same-sex couples the rights heterosexuals receive. But judicial activism is needed to stop the husband of a woman in a persistent vegetative state – say Terri Schiavo – from removing her feeding tube to end her suffering.

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Thanks, A - very interesting. I wish the author could have commented on the talk radio industry in general, instead of focusing on the specific habits of Sykes, which may or may not be representative. He said that wealthy, educated people also listen to that kind of radio, so I was curious if he had any demographics data. But just so people don't get the wrong idea about me; I do not and never did enjoy talk radio. It was my landlady who was an avid right-wing talk radio listener (KSFO 560 AM Bay Area), and I just rented a room in her house during grad school, so therefore I was subjected to it during dinnertime.

Yeah, it reminds me a lot of the "Outfoxed" documentary about FNC by Robert Greenwald. It's pure Goebbels stuff, and yeah it works. That's why it really dismays me when liberals try to replicate the recipe on their side of the ideological spectrum (Olberman, Al Franken, etc.) because they think it will help their cause. It's not about truth, it's about winning. And it makes them sound dumb, partisan, and sometimes hateful. Electing Obama (who had quite a bit of conservative and independent support) was maybe a referrendum on that type of poisonous politics. How about "common sense" radio instead, with multiple viewpoints and complexities? I mean, in principle the Capitol Gang or Hannity & Colmes is a good idea, if the rhetoric and guests actually had fair representation. Maybe America can't handle complex? Well, I'd prefer that the media confuse rather than manipulate. A lot of the problems out there are confusing, and maybe it's better to admit that we don't know instead of deceiving yourself and others that you have it all figured out? This applies doubly for politicians. As we've seen during the Bush years, ignorant confidence (spun as "decisive") can be much more damaging than hesistance or flip-flopping.

But I think many Americans are tired of these guy/gals who just get ANGRY about every little thing and spout off OPINIONS all day, with very little data or perspective to support their arguments. It's especially hypocritical for moral-religious arguments, since many of their personal lives are a wreck. I mean, I guess I do that too in this email discussion group (of which I am unfortunately 90% of the total activity), but at least I try to acknowledge other views, and inject a graph or statistic every now and then. :) Those radio hosts tick me off because they think they're right all the time, and display extreme complacent ignorance. So what they admit they don't understand, they ridicule as unimportant, pansy crap. It's almost a quality to be unsophisticated about certain matters, like pronouncing Iraq correctly (much less Ahmadinejad). Maybe this is part of the culture war? So how can anyone have sociopolitics all figured out and neatly wrapped in a conservative world-view bow? Especially when half of them have very weak journalistic credentials, narrow backgrounds, and no public policy experience. If the world was really that simple and obvious, we wouldn't need them to tell us. Or is it the liberal media that are filling our heads with lies? And as you said, clearly their views are malleable if judicial activism and line-item vetos can morph from bad to good depending on which party is in power. And that is precisely my point: things can be both "bad" and "good" depending on the circumstances. There are times when Kim Jong Il was a good leader (very few times I'm sure) and times when the US was the biggest war criminal on the planet. There are times when Democrats started un-necessary wars and hooked up big business, while Republicans risked their careers for the environment, diplomacy, and civil rights.

It's also hilarious when those radio hosts have feuds with each other. I mean, they are big egomaniacs competing for attention from the same audience, right? I can't find any web examples now, but I do remember Rush dissing O'Reilly's program and whatnot, circa 2004. So if they are in competition, they gain an advantage by shocking the most people and getting the most buzz. That's why Ann Coulter is such a genius (and a bitch of course). It doesn't matter how offensive and evil she gets; some people will eat it up and ultimately it will benefit her more than the commentator who was less controversial.

I do know what the author meant about caller screening. If they did allow a disagreeing or liberal person on KSFO talk shows, they picked such an incoherent wacko that he or she made the host's point for them. You know, the kind of people who think that Bush orchestrated 9/11 and the oil companies are running our Mideast wars (well, that one might be semi-true!). And how can you have a respectable debate with someone if you have the power to cut them off whenever you want, and deliver your rebuttal unopposed thereafter? Plus you have your army of lackeys to dig around the web, and formulate a great counterpunch to burn your opponent, airing on tomorrow's program.

It is strange how these radio hosts can reel in so many sympathetic listeners just by making them feel like victims. The peak of my KSFO listening came during the nasty illegal immigration debates. As you would expect, illegals were blamed for everything but the kitchen sink leaking (in fact, they are the ones who fix your leaky sink). There are plenty of things to criticize about illegal immigration, so why go overboard and get personal? How many Americans have been directly negatively affected by illegal immigration? And how many of those are talk radio listeners? It must be less than 5%. The wealthy doctors and businessmen - why are they victims of anything? Sure it sucks to pay a lot of income tax, but it's better than applying for food stamps. There is like this total lack of empathy for others and a victim complex for oneself, which is one of the things I detest most about "the American mentality". Some people are never thankful of what they have (especially compared to the less fortunate), yet always want to blame others for the things they think they don't have, but deserve. They maybe make the world out to be a zero-sum game where they're the only honest chaps left, and everyone else freeloads or steal sfrom them. Well, I could go off here on xenophobia and egocentrism, but I better not.

Knowing some elderly conservatives, I do understand how they feel that the mythologized "perfect America" of the Greatest Generation is "under attack" now and eroding before their eyes. Ironically, progressives say the same thing, though blame different causes of course. They love America, it's theirs, and they don't want it to lose its luster. That makes sense, but how do you go about that daunting task? Some things that made America great 50 years ago are still here, but others may not be available for many of us in the 21st Century. The world is changing and we are too, somewhat for the better and somewhat for the worse. That is nothing new for any state. I guess fundamentally, conservatism is about clinging to the traditional. I am not against that view (and in fact share it sometimes on certain issues like family and consumption), but we have to leave some wiggle room. All traditions started out as a new practice, and survival means change. France has had at least 5 revolutions since ours, while Mugabe keeps extending his presidency. China has adopted a market economy, while the Soviets degenerated into Third World status.