Unnecessarily Complicating Your Candidate's Strategy In Order To Quiet Your Doubts About Him Is No Way To Go Through Life, Son

It's rough to just pile on Mark Schmitt, but there is still one angle of his recent article on Obama that no one is acknowledging, and it's the worst part of it.  I have no real beef with Schmitt's analysis of the 2009 Congress and what a Democratic president would need to do to get legislation like universal healthcare passed. 

The problem is that in order to agree with Schmitt's understanding of Obama's strategy, a person would need to believe both that Obama is lying about his commitment to bipartisanship and that this is a good thing.

That's the basis of the recent defenses of Obama's horrible rhetoric on healthcare mandates and Social Security.  Apparently Obama is talking about the "Social Security crisis" because he knows that it doesn't really exist and has no intention of making any changes to Social Security.  Similarly, he's denouncing the idea of individual mandates because he secretly thinks they are utterly necessary and will fight for them when in office.  One can only assume that his recent lovey-dovey talk about various insanely rightwing Republicans in the Senate is just another part of his quite complicated misdirection campaign.

It's this level of complexity that has me worried.  Of course politicians' words need to be parsed and studied.  But at the end of the day we are left with only their words, and it's foolish to assume that one's chosen candidate is consistently truthful on a handful of issues - such as opposition to the Iraq War and a commitment to immediate withdrawal of American forces - while consistently engaging in a misdirection campaign about other issues.

The other problem with Schmitt's analysis is that he ignores what negotiation actually is.  As commenter akaison said over at Ezra's place,

most of obama supporters say that edwards isn't realistic.

but here's how i see it.

edwards wants 10, the gop wants 0. obama agrees already to 5. in negotiation that means we are limited already to somwehre between 5 and 0 rather than 0 and 10.

Obama isn't President.  He's not even the Democratic nominee.  Yet he has already set the terms of negotiation and debate at what could be considered the halfway point.  If 5 is where you want to be, you don't start at 5, you start at 10 - or with the current GOP, you start at 500.

As for how seriously Obama takes conservatism, that's another big worry.  Perhaps someday there will be in this country a conservative movement with which we progressives can work and debate.  But right now the conservative movement is a seething mix of extremist American exceptionalism, libertarian-ish attitudes toward corporate regulation and any government money that goes to an individual as opposed to an LLC or INC., dismissiveness toward the Constitution of the United States of America, jingoistic fearmongering, and an intense committment to winning: every contest, every debate, every confrontation, every competition of any kind, anywhere, by any means necessary.  They don't negotiate, they don't compromise.  There are millions of people in this country who have been taught for decades that I hate America, that I'm a murderer, that I hate God and your mom and her apple pie all because I am a Democrat, and they believe it.

By giving up so much before he is in a position where he actually could give anything up, Obama shows himself a fool.

Comments

[Crissa]

Remember, we need to woo lots of 'independent' voters out there... And many just know of Obama as black and Democratic. They don't know that FOX news is full of BS and that there really isn't a social security crisis. They think the Democrats are evil liberals and that both Democrats and Republicans stand in the way... And that Republicans have valid arguments. They think that Clinton is devisive, and don't know she's sponsored more bipartisan deals than any of the bunch.

The campaign is not really the place to disabuse people of those thoughts, because we need their votes now.

Positioning himself as centrist is a way of differing from Edwards.

What, you think just because he gives lip-service to pretending the Republicans have valid concerns means he's going to give away the farm?

Either way, I don't like individual mandate, and neither do most far-leftists. So how is that a Republican position? Republicans don't care about individual mandate or single payer at worst, and at best would accept the mandate...

[Stephen]

Remember, we need to woo lots of 'independent' voters out there

Not during the primary.

neither do most far-leftists

I don't see how this could be substantiated.

I'm not worried Obama will give away the farm. I'm upset that he has already given away half of it. If people think there is a Social Security crisis when in reality there isn't, how is it helpful to strengthen the misapprehension that there is one? Shouldn't we try to weaken the argument that Social Security is in deep trouble and "something" must be done? Obama has already committed himself to doing "something" about it, even though nothing needs to be done. That's called "giving away the farm."

[Joe S.]

Stephen,
I think I can make your argument better than you can.

Obama will not be starting negotiations from a different substantive point than Edwards. They're reasonably close on all domestic issues. (Yeah, I know that Edwards' health care plan is better, but they're in the same ballpark.) I agree with the folk who believe that Obama's stupid comments on social security are nothing more than a pander to the Village.

They will be negotiating very differently. I don't think that Edwards has expressed himself well on this, so let me try to say what I think he means. He is a trial lawyer, and a damned good one. A good trial lawyer doesn't mind settling. It saves time and ensures an acceptable result. However, a good trial lawyer wants to settle from a position of strength. In other words, s/he wants the other side to have a good idea of what horrible things are going to happen to them in a courtroom, so the other side will be eager to avoid a showdown. To do this well, a trial lawyer needs a reasonable track record of going to the mat and getting verdicts. If President Edwards gets a honking windfall profits tax against oil companies (say,) health insurers will be much more willing to negotiate. They don't want federal legislation (say,) making them liable for malpractice every time they influence a doctor's decision.

Schmitt's Obama, I think, also wants to negotiate from a position of strength, but has a much subtler notion of how to get the strength. If it works--in other words, if Obama has the political skills of Abraham Lincoln--it can be a game-changer. But I'm really not sure if any mortal politician has those skills. Schmitt thinks he might. I do agree with Schmitt that Obama is the only plausible kwisatz haderach out there. But that doesn't mean that he is one.

[Meh]

I have to give a h/t to Matt Y at The Atlantic because he has thought about this kind of thing before.

Basically, in analysing the GWB administration he noted that Krugman read what GWB said and came to the correct conclusions. But many people read what GWB said and totally misread what was going to happen.

Reason being, campaign statements are always potentially bluff as much as policy commitment. So, people tend to take the Roschasch test and come up with the answer they'd like to believe in.

But, if you analyse the advisors a candidate employs that gives you a good sense of the policies they will implement.

Obama has Austan Goolsbee and a couple of other economic advisors who really are right-wingers on Social Security. So, whatever the deep analysis you get from his statements on the stump, you can expect him to pursue anti-Social-Security policies in office.

[Marcin Tustin]

So, you're saying that the best way to fight extremism is with extremism?

I suggest that you're being politically naive - A moderate platform can provide a candidate that extremists can be relatively comfortable with, and then in reach a position very close to the one it sold after a phony battle in which at the end the extremists are seen to have won "concessions" that were always there.

Why? Because negotiation isn't a simple monotonic offer/response process.

[Stephen]

So, you're saying that the best way to fight extremism is with extremism?

No, of course not. That's nowhere in my post. I'm saying we shouldn't invite crazed extremists into our house and then start doing what they say.

I suggest that you're being politically naive - A moderate platform can provide a candidate that extremists can be relatively comfortable with

Let me get this right: you're saying that extremists are capable of being comfortable with anything other than their own beliefs, but that I'm the one being politically naive?

negotiation isn't a simple monotonic offer/response process.

Um, ok. Not that I've suggested otherwise. And it certainly isn't an "offer/response process" when you begin by offering up everything to the other side.

[Jamelle]

"They don't negotiate, they don't compromise."

Yeah there are a fair number of scarily anti-democratic people who hate liberals. I'm not going to deny that. But having lived in a conservative area for most of my (admittedly short) life, I think I can say with some certainty that most conservatives are decent, fairly reasonable people.

I think Obama is trying to reach out to that crowd. Those people who aren't crazy right-wing and will resent demonization and attack.