Commenter Matthew argues that one of the main reasons gun reform didn’t succeed is that Obama is a lousy negotiator. He cites Maureen Dowd’s recent column as a good summary of why.
A few things to note here:
First, it’s a little counterintuitive that Matthew cites Dowd to support his point, given that she makes almost exactly the opposite claim he does. Matthew claims that Obama is in the unfortunate and counterproductive habit of “casting moral aspersions” on his opponents, and that he should instead get people into a room to talk and come to agreement. Dowd, on the other hand, wants Obama to shame fence-sitting senators (“Heidi, you’re a mother,” Dowd thinks Obama should have said to Heidi Heitkamp, “Think of those little kids dying in schoolrooms.”). And where Matthew seems to argue that Obama should be building more bridges, the metaphor Dowd emphasizes instead is “brass knuckles.” She thinks that Obama should get tougher with the opposition, not more conciliatory.
Second, and more importantly, Matthew’s comment raises an issue that has been at the center of both Left and Right criticism of Obama: the “bully pulpit.” Belief in the bully pulpit is belief that the president has an extraordinary degree of influence over public debate, in a way that will redound to his benefit in private negotiations. No one would doubt that the president has an especially loud voice in legislative matters, but whether that voice is loud enough to drown out the the power of lobbyists, the entrenched interests of individual senators and representatives, the obstructionism of the opposition, and the structurally anti-democratic tendency of the Senate is doubtful.
There are several presidents famous for bullying from the pulpit (whether effectively or not), including both Roosevelts and Ronald Reagan, but the one most central to the belief that presidents can push Congress around at will is probably Lyndon Johnson, who supposedly had his way with legislators by employing “the Johnson treatment”:
The legend is that, given a few minutes alone in the Oval Office, Johnson could coax almost any representative to his side through a combination of flattery, threats, and a candid assessment of the politics at hand. Probably closer to the truth is that Johnson was willing to pay political prices that many other presidents weren’t. Johnson helped shepherd the 1964 Civil Rights Act through Congress, but despite all of his political acumen he lost the Southern wing of his party, as he knew he would.
Probably closer to the truth is that – as Scott Lemieux never tires of pointing out – there is little research to suggest that the bully pulpit has any effect at all. There’s no conclusive evidence that it doesn’t, of course, but bully pulpit arguments still deserve a fair degree of skepticism.
Why does this keep coming up? Probably for a couple of reasons. The first is exemplified by Dowd’s column:
“The White House should have created a war room full of charts with the names of pols they had to capture, like they had in “The American President.” Soaring speeches have their place, but this was about blocking and tackling.”
You should always take political advice from Maureen Dowd with several grains of salt. When she starts describing scenes from a movie to clarify what she thinks ought to have happened, you should pour out the whole salt shaker. When that movie is an Aaron Sorkin film, you should pretty much stop listening altogether.
I’ve already outlined my many objections to The West Wing and the Sorkin fantasy of Washington, D.C. Dowd is firmly in Sorkinland when she decides to write about failed legislation not as the result of money in politics or the structure of government or the self-serving Senate but of the fact that the Obama team didn’t stick enough post-its on the wall during a late-night strategy session. With enough plucky young staffers, she seems to suggest, Obama could have applied the full court press to every swing vote in town, gaining just enough to win passage, and then wearily thanked his team with some platitude about how the worst sometimes brings out the best. It’s not structure, it’s tactics; it’s not regulatory capture, it’s work ethic. (Walter Russell Mead does a pretty good takedown of Dowd, although he gets a little overworked about it).
To be totally fair, though, we’ve all fallen into this trap. This is the second reason this keeps coming up: Obama seems to inspire a cult of personality in both his enemies and his erstwhile supporters. On the Left and on the Right, critics of Obama have tended to ascribe to him far more credit or culpability than he deserves. During the first Obama Administration conservatives blamed every perceived victory for the Left on Obama’s radical socialism, while progressives (I count myself in this group) blamed every perceived victory for the Right on Obama’s allegiance to Wall Street. But it is possible to criticize Obama for his lack of this or that value or commitment and still understand that his possessing them might make little difference. Significant policy shifts (or their absence) rarely come down to the character or beliefs of one man or woman, and when they do that man or woman is usually on the Supreme Court and not in the Oval Office. Progressives, who take a more structural and sociological view of things, should understand this better than anyone.
Enough with the big-man history. Jeb Bartlett is not president and never will be, despite whatever Kickstarter project West Wing fanboys may have in the works. And last week’s Senate debacle had little or nothing to do with Obama. It was a matter of money, reelection, and the way the Senate works and doesn’t work.
