FRIDAY, DECEMBER 17, 2010
KLMNO
K EZ SU Washington FORUM
Has Obama forgotten his roots?
BY SAMGRAHAM-FELSEN I
n the wake of President Obama’s deal to extend the Bush tax cuts to thewealthiest Americans, pundits have focused on how
Obama has alienated the left. But the issue isn’t the left—it’s the list. Obama entered the White House with
more than a landslide victory over Sen. John McCain.He broughtwith hima vast network of supporters, instantly reachable through an unprecedented e-mail list of 13 million peo- ple. These supporters were not just left-wing activists but a broad coalition that included the young, African Americans, independents and evenRepublicans—and theywere ready to bemobilized. I worked as Obama’s chief blogger during
his presidential campaign, and my primary focuswas telling the stories of these support- ers, many of whom had never been engaged in politics or were reengaging after years of
disillusionment.Therewas a commonthread in my conversations with the hundreds of people who gave time, sweat and small donations — that amounted to $500 million —toObama’s campaign. Theywere inspired byObama’s promise to
upend Washington by governing from the bottom up. “The change we need doesn’t come from Washington,” Obama told them. “It comes toWashington.” Yet at seemingly every turn, Obama has
chosen to play an inside game. Instead of actively engaging supporters in major legis- lative battles, Obama has told them to sit tightashemakes compromisesbehindclosed doors. During the battle over tax cuts, Obama’s
grass-roots network,Organizing forAmerica, was silent. An OFA spokesman said that the network would engage supporters when the time is “ripe.”Butmanypeople feel the time is ripe now — that tax cuts for millionaires in the midst of cuts in basic services and a spiraling deficit are unacceptable—and they don’t understandwhyObamawon’t let them fight. During the health-care battle, rather than
rallying the grass roots behind a public option — a provision Obama repeatedly supported and a clearmajority ofAmericans backed — supporters were told to voice generalizedsupport for “reform.” Inane-mail from OFA, I was asked to call my senator, Chuck Schumer, a clear champion of the health-care plan that included a public op- tion. Why not ask people to target centrist Democrats who were blocking reform, such as Max Baucus? It may have been counter- productive for me, a Brooklynite, to call a Montana senator’s office, but at the very least I could have been asked to callOFAmembers in Montana and urge them to pressure Baucus. Obama hasmade it clear that, for themost
part, his administration isn’t seriously inter- ested in deploying this massive grass-roots list—whichwas onceheraldedas a force that couldreshapepoliticsasweknowit—tofight for sweeping legislative change. It’s a shame. Inthe fewinstances that theWhiteHousehas meaningfully engaged the grass roots, OFA has shown that it has real clout. It’s possible that the health-care bill, limited though it was, would not have passed were it not for decisive action from OFA in the final hours. When OFA members were finally asked to contact other Obama supporters in key legislative districts and after congressional offices were flooded with phone calls, letters and personal visits, several of the final holdouts inCongresswere swayed to support thebill. Imagine if that aggressive,bottom-up approach had happened earlier in the pro- cess. If the White House wants to keep its
grass-roots supporters at bay during major legislative fights, that’s its choice. But there’s a larger problemlooming. Obama needs this list in 2012 — and he
needs its members to dig much deeper than inthe last
election.TheCitizensUnitedruling has allowed campaigns to become anunprec- edented corporate cash free-for-all — and Obamawill likely need to raise farmore than $500 million from the grass roots to be competitive. While Obama’s political team intensely
focuses on independents, the grass-roots list seems like an afterthought. Every time Obamachooses tocompromisebehindclosed doors, and keeps OFA quiet, he might win over a few independents. But he’s also conveying a message that the grass roots doesn’t really matter, that the bottom-up ethos of his candidacy doesn’t apply to his presidency. On Thursday, Obama and White House
staffmetwith a group ofOFAvolunteerswho presented survey data and anecdotes on the state of the grass-roots base since the mid- termelections. This is a positive sign, but the White House should move beyond ges- tures. Obama needs a senior adviser whose job is to be a liaison to the movement that elected him. This person needs to be in the room in senior-level strategy meetings, ask- ing: How is this going to impact the list? What message will this send to the grass roots? Obama needs twice as much grass-roots
support in the next election — and he’s not going to get it by sidelining his supporters. If he continues to play politics as usual,Obama risks alienating not just the left but anyone who believed in the promise of bringing change toWashington.
The writer is a newmedia consultant and freelance writer based in Brooklyn, N.Y.
