US Elections

Sadly, it appears that Democrats are doing a good enough job all by themselves of muddying the waters over healthcare reform. Perhaps that was the President's fault when he left the details up to Congress. Or perhaps the system really will work and we really will have a bill that has been well thought out and will pass through both Houses of Congress. My money is on the latter.

Republican strategy is clearly to stand on the sidelines of healthcare, throwing grenades and hoping that it all fails, dealing a blow to the President from which he cannot recover. They have clearly learned from the lessons of the Clinton Administration, when they successfully opposed healthcare reform and were rewarded handsomely in the mid-term elections.

The problem is that if affordable healthcare is something that Americans want, then Republicans could be blamed for its failure.  More likely however is that the President and Democrats will be blamed, especially if they cannot stand together and reach a consensus on this critical issue.

On the flip side, the problem for Republicans is that the more they push back, the more it will bring Democrats together behind a strong, smart, savvy President who is committed to bringing healthcare reform to the nation.

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There is some evidence that their approach might be working – a recent CNN poll had voters supporting her nomination by only 47%, which is the lowest rating of recent nominees, save for Harriet Miers. But there is also a real possibility that in the end, it might not work. Pat Buchanan points out that Republicans need to bring back into the fold all the “white conservative Democrats… whose jobs have been outsourced to China and Asia, who pay the price of affirmative action when their sons and daughters are pushed aside to make room for the Sonia Sotomayors. These are the folks who want the borders secured and the illegals sent back.” But Republicans also need Hispanics and women voters too. And they need to be more than just the “party of no”.

It is hard to watch the appallingly sexist and racist nature of the debate and the inferred Republican premise that bias is something that is only expressed by those who are not male and white. Sadly, however, as long as Republicans can find nothing else to question about Sotomayor’s judicial record, it shows no sign of abating.

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The President certainly has a task ahead of him. Enough time has now passed for people to believe that the nation’s current economic problems are his alone (as opposed to those of his predecessor) and the Administration is probably now ruing the fact that they were forced to pitch the stimulus package as something of an immediate solution in order to get it passed and to maintain the confidence of the voters. They also can’t have been happy that the President had to take an important but distracting overseas trip which could have given the impression to the American people that he was taking his eye off the ball at home.

The President and his team know the seriousness of the task ahead – getting healthcare reform passed, reassuring people that they are on top of the economic situation and addressing their fears about the future. They are also taking on challenges of historic proportion, so they are right to appeal for patience. They also know they can’t ask for people’s patience for too long before it and their savings begin to wear thin.

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Others suggested (although not altogether sympathetically) that she really did want to spend more “time with her family”. 

Others still pointed to a string of scandals that had plagued her Vice Presidential run and threatened to drag down her remaining months in the Governors office. 

Some have also suggested that she resigned because she was having trouble governing the state of Alaska and that she never wanted to be there in the first place. 

All of the theories however, have at their center her oft-suggested desire to run for President in 2012. Even if that were true – the question still begs – why resign?

While others may disagree, I cannot see much logic as to why Sarah Palin made this announcement. One of the best things Sarah Palin had going for her was that she was a woman holding executive office in a large U.S. state. It may be true that it isn’t a very populous state. It may be true that she has been criticized for her leadership as Governor. It may be true that without that office she is now free to travel around the U.S. raising money for other Republicans candidates and speaking at Republican and Conservative gatherings but you can do that while you remain Governor. Especially if you are a good governor. 

And what does this say about her commitment to the people who elected her? That when it suits her she is simply going to cut and run?

While she might now be free from the "chains" of the Governor's office, without saying it directly, her announcement has now thrust her completely into the discourse about Republican Party leaders and 2012 candidates and she has nowhere to hide, not from the media, not from the voters, not for three long years.

There was also no logic to the announcement. At her press conference she came across as disjointed and scattered. bsp;She said she did not want to be a “lame duck” because that was “politics as usual”. Hmmm… Since when did serving your full term in office become a negative thing? If she truly wanted to make a statement about her commitment to higher office and to the Republican Party, she missed that chance too by holding her press conference right before a holiday weekend.  Her announcement raised more questions than answers, which is not what you want to do if you are trying to start over again and remake yourself from a questionable governor into a real Presidential candidate.

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At least we know that former Vice President Cheney hasn’t lost his knack for politics. By raising the possibility of further violence either in the U.S. or overseas, Cheney believes that he can stir up doubt about the current President and then take credit for his foresight if anything should negative happen. Thankfully so far, it doesn’t seem to be working. He currently has a 26% approval rating, compared to Obama’s 60%. Another poll released today shows that nearly three-quarters of all Americans support the plan to withdraw most U.S. combat troops from Iraqi cities and towns, even though most respondents said they think the troop movements will lead to an increase in violence.

