Renegade
You know the Democrats are in deep trouble when they lose a senate seat in Massachusetts, among the most liberal states in the country. Only 15 months ago, the Republicans were fighting to stay ahead in the red state of Idaho. Now they have won the special election for the seat held by the late Teddy Kennedy. Democrats have no one to blame but themselves. They had feared voters might mistakenly opt for the beguilingly named Joe Kennedy (no relation), an independent candidate with libertarian views. But Kennedy got 22,000 votes—less than a fifth of the margin by which Republican Scott Brown beat his Democratic opponent, Martha Coakley.
US voters, or at least the independents who tend to decide elections, have become volatile. This group voted two to one for Obama in 2008. Now they are two to one against him. In the latest National Journal poll, only 39 per cent of Americans say they will vote for him in 2012, while 50 per cent say they “probably or definitely” won’t.
Back in May 2009, Obama warned staffers that they had little time to enact their agenda. The worry back then was the November 2010 midterms, in which the Dems looked likely to lose a number of senate seats. Given the special election and the polls, this is now almost inevitable.
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James Crabtree
Read James Crabtree’s Obama anniversary blog, arguing why—despite the setbacks—the president is doing just fine
One year on from his election victory, how should we judge President Barack Obama? He has passed a $787bn (£500bn) stimulus package and a $3.4 trillion budget, bailed out America’s floundering car makers, and launched landmark legislation to reform healthcare, tighten regulation on a crippled financial sector, and cut greenhouse gases. Against a backdrop of economic chaos and partisan division, and especially if some form of health reform passes by the end of the year, Obama’s early record will look impressive. It’s been a good start.
That said, a president who promised unity has also brought discord. The saner wings of the American right (and some Democrats) worry that his moderate tone hides policies that dangerously expand the grip of the state, and the depth of its debt. The less sane gather in the streets and howl about the road to socialism. Critics on the left, meanwhile, already see a once-in-a-generation missed opportunity. Obama has a thumping electoral mandate, and control of congress. Yet he stimulated the economy too little, and fluffed a perfect moment to bring in radical measures to take on America’s banks and health insurers. Behind these worries, doubts lurk about what the president stands for, and whether the “Obama-ism” implicit in his campaign can translate into governance. Put more simply: has Obama begun to change Washington, or has Washington begun to change him?
I travelled to the US in August to get a closer look at his progress. In the stifling heat of late summer, and against a backdrop of raucous conservative street protests, I found the administration’s early self-confidence quickly giving way to nervousness in the Democratic establishment and an acute awareness of the high wire on which Obama walks. The stimulus hadn’t stopped unemployment nudging past 10 per cent. Healthcare and climate change reforms lay stalled amid congressional bickering. Attempts at bipartisanship had been rebuffed. Democratic operatives, sensing blood, whispered ominously about which of Obama’s senior staff would be culled if healthcare failed. A few months later and the mood is better, buoyed by a fresh push on healthcare legislation that now looks likely to pass. Nonetheless, Obama’s reputation remains precariously poised between success and failure, and a number of well-placed figures worry that he could still lose in the only way that truly counts—and serve only one term.
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Can the Obama alliance hold?
Each new US administration thinks it has found the secret of building a permanent majority for its party. Nixon thought he had secured endless GOP victories by bagging the white south. Reagan thought he had done it by winning working-class Democrats. Clinton thought his centrist New Democrats had forged a permanent marriage with the baby boomers and Karl Rove thought the suburbs and the demographic shift to the south and west would keep the Republicans in power for a generation. They were all wrong, yet Barack Obama’s team harbours the same ambition.
They are counting on two distinct demographic trends. The first is the rise of the millennial generation, the 93m Americans born between 1983 and 2002, who already outnumber baby boomers. When Obama runs for re-election in 2012, 61 per cent of them will be of voting age and by 2020 they will represent 36 per cent of the electorate. The millennials love Obama—recent Gallup analysis shows his approval ratings at 75 per cent among those under 30, compared to 66 per cent nationally.
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Brian Semple
Nancy Pelosi: the woman Republicans love to hate.
The ongoing spat between the CIA and Nancy Pelosi over whether she was briefed by the Bush administration on waterboarding has left the speaker of the US house of representatives stuck in the firing line of conservatives.
Pelosi, the highest ranking female politician in American history and bete noire of the GOP, has accused the CIA of lying about its use of waterboarding, an allegation the CIA rejects. The dispute has galvanised Republicans, who are struggling to take on Obama, and are demanding that Pelosi either produces evidence that congress was misled by the CIA or apologizes.
It is an apt moment to revisit James Crabtree’s profile of Pelosi from Prospect December 2006, a watermark moment in US politics when it became clear that power was slipping away from the Republican party. Crabtree describes how Pelosi’s rise to prominence was indicative of this seachange in Washington and within the Democrat party:
She could hardly be more different from Bill Clinton, the last Democrat to turn back the conservative tide. Clinton, a southern centrist, was a natural communicator who enjoyed reaching across party lines. Pelosi is a partisan west-coast liberal, uneasy on television and unwilling to work with Republicans on principle. Indeed, the only similarity between the two is a mutual talent for raising vast quantities of money.
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Tumbler
Pelosi: Unaccustomed popularity
The first weeks of any administration are marked by a jostling for power as Congress, regardless of political affiliation, reminds the new president that it controls the money. When he let Speaker Nancy Pelosi write the stimulus bill, Obama started losing the fight. The Republicans seized the chance to run a “Democrats-as-usual” campaign over the bill’s special clauses for research on catfish genetics and skin bloom on grapes. Such gems, inserted by congressman with an axe to grind or a donor to reward, are known as earmarks, and after campaigning against them, Obama has said he’ll let them through just this once and fight them later.
Later may not be so easy. Obama is having trouble with his centrist Democrats, who are not sold on his strategy of spending his way out of the recession while pushing ahead with health and education reform.
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