EVAN VUCCI/ASSOCIATED PRESS President Obama pauses during his statement on the tax-cut billMonday. MICHAELGERSON Why all the blunders? T
he tax deal is reasonable policy, support- ed by majorities of Republicans, Demo- crats and independents—an easy sell by
presidential standards. And still President Obama managed to blow the politics of the thing. Rather than explaining the economic bene-
fits of the bill and taking quiet credit for a moment of bipartisanship, Obama launched into an assault on partners and opponents. Republicans are “hostage-takers”whoworship the “Holy Grail” of trickle-down economics. Liberal opponents are “sanctimonious,”prefer- ringtheirownpuritytotheinterestsofthepoor. The president did not just attack the policy positions of nearly everyone in the political class.Hepubliclyquestionedtheirmotives. It isdifficult toimaginethepresident’sadvis-
ers sitting in the Oval Office and urging this approach: “Mr. President, the best course here would be to savage likely supporters of the bill and to embitter your political base. This will showjusthowprincipledyouare, incontrast to the corruption and fanaticismall around you.” There can be little doubt this communications strategywasObama’sown. It is the president’s favorite rhetorical pose:
the hectorer in chief.He is alternately defiant, defensive, exasperated, resentful, harsh, scold- ing,prickly.He is boththe smartest kidinclass andtheschoolyardbully. There aremany problemswith thismode of
presidential communication,butmainly its su- preme self-regard. The tax deal, in Obama’s presentation,wasnotabout theeconomyorthe country. It was about him. It was about the absurd concessions hewas forced tomake, the absurdoppositionhewas forcedto endure, the universally insufficient deference to his wis- dom. The administration further complicated its
communications task by presentingObama as ideologically superior to his own agreement. The upper-income tax rates and the estate tax provisions, in David Axelrod’s description, are “odious.”Asarule,staffersshouldnotusesucha wordtodescribepoliciesapresidenthasagreed to accept. It makes a president look compro- misedandweak. Insteadofaleaderbrokeringa popular agreement, Obama appears to be a politician forced under threat to violate his deepest convictions. At this point in theObama presidency, even Democratsmustbe asking: Ishe really thisbad
at politics? The list of miscalculations grows longer. To pass the stimulus package, the ad- ministrationpredicts8percentunemployment — a prediction that became an indictment. It pledges the closing of the Guantanamo Bay prison — without a realistic plan to do so. It sendsthepresidenttosecuretheChicagoOlym- pics — and comes away empty-handed. It an- nounces a “summer of recovery” — which be- comes a source of ridicule. Itunveils aManhat- tantrial forKhalidSheikMohammed—which nearly every New York official promptly turns against. Press secretary Robert Gibbs picks fights with both conservative talk radio hosts and the “professional left”—which uniformly backfire. The president seems to endorse the Ground Zero mosque — before retreating 24 hours later. He suggests that Republicans are “enemies” of Latinos — apparently unable to distinguishbetweenhardballandtrashtalk. Insomeareas—suchaseducationreformor
the tax deal — Obama’s governing practice is better than his political skills. But these skills matter precisely because political capital is limited. The early pursuit of ambitious health- care reformwas a politicalmistake, as former chief of staffRahmEmanuel internally argued. But every president has the right to spend his popularity on what he regards as matters of principle.Politicalrisks, takenoutofconviction with open eyes, are an admirable element of leadership. Yetpoliticalerrorsmadeoutofpiqueorpoor
planning undermine the possibility of achieve- ment. Rather than being spent, popularity is squandered—something theObama adminis- trationhasoftendone. Why somany unforcedmistakes? The inef-
fectiveness ofObama’s political and communi- cations staffmay be part of the problem—and theadministrationisnowhintingat significant White House personnel changes in the new year. But an alternative explanation was on display this week. Perhaps Democrats did not elect another Franklin Roosevelt or John Ken- nedy but anotherWoodrowWilson—a politi- ciansabotagedbyhis senseof superiority. Inthe taxdebate,Obamahasprovedaquar-
relsome ally and a dismissive foe, generally dismayed by the grubby realities of politics.He doesn’t suffer fools gladly. Unfortunately, he seemstoput justabouteveryonewhodisagrees withhiminthat category.