Some might suggest that Vice President Cheney is simply defending his record. (Goodness knows, he has a LOT to defend.) Others might suggest that he is rallying the Republican base in the face of otherwise clueless leadership and scandal. But sadly it might be even simpler than that – he has a book to sell.

That the former Vice President is trying to cast aspersions on the current President for a policy that was put in place by his own Administration, is hypocritical and dishonest. That he seeks to defend his Administration’s failed and unsuccessful practice of torture is worrisome. That he continues to play politics with Americans minds by suggesting that there may be more violence in Iraq and another terrorist attack on U.S. soil is disingenuous and deceitful. But that he is doing it all in conjunction with an upcoming book is downright repugnant.

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The revelations surrounding Governor Sanford come but a week after Republican Senator John Ensign of Nevada announced that he had been having an affair with a campaign staffer, who was married to one of his Senate staffers. In 2007 Idaho Republican Senator Larry Craig was caught in a gay sex-sting in a Minneapolis airport bathroom and Louisiana Republican Senator David Vitter admitted that he had been a client of a Washington, D.C.-based escort service. In 2006 Florida Republican Representative Mark Foley resigned following revelations that he had inappropriate instant message conversations with under aged male House pages.

Don’t get me wrong – Democrats have a recent track record at this stuff too. In 2008 it was revealed that New York Governor Eliot Spitzer had been a regular client of a prostitution ring under investigation by federal authorities. And earlier this year it surfaced that Democratic Presidential candidate Senator John Edwards had an affair with a documentary filmmaker on his campaign.

While such revelations are absolutely tragic for the individuals and families involved, Governor Sanford’s antics are also yet another problem to a Republican Party that is already struggling to finds its way.  And while almost all politicians nowadays espouse "family values" (including the aforementioned Democrats) these scandals pose a particular public relations challenge for the conservative Right, which looks even more hypocritical. Card-carrying members like Senators Ensign, Vitter and Sanford, were especially moralistic.

Perhaps the saddest consequence of all is that this is yet another blow to any lingering whisper of confidence that voters might have in their elected officials. In their (unpopular) defense, most people who go into elected office often do so with an undeniable devotion to serving their constituents and they work long and hard for the privilege.

However, if there is anything positive to be found in all these scandals, it is the fact that we know about them and the fact that voters can do something about them. A more stark contrast could not be drawn between this fact and the other images that dominated tonight’s news in the U.S. – those of Iranian citizens fighting for their lives and for the right to exercise the real democracy that so many of us can easily take for granted.

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President Obama has rightly taken pains to quell the rhetorical flames coming from the United States. There is no reason for the President to give the Supreme Leader another reason to demonize the U.S., especially not at this crucial time. And while it is important for the President to stand up for democracy and speak out against the violence against the Iranian people, this is not a struggle that would be necessarily benefited by U.S. intervention. Nor is it one that the U.S. really has any actual power to influence. The President’s current stance already been effective in undermining both President Ahmadinejad and Ayatollah Khamenei in the face of their increasing isolationism and he should not stand in the way of their self-destruction.

The President’s recent speech in Cairo  to the Muslim world was a powerful one. He has already laid the foundation for a potential new discourse with the Muslim and Arab worlds. His remarks on Saturday in support of the protestors were appropriately strong and directed towards those who have put their lives on the line for change in Iran.

Not surprisingly, Republicans, Neocons and others were criticizing the President for being too timid in his approach. While they could be commended for standing up for freedom and democracy (if that is the true motivation behind their commentary), they should know better. It was their brand of aggressive democracy imposition that got them to their current position in the political wilderness. It also got the world into a much more dangerous place.

The Iranian people know that the American President supports them and their efforts to change the leadership in Iran. Even in a repressive regime like Iran’s, the government has proven ineffective in trying to prevent information coming in from the outside and getting out from the inside. Iran’s populace is intelligent, educated and worldly. They understand what is going on and they know that the rest of the world supports them.

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This poll will not be a “wake up call” for the White House – strategists like Rahm Emmanuel and David Axelrod are certainly aware of the perils that lie before them. They know that they have had to deal with a generation’s worth of challenges in a matter of months and are right to argue that inaction would have been much worse. 

However, the poll also indicates that there is opportunity - it still appears that voters like the President personally, so he can continue to make the case for what he is doing and thereby reassure the American people. On the positive side, the poll shows that 46% of respondents believe that the economy will get better, suggesting that while they might be worried about the tactics being used, they do have a degree of faith in the President and his plan for the future. The risk here, of course, is that the stock market takes a tumble in the coming months, exacerbating people’s fears and eroding his personal support even further.

