Misreading a mandate?
Jay Cost says that the Obama administration has misread the results of the 2008 election:
All the strained comparisons of Obama to Franklin Roosevelt were a tipoff that many were talking themselves into the idea that the 2008 election created an opportunity for a substantial, leftward shift in policy. Yet the election of 2008 was not like the 1932 contest. It wasn’t like 1952, 1956, 1964, 1972, 1980, 1984, or even 1988, either. Obama’s election was narrower than all of these. FDR won 42 of 48 states. Eisenhower won 39, then 41. Johnson won 44 of 50. Nixon won 49. Reagan won 44, then 49. George H.W. Bush won 40. Obama won 28, three fewer than George W. Bush in his narrow 2004 reelection.
This makes a crucial difference when it comes to implementing policy. Our system of government depends not only on how many votes you win, but how broadly distributed those votes are. This prevents one section or faction from railroading another. It is evident in the Electoral College and the House, but above all in the Senate, where 44 senators come from states that voted against Obama last year. That’s a consequence of the fact that Obama’s election — while historic in many respects, and the largest we have seen in 20 years — was still not as broad-based as many would like to believe. Bully for Obama and the Democrats that they have 60 Senators, but the fact remains that thirteen of them come from McCain states, indicating that the liberals don’t get the full run of the show.
For whatever reason, the Obama administration has acted as if those hagiographical comparisons to FDR were apt. It let its liberal allies from the coasts drive the agenda and write the key bills, and it’s played straw man semantic games to marginalize the opposition. For all the President’s moaning in The Audacity of Hope about how the Bush administration was railroading the minority into accepting far right proposals — he was prepared to let his Northeastern and Pacific Western liberal allies do exactly the same thing: write bills that excite the left, infuriate the right, and scare the center
This and other comparisons of the Obama administration to the worst episodes of the Bush administration do not bode well for the next three and a half years.
August 18th, 2009 at 8:57 am
JAY COST:
The public option was an overreach. The White House’s erroneous belief that it could get it through the legislature – or at least that it could let four out of five congressional committees push it – was a misinterpretation of last year’s election results.
WRONG!
* OBAMA DIDN’T MISREAD THE ELECTORATE; HE MISLEAD THEM!
* OBAMA IS A DYED IN THE WOOL SOCIALIST.
* OBAMA WAS RAISED BY ANTI-AMERICAN LEFTISTS AND ANTI-ZIONISTS.
* OBAMA WORSHIPPED IN AN ANTI-WHITE ANTI-ZIONIST “CHURCH”.
* OBAMA IS AN ACOLYTE OF ALINSKY AND A LT. OF THE CHICAGO MACHINE.
* SOME OF US ON THE RIGHT KNEW IT FROM THE GET GO.
* JOE THE PLUMBER HELPED EXPOSE IT.
BUT MOST PEOPLE IN THE MIDDLE – THE MODERATES AND INDEPENDENTS – WERE DUPED.
* WHAT OBAMA HAS BEEN DOING THE LAST 7 MONTHS IS NO SURPRISE TO US ON ON THE RIGHT, AND IT IS NOT OVERREACH; IT WAS OBAMA’S AND RAHM’S AND AXELROD’S PLAN FROM THE GET GO.
* WE KNEW IT AND THAT’S WHY WE WERE IN POSITION TO STOP HIM – THANK GOD!
OBAMA IS ALSO INCOMPETENT AND A LOUSY LEADER WHOSE CHARISMA ON THE CAMPAIGN STUMP HAS ALREADY WORN THIN.
THE WORST IS YET TO COME.
BUT WE ON THE RIGHT WILL PREVAIL IN THE END.