michaelgerson@washpost.com
Sexualitywon’tmatter in battle I
BYNATHANCOX am an active-duty U.S. Marine Corps infantry
officer. IhavedeployedtwicetoIraqandonceto Afghanistan and have commanded infantry
Marines in combat. On Tuesday,Gen. JamesAmos, commandant of
theMarineCorps, saidhebelieves repealing “don’t ask, don’t tell” and allowing gay and lesbian Marines to serve openly could“costMarines’ lives” because of the “mistakes and inattention or dis- tractions” thatmight ensue. I amnot homosexual. And in this instance, I must respectfully disagree withmy commandant. The commandant cites the importance of cohe-
sionwithin small combat units andwarns against its disruption by allowing homosexuals to stop concealing their identities. In my experience, the things that separate Marines in civilian life fade into obscurity on the battlefield. There, only one thing matters: Can you do your job? People care muchmore aboutwhomyouvotedfororwhat city you’re from while on the huge airbase with five Burger Kings, or back in the States, than they do when they’re walking down a dusty road full of improvisedexplosivedevicesinHadithaorSangin. In the end,Marines in combat will treat sexual
orientation the same way they treat race, religion and one’s stance on the likelihood of the Patriots winning another Super Bowl. I do not believe the intense desirewe all feel asMarines to accomplish themissionandprotect eachotherwill be affected in the slightest by knowing the sexual orientation of theman orwoman next to us. In the recent Defense Department survey, 58
percent of combat arms Marines said they felt allowing homosexuals to serve openly would negatively affect their unit, but 84 percent of combat arms Marines who had served with a homosexual said that there would be no effect or that the effectwould be positive. It seems obvious that if allowing homosexuals to serve openly degraded performance, rather than improved it, a majority of Marines who had served with homo- sexuals would oppose repeal. Yet this is not the case, and homosexuals serve openly inthemilitar- ies of Britain, Canada, Australia, Israel and others with no ill effect. This suggests that much of the
The next step in the health-care fight
BYKENCUCCINELLI T
his week, the U.S. District Court for the Eastern Dis- trict of Virginia declared
the federal health insurance mandate and its penalty uncon- stitutional. The next day, Attor- ney General Eric Holder and Health andHuman Services Sec- retary Kathleen Sebelius pub- lished an op-ed in The Post [“A health reformfor everyone”], ar- guing that the federal govern- ment is justified in claiming the power to order citizens to pur- chase health insurance because that allows Congress to address certain issues, such as the denial of insurancebasedonpreexisting conditions. Evenifoneassumes thatHold-
er and Sebelius have the best of intentions, their op-ed focused on a policy argument, not a legal
one.Nomatterhownobleanidea is, it must be constitutionally sound before it can be imple- mented. The judge correctly found that themandate and pen- alty fail this basic test. The Supreme Court explained
in June in its ruling in Free Enterprise Fund v. Public Com- pany Accounting Oversight Board that, while every genera- tion perceives that it faces urgent problems, permitting policy de- sires to trump the Constitution would usher in far greater evils than those the government is seeking to cure. No one, includ- ing me, is against affordable health care. But the Virginia lawsuit is not just about health care. It is about protecting our liberty. The health-care law sacrifices
the liberty of Americans and abandons the Constitution that protects that liberty. The power Congress claims it has to create the mandate and penalty has no principled limits: If the federal government canorderacitizento purchase a private product such as health insurance in the name of public policy, it can order us to buy anything. The fact that themandate and
penalty were declared unconsti- tutional should surprise no one. Any other result would mean that the federal government had ceased being a government of limited, enumerated powers, and it could exercise control over any aspect of American life — what lawyers refer to as the “police power.” The Supreme Court has never endorsed such an outcome and made clear in its Morrison decision in 2000 that it has always “rejected readings of the Commerce Clause and the scope of federal power that would per-
mit Congress to exercise a police power.” That is exactlywhat Con- gress attempted to do here and why it failed. Regardless of whether one
agrees with the court’s ruling, two things are obvious. First, as even Holder and Sebelius have conceded, the insurance provi- sions of the health legislation cannot work without the insur- ance mandate and its penalty. Second, the question of the law’s constitutionality can be conclu- sively resolved only in the U.S. Supreme Court. Unfortunately, the Justice De-
partment appears to wish to delay that resolution for as long as possible.On the same day The Post published the Holder and Sebelius op-ed, Assistant Attor- ney General TonyWest faxedme a letter conveying the Justice Department’sdecisionnot to join Virginia in seeking to fast-track this case by skipping the appeals court and taking it directly to the Supreme Court. There is simply too much at
stake to allow final resolution to be unnecessarily delayed. There is financial uncertainty for state governments, employersandciti- zens inherent in not knowing whether the law will still exist two years from now. Companies with no idea about what to proj- ect for future employee insur- ance costs are reluctant to add employees, andstates are already spending billions to begin com- plying with a law that may ulti- mately be struck down. It is irresponsible to allowthis uncer- tainty to linger when Supreme Court rules allow for immediate reviewof cases that, like this one, are of imperative public impor- tance. The unwillingness of the Jus-
tice Department to attempt to resolve this as quickly as possible is
puzzling.The issues in the case are purely legal and have been developedwith exceptional thor- oughness by the district court, the parties andnumerous friend- of-the-court briefs, including one by former U.S. attorneys general Edwin Meese, Richard Thorn- burgh andWilliamBarr. IfHold- er and Sebelius are as confident as they say that they will win in the Supreme Court, what reason is there for not getting this promptly resolved for the Ameri- can people? Both supporters and oppo-
nents of the law have already issued calls for expedited review in the Supreme Court. The presi- dent and his attorney general should do so aswell.
