If the first year hasn’t cleared up the question of Obama’s core beliefs, it has become much clearer that the ‘Obama-ism’ promised by his campaign has largely failed to translate into a governing philosophy. In his favour, Obama campaigned on the need for comprehensive solutions to America’s problems, rather than the piecemeal reforms that came to dominate the government of his predecessor Bill Clinton. Yet while Obama has often been bold in the scope of his plans, his campaign’s calls for radical change also often glossed over relatively orthodox policies. His campaign also promised an administration that would rise above Washington’s partisan divides. Instead it has run up against the reality of getting things done in a fractured political system. It is the system that has changed the president as much as the reverse.
Indeed, if ‘Obama-ism’ meant anything, it was that partisanship could be overcome. His most famous speech, given to the Democratic convention in 2004, encapsulated this. Playing off the idea of red conservative states and liberal blue states, he said: ‘We worship an awesome God in the blue states, and we don’t like federal agents poking around our libraries in the red states. We coach Little League in the blue states and have gay friends in the red states.’ America, he claimed, was more united than it appeared and so its politics could be too. Yet the last year has proved that its divisions are real. And in the five years since that speech, it has become more divided not less. As congress-watcher Thomas Mann of think tank the Brookings Institution told me, in today’s congress ‘there is not a single Democrat who is more conservative than the most liberal republican. A generation ago there was a huge overlap, and therefore the possibility of bipartisan coalitions was very much alive, in fact it was needed to get anything done.’ Now such coalitions are virtually impossible.
To give Obama credit, he has tried. There have been innumerable charm offensives. Republicans in congress have been called, coddled, and cajoled by the White House to a degree unprecedented in recent US history. But nothing has worked, the president has received precious little for his efforts, and ultimately has been forced to rely on strictly party-political pushes more similar to those of president bush. The liberal blogger Ezra Klein told me during my visit that he was close to concluding that change of the sort Obama promised was now impossible, given the divisions in Washington. In short, Obama the post-partisan politician ran hard against the wall of partisan Washington. And the wall held.
Obama-ism also promised a different kind of politics. Obama, much as every American president since Carter (with perhaps the exception of the first bush) campaigned as an outsider (candidates who seem too insidery-Bob Dole, Al Gore, John Kerry, Hillary Clinton – normally lose.) Yet this too has been difficult to deliver, in particular as the president has run his administration as a consummate Washington insider. During the campaign Hillary Clinton hinted darkly that Obama the ingénue was too naive to get anything done, too green to cope with the infamous 3am phone call. Obama has almost done too much to disprove her, building a team of practiced Capitol Hill operatives and working behind the scenes to find routes through the city’s corridors of power. Here Obama’s instincts -developed as an operative in Chicago’s byzantine politics, and honed as a relatively liberal senator -have trumped the transformative promise of his election. Yet the result is still an oddity: Obama argued that change meant fixing Washington first, yet handed over the business of change to old beltway hands and to congress.
The realities of Washington have also meant that Obama has had to rely on the unity of his own Democratic coalition to an unexpected degree. Despite a reputation for disunity, and occasional internal spats, the Democrats are actually arguably more united (both in congress, and in the country) than at any time in a generation. Obama has helped to build this unity by being notably unwilling to take on his own party. Unlike president Clinton before him, he is not easily identifiable as a member of any one Democratic faction. And while Clinton was comfortable defining him-self against his party’s left, Obama is happy to move pragmatically between left and right. His ability to do this, in turn, flows from his strength with important party constituencies. African-American Democrats are unlikely to desert him. He remains hugely popular among educated middle class elites. The much vaunted “netroots” bloggers, ostensibly to Obama’s left, remain loyal, in part out of admiration for the new type of campaigning and politics that his candidacy embodied. There are few constituencies in the Democratic family which Obama risks losing-giving him flexibility to change positions on issues in search of successful legislation.
The result of all this has been that glimpses of Obama the post-partisan outsider have been rare in government. In its place has been a sort of ‘one nation’ liberalism; centrist in inclination, but broadly liberal on policy and more than willing to compromise. In fact, Obama’s first year has more in common with that of his Texan predecessor than he might like to admit. Bush began his presidency intent on delivering a more compassionate conservatism, only for 11th September to change his course towards a rollicking campaign against evildoers. Obama entered the White House ostensibly to heal America’s political and racial divides. Yet just as terrorism changed Bush-ism, so the economic crisis and the realities of government changed Obama too. Where he once sounded more sceptical than most liberals of the efficacy of government intervention, he now found himself having to take over banks and run car companies. And just like his predecessor, Obama has been forced to rely on a partisan system, and the unity of his own party, to get anything done.
Yet, for all that, his early achievements remain impressive. Better to govern effectively on party lines than as a post-partisan failure. His next few years will, if anything, be more difficult than his bruising first. Passing a stimulus might have seemed tough. But next year Obama must pivot towards an even less popular agenda of fiscal austerity, with both budget cuts and tax rises likely. The coming fight over immigration reform will make the battle for healthcare seem civil. Obama’s party may lose seats in the 2010 midterm elections, in part because their current dominance means the only ways down. It is even conceivable that with unemployment high and growth low that he might lose control of the House of Representatives, as Bill Clinton did in 1994. But if Obama passes healthcare, and as the US economy recovers, the president will face a republican rump with few plausible attractive candidates, and seems set for easy re-election in 2012.
Even in the summer gloom, the beltway insiders I spoke to still seemed conscious that, were things to break his way, the presently embattled Obama remains in reach of greatness. In the middle of one interview about the vagaries of congressional tactics, in an office building only a short walk from the domed capitol building, one senior Democrat policymaker paused suddenly. ‘Take a step back,’ he said. And putting exaggerated emphasis on each word, he continued: ‘You have to remember that, even now, the Obama people think they have a shot at the Mall.’ There are no higher stakes than this.
Only four of America’s 43 leaders have earned a memorial on their capital’s central strip. Washington, Jefferson, Lincoln, and Franklin D Roosevelt arrived at a time of economic and military crisis, and took action to resolve it. All built lasting new social institutions. Most importantly, all helped to bind their nation together through an ability to embody and articulate a rebirth of what it means to be an American. And, however unlikely, all this is still possible for Obama, too.
This is an edited extract of an article that originally appeared in the November edition of Prospect magazine