Interestingly, the poll also showed a slight increase in approval ratings for former Vice President Dick Cheney. While this probably shows nothing more than Republicans returning to their base, it does seem to indicate that his attacks on the President and his defense of his Administration’s actions may be gaining a little traction with someone. This might only be a small ray of light for Republicans however, as their numbers in this poll remain very low.

There is no question that as time passed and voters’ sense of apportioned responsibility for the nation’s problems shifted from the former Bush Administration to the current Obama Administration, there would always be a dip in the polls for the President. But while this poll is certainly not a problem for the President, it does map out some of the challenges ahead.

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There is no doubt that the President and his team recognize the challenge that lies before them and the urgency of their task. As the New York Times’ Matt Bai revealed recently, the Obama team is made up of many officials who were deeply scarred by the healthcare reform battle of the Clinton Administration and are determined not to let the same mistakes be made again. One key difference in approach this time is that the President and the Administration have very deliberately left much of the debate over the details of the reform plan up to the House and Senate, rather than putting together their own plan and simply presenting it to Congress, which was one of the chief reasons that the Clinton plan failed.

The problem this time is that while it is politically wise for the President to leave the debate up to Congress, from a public relations perspective, he risks losing the debate or at the very least having it muddied by the cacophony of voices on Capitol Hill.

Already, Republicans - who couldn’t get any real traction over the appointment of Judge Sotomayor to the Supreme Court - have been relatively successful in focusing the debate on the question of whether to create a government-run alternative to private health insurance, the specter of which might seem benign to Australians but scares most Americans who don’t want big Government further intruding into their lives.

On the whole, Democrats, who remember 1994 all too well and are worried about the political risk of getting into the debate too early, are mostly staying in the media shadows for now, which leaves the man with the 60+% approval rating to get out there and reassure the nation while convincing them of the need for healthcare reform.

As a result, the President has become the Communicator in Chief. If you turned on your computer, TV or radio last week you were likely to have seen or heard multiple Presidential sound bites from as far away as Gr een Bay, Wisconsin and Paris, France - outlining the importance and urgency of the task that he has set himself and the Congress.

It is a political reality that Congress does not like to be told what to do, so the President is wise in leaving many of the details of the reform package up to the people who have to be happy with it in the end.

From a public relations perspective however, the divisive images coming from Capitol Hill only distract from the President’s message and from the very real consensus that has been achieved by this White House and those working for healthcare reform over the years. It is an undeniably tremendous achievement that we are all now talking about how to reform healthcare, rather than whether to reform healthcare.

At some point the President has to outline more than just his broad desire for healthcare reform. He needs to give the Congress and the nation some direction and some reassurances, especially when they are already worried about the nation’s fiscal health. Perhaps by the time you read this, we’ll have heard it but it will only be the beginning of the debate and the public relations campaign to come.

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It is a heartbreaking that it took Dr. Tiller's murder to again highlight the difficult plight of women seeking an abortion in the United States. His murder also raises the ugly specter of homegrown terrorism that continues to trouble the nation's consciousness while its energies are directed elsewhere. Sadly too, the violence appears to increase whenever a Democratic President comes to power, so we have no way of knowing whether Dr. Tiller's murder was the last.

Hopefully, Dr. Tiller's death will not have been in vain.

For a start, his murder only serves to make anti-abortion activists look too extreme, violent and radical for mainstream tastes and certainly for those Members of Congress facing reelection in 2010.

Secondly, it was the bombing of abortion clinics and the murder of abortion doctors in the 1990s that ushered in new federal laws protecting the right to access an abortion clinic and protecting the clinics themselves. Despite the fact that President Obama doesn't want to get involved in any kind of culture war as President Clinton did, there may be others in Congress who can do that work for him. Pro-choice Congressman Jerrold Nadler's office has already suggested that he will push for the Freedom of Choice Act, a bill which would undo many of the Bush Administration's restrictions on abortion.

Dr. Tiller's murder might also decrease the opportunity for the issue to be brought up as a weapon against Judge Sotomayor during her upcoming Supreme Court confirmation hearings. While the chances of that happening were lower anyway because Judge Sotomayor has no clear record on abortions, even conservative activists have reportedly admitted that bringing the issue up so soon after Dr. Tiller's murder would be "foul play". Once on the court - as she is expected to be - it is also unlikely that her vote will change very much, assuming that President Obama has not chosen a nominee who intends to overturn Roe v Wade.

Tragically however, while these acts of calculated violence might not have the desired impact on Congress or on the rulings of the Supreme Court, they do have the desired impact of decreasing the number of professionals who are willing to perform such services and the number of women who can access their services. Increased violence on the part of the anti-abortion movement will only make it more and more difficult for doctors to take the risk of performing abortions and will make it more difficult for women to receive one if they so choose.

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