The writer is attorney general of Virginia.
oppositiontowardrepealwithintheMarineCorps is based on the politics of individualMarines and not anymeasurablemilitary effect. Repeal would undoubtedly produce some dis-
ruption, but if other nations’ experiences are any guide, it will be so minimal as to be essentially nonexistent. Consider what is likely to happen if andwhen“don’task” is repealed:
LanceCpl.Smith will be having a typicalMarine conversation with
LanceCpl.Jones,andthetopicwill turntowomen. Smith will remark on how much he enjoys their company. Jones will reply: “Actually, man, I like dudes.” Smith: “Really?” Jones: “Yeah,man, really.” Smith: “Wow. I didn’t knowthat.” Bothwill then go back to cleaning their rifles. Is it really likely that lance corporalswho know
each other better than brothers, and may have saved each other’s lives in split-second reactions during deployments, are suddenly going to refuse to serve inthe same unit or quit theCorps because they have to share a shower? Repealwillof
coursehavemanyeffects.Gayand
lesbianMarineswhoarenowbarredfromdiscuss- ing their identities honestly with their superiors, peers and subordinates would be able to do their jobs freefromthenaggingknowledgethat theyare being less than honest with their brothers and sisters in arms. It is difficult to see how this could do anything but improve their job performance. Gay and lesbian Marines have long fought and died for a country that refuses to acknowledge their existence. Some are certainly among the MarineswhohavepassedthroughBethesdaNaval Hospital and rest inArlington. I believe the reluctance many Marines feel
about repeal isbasedonthe false stereotype,borne outof ignorance, thathomosexualsdon’tdothings like pull otherMarines fromburning
vehicles.The truth is, they do it all the time. We simply don’t knowit because they can’t tell us. It is time for “don’t ask, don’t tell” to join our
othermistakes inthedog-earedchaptersofhistory textbooks.Weallbleedred,weall loveour country, we are all Marines. In the end, that’s all that matters.
Thewriter is an infantry captain in theMarine Corps.
A failed public policy O
BY BILLMCCOLLUM
n Thursday, 20 states ar- gued in a Pensacola, Fla., courtroom against not
only the individual mandate in the federal health-care law but also the massive Medicaid ex- pansionthatplaces statebudgets and taxpayers in peril. Our suit differs from that brought by the state of Virginia, but we agree that the health reformlawcross- es legal boundaries. The Obama administration has threatened that court rulings against this legislation will devastate efforts to provide universal health care. Yet until struck down, Obama- Care will be a disaster for our Constitution. Health-care reform is critical
— but it should not come at the expense of our citizens’ individu- al rights nor by jeopardizing the role of the states in our systemof federalism. Congresshas limited, enumer-
ated powers under the Constitu- tion and cannot make law be- yond those specific powers. All powers not specifically granted to Congress by the Constitution are left for the states,which have equal sovereignty to make their own laws. When Congress has invoked
the commerce clause in the past, it has regulated only those indi- viduals who voluntarily engaged in commercial activities. This law would compel the purchase of insurance and fine those who do not comply. If Congress has the power to force Americans to buy goods and services, where is the limit? Our Constitution ensures that
the federal government cannot bully states by forcing theminto a no-win decision, like the mas- sive expansion of the Medicaid
A33
entitlement program Obama- Care has imposed. The Obama law unconstitutionally coerces states to provide health services to thosewho are not poor, infirm or children—at a cost of billions of residents’ tax dollars. Medicaid is a critical compo-
nent of states’ health-care cover- age forpoor andneedy residents. The March legislation funda- mentally transforms this long- established program without consulting the states; under the newMedicaidprogram, childless adults with incomes at 138 per- cent above the poverty level are eligible for
coverage.States could not have foreseen that Congress would impose this radically al- tered program when they origi- nallyagreedtoapartnershiprole and a financial commitment. Furthermore, the very struc-
ture of the federal health law directlydependsonthe individu- al mandate and the expanded Medicaid; without these tenets, it fails along with its goal of universal coverage. The Justice Department has argued that states couldwithdrawfromMed- icaid, but Congress passed this legislation counting on states staying in the program and knowing thatwithdrawal is cost- ly and virtually impossible. We expect that our lawsuit
and Virginia’s will eventually end up before the Supreme Court. The stakes could not be higher:ObamaCare ispublicpol- icy at itsworst, inviolationof the U.S. Constitution. We can and should support a health-care overhaul; it isuptoour leaders in Congress to both do those re- forms and protect the Constitu- tion.
The writer is attorney general of Florida.
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