Obama's Already Lost the Senate
So, if you were advising the President and you were trying to determine how aggressive to be in the lame duck session this fall, what advice would you provide?
First, you need to understand the Congress that the President will be facing in 2011. It does not take Karl Rove or David Plouffe to analyze the upcoming November 2010 elections. Republicans are going to make significant gains. Regardless of the precise result, unless the Democrats decide to change the rules of the U.S. Senate, enacting the nuclear option in 2011, the President is not going to be able to have his minions create and deliver legislation to the Republicans as a fait accompli.
In the current Congress, for twenty-one months, Obama needed only negotiate with his own political party to pass legislation. While the President often struggled, ultimately he usually succeeded in getting his sixty Democratic votes in the Senate. Whether he succeeded or failed, he lambasted the Republicans, a group fundamentally not allowed to participate in the process, as obstructionists.
Lambasting the Republicans continues as part of his two-part presidential mid-term election campaign strategy. That strategy is to attack John Boehner, the Republican leader in the House of Representatives, and the Tea Party. While this may make a Democratic rally applaud with enthusiasm, the rest of us just scratch our heads. Congressman Boehner has had less power in the House of Representatives and less access to the White House since the election of President Obama than William Ayers. And last time I counted, no one knew who the Tea Party was until a few months ago.
It also does not take a Karl Rove or David Plouffe to analyze what has happened with the electorate during the Obama presidency. In 2008, a swing of only three percent of voters would have resulted in a McCain popular vote victory. Today, poll after poll indicates that the President has accomplished that three percent swing and more. Worse yet, statistically for the Democrats, is that there has been little softening of the support for the President within the Democratic base, so the swing is almost entirely with independents and that voter base is where elections are won or lost. Finally, given the overwhelming domination of Democratic voters in urban areas, the Republicans are poised to reap the demographic whirlwind in November.
And these facts lead us back to the initial question, do you advise the President to attempt to push through more of his agenda and spend the following two years blaming the Republicans as being obstructionists or do you advise he pick up the olive branch before he needs to do so and attempt to govern for the electorate as it exists today, not as it voted a couple of years ago?
The answer is in the 2012 Senate races. The reality is that it does not matter what the President wants to do in the 2010 lame duck session. Regardless of who controls the US Senate in 2010, the Democratic Senators who are up for election in 2012, thirty three seats (with only ten Republicans), are going to understand that their re-election opportunities hinge almost exclusively upon their decisions to support one-sided Progressive/Liberal legislation in the lame duck session or force the Democratic Party to move to the middle through their support of Republican filibusters. These Democratic Senators will understand that one more round of unpopular far left laws and regulations will destroy any chance many of them have for re-election. These are smart people, don't look for much in the lame duck session.
So for your advice: tell the President to lighten up.