Afghanistan escalation adds to liberal Democrats' grievances against President Obama.
Saturday, Dec. 5, 2009
by Kirk Victor, National Journal
President Obama's plans to boost U.S. involvement in Afghanistan, although not quite the last straw, exacerbated the frustration of liberals who once had sky-high expectations for his administration. Democrats on the left were already disappointed by his leadership on issues such as health care, the Wall Street bailout, the pace of judicial appointments, and civil liberties.
Many Democratic activists see the decision to deploy 30,000 additional U.S. troops as further evidence that Obama has done little to advance their priorities despite their support for him last year, when they opened their wallets, spent hours knocking on doors, and provided the energy that a successful presidential campaign feeds on.
"The progressive community really is disappointed, after feeling for the first time in a long time that they had the Republicans and the Wall Street big corporation crowd on the run -- that this was our time, this was a moment of opportunity. And Obama not only failed to take it but bailed out these guys and got nothing for it," said Jeff Faux, who founded the Economic Policy Institute, a liberal think tank, in 1986.
"Disappointment doesn't necessarily have to be fatal, but creeping into this disappointment is the sense that he may not be on our side after all," Faux added. "That gets to be more fatal."
The president's unruffled demeanor -- "No-Drama Obama" -- that was such a campaign asset in reassuring voters is becoming a liability with liberals who are unhappy that Obama is unwilling to draw a line in the sand on their biggest issues, such as including a government-run public option in health care legislation.
"Instinctively, he is not a line-drawer; he is a compromiser," said a longtime Democratic strategist who asked for anonymity. "I don't think people have a sense of what he would draw a line in the sand on. I don't know."
The disconnect between Obama's coolness and the activists' desire for passion on certain issues is a challenge for the president. Darrell West, director of Governance Studies at the Brookings Institution, noted that the president cannot assume that his supporters on the left will remain steadfast. "He still controls his own fate, but he is in a delicate situation, and he has to be mindful not just of his enemies but of his friends," West said. "He can't take his friends for granted. He has to deliver on some things they care about."
Some labor leaders still cut the president some slack, given the realities of governing with Republicans maintaining a wall of resistance against his initiatives. "It's total partisan warfare, and even with 60 votes in the Senate, if you don't have 60 senators who feel exactly as you do, it's pretty hard to insist on getting your way," Bill Samuel, the AFL-CIO's top lobbyist, acknowledged. "So whether he draws a line or not, he doesn't have the votes for the things that he might want that we agree with."
Still, activists on the left greeted Obama's Tuesday night speech on Afghanistan with hostility, as evidenced in scathing comments in the liberal blogosphere and by left-leaning Democrats on Capitol Hill.
Describing the war as "no longer in our national security interest," Sen. Russell Feingold, D-Wis., said that the plan was "an expensive gamble to undertake armed nation building on behalf of a corrupt government of questionable legitimacy." He and several other liberal lawmakers held a press conference before Obama's address to denounce attempts to shore up the government of Afghan President Hamid Karzai.
Disenchantment stretches beyond the war. Activists fault Obama on his handling of the health care debate, not only on the public option but also for not taking a stance against the proposal to tax "Cadillac" insurance plans that offer cost-free health care -- which unions have negotiated for in lieu of higher wages. Some labor advocates are especially incensed that as workers were pushed to make concessions to rescue teetering companies, the government showered Wall Street firms with bailout assistance because they were "too big to fail."
Civil libertarians criticize Obama for reversing campaign promises and adopting policies on detainee treatment that echo President Bush's. In addition, liberals gripe that Obama has been far slower than Bush was to appoint judges, especially to Appellate Courts, who play a critical role in resolving contentious social issues.
Those disappointments, Faux said, "make it hard for the labor guys and leaders of the other parts [of the progressive movement] to go back to their constituents and say, 'This is a great guy, and he has done this for us and we have to mobilize ourselves again next November.' "
"I don't think today there is any doubt that a good chunk of the base of the party is not enthused and would sit home" during an election, said Victor Kamber, a veteran labor and Democratic Party strategist. "That base being African-Americans, the youth, gay and lesbian activists, and labor. Is it enough to turn the kind of numbers as in '94 [when Republicans won control of Congress for the first time in 40 years]? Probably not. But enough in close races to make a difference for carrying several Senate seats that right now we would think should be ours. And enough to swing 10, 15 House seats, or 20 maybe."
Democratic campaign veterans worry particularly that the young people who flocked to the polls to support Obama may be turned off because the president has deferred action on various promises. He pledged during the campaign, for example, to end the ban on homosexuals serving openly in the military; as president, he has reaffirmed the promise but set no timetable for acting.
Young voters played a critical role in several closely contested states in the presidential contest, supporting Obama over Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., by a whopping 68 percent to 30 percent. It was the largest share of the youth vote won by a candidate since exit polls began reporting results by age in 1976, according to CIRCLE, a nonpartisan organization that encourages young voters to participate.
"If you look at Obama as broadening the base, bringing in a bunch of young people, disaffected people -- a lot of them are probably the most disillusioned, and I don't think they will be motivated to vote like last time," said David Rudd, former executive director of the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee. "I think that is a big problem."
Amid this gloom, however, Ross Baker, a political scientist at Rutgers University, says that Obama has a not-so-secret weapon: Republican hostility. Liberals "understand that the [GOP] opposition to Obama is virtually unanimous and much more rigid and confrontational even than Clinton dealt with," Baker said. "My own feeling is that they will become interval pragmatists -- sort of pragmatists pro tem -- because the stakes are so high."
"It was said of Grover Cleveland, and it may well be said of Barack Obama, that he was loved for the enemies he made," Baker added.
The AFL-CIO's Samuel agreed. "We are pretty sophisticated now, having gone through '94, and there would be a great reluctance for [progressives] to assume that it can't get any worse. Because it can, and it did, starting in 1995."
Faux, however, takes little comfort from that analysis. "That's what people in the White House think -- that [liberals] have no place to go and the behavior of right-wingers will scare everybody. I don't think that is going to be decisive, because for a large part of the rank and file of labor unions, the economic [situation] will mean a helluva lot more than right-wing nutcakes babbling on.
"I remember in '78-79, we got into a lot of economic arguments with the Carter White House, and the people in the White House just sneered at us, saying, 'Where are you guys going to go? Is the country going to vote for Reagan?' "
In the end, Faux said, progressives will judge Obama on his performance. "What they care about is, is this guy delivering and is he on our side?