Good on him: Obama's bipartisanism fetish collided with reality, and he learnt from it

From the HuPo last Friday:

In a meeting with House Republicans at the White House [..], President Obama reminded the minority that the last time he reached out to them, they reacted with zero votes -- twice -- for his stimulus package. And then he reminded them again. And again. And again.

A GOP source [..] said that the president was extremely sensitive [..] to the fact that the stimulus bill received no GOP votes in the House. He continually brought it up throughout the meeting.

Obama also offered payback for that goose egg. A major overhaul of the health care system, he told the Republican leadership, would be done using a legislative process known as reconciliation, meaning that the GOP won't be able to filibuster it.

Congress has until October 15 to pass health care or student lending reform under the normal process. If it doesn't, reconciliation can be used to eliminate the 60-vote requirement.

Democratic aides said that Obama made clear to the GOP leadership that he would continue to work in a bipartisan way, but that they didn't have veto power over health care policy.

Ezra explains how important that is - and underlines the shift in thinking it suggests:

It's hard to overstate the importance of this decision. This could be the day that health care reform went from being unlikely to inevitable. Without reconciliation, the incentives for the minority are very simple: Kill the bill. Do as Gingrich did in 1994 and hand the majority a failure. With reconciliation, killing the bill just means you're locked out of the final legislation. [..]

Primary credit for this goes to Obama. [..] Without steady pressure from the president, reconciliation would likely have been traded away long ago. [..] This was not an obvious outcome. Obama was the bipartisan idealist. [..] He was the guy you couldn't trust to fight. He just didn't understand partisanship.

Washington has a way of changing that real fast, however. Back during the stimulus debate, I argued that Republicans showed their hand too early. By totally withholding support for the president's first, and least partisan, priority, they showed their involvement couldn't be assumed on any future piece of legislation. And so it wasn't. [Republicans] had shown their hand. And Obama had reconciled himself to it.

Count me in as one of those whose main hesitation about Obama, in the primaries, was that he didn't seem to realise the entrenchment of the opposition he would face. I considered the pragmatic, respectful compromise-making he seemed to foresee illusionary on pretty much any issue of significance. I feared, therefore, that his naivete about being able to personally craft a bipartisan spirit would inevitably yield a string of missed opportunities before he'd learn the lesson. But he's a quick learner.

Comments

[low-tech cyclist]

I, too, was very cheered by that HuffPo piece. "And then he reminded them again. And again. And again."

They really have become the Party of No, which I guess is a direct consequence of having become the Party of Nutcases.

Obama's no dummy, and he's caught on.

[joel hanes]

In my most hopeful moments, I think that Obama understands game theory and is consistently employing the modified tit-for-tat strategy in his dealings with the Congressional Republicans. IIRC (I'm no game strategist), this approach produces the highest average payout when employed against a variety of opponents whose own strategy is unknown.

The mtft strategy calls for treating your opponent as if you assume he will cooperate, until he doesn't. Thereafter, react to every betrayal with retribution, and react to every act of cooperation by assuming, in your next move, that the opponent will continue to cooperate.

I believe that this strategy plays very well on the political stage. And I am told that Obama is a very good poker player.

So today I am optimistic.

[Corvus9]

I have never actualy had any worries about his approach. There is was a pretty good bit of video from the primary, some interview with a local newspaper editorial board, where he talks about how he works best as "A counterpuncher." He says that he always tries to see things from his opponents perspective and deal with their arguments in good faith. And if they work with him, great. But if he feels that he is then being dealt with not in good faith, he will "crush them." At this point he laughs, and goes, "That's just a joke. Well..."

All that has happened is that we have entered the crushing phase. The Republicans really really messed up by not giving him any votes. They should at least have let Joseph Cao cross the aisle. But that zero makes them look partisan, and now he has the excuse to run roughshod over them.

I think were Obama's approach runs into conflict with the blogsphere is that in the blogosphere the assumption of bad faith bad faith is a priori. When politicians act as if this is not the case, it pisses the blogosphere off and convinces them the person is naive. But in politics, that assumption won't get you far, so an initial assumption of good faith, whether true or staged, just makes good strategic sense.

Also, I don't really understand why you wouldn't want to engage people on their bad faith arguments. The thing about bad faith arguments is that they are usually extremely shoddy, since they are just a smokescreen to cover one's true motives, and that makes them pretty easy to defeat.

[Lisa Simeone]

I have never believed that the words "naiveté" and "Obama" belonged in the same sentence. This guy is not naive -- about anything. I think he's always two steps ahead of everyone else.

(oh, lord, that reminds me that today I heard an otherwise very articulate guy say "nooklear" and "naivitivity" -- hmmm . . . Christ child shows up at the manger even more untouched and immaculate than before?)

[Crissa]

With the fiscal impact these two items have on the budget I think reconciliation is something I wouldn't whine about in the off season.

[ikl]

Nobody gets to be President by being a pushover.

This worry always struck me as mostly a rationalization of support for other candidates (mostly Edwards who people supported for any number of other reasons) and partially a misunderstanding of sound political strategy (successfully positioning yourself as a pragmatist willing to work with others for the good of the country gives one more, not less leverage in negotiation). Bluster about fighting the other side is different than having a strategy to win.

[nimh]

Oooh, "naivitivity", I like that. It's got rhythm, it's got lighthearted playfulness, it's all leapfrogging vowels and consonants, syllables playing hopscotch.

Ikl, I was an Edwards supporter, so that part's right. :-) Of course I do realise what bullet the Democrats dodged there, passing him over.

[janinsanfran]

I always asked "does he know there are sides?" I still think that is a fair question -- as far as I can see, he insists on being the decider of what the sides are. That's good tactics; you should nearly always be able to win if you draw the lines.

But it is real? I remain hopefully observant ...

[Prup (aka Jim Benton)]

I'm pleased, but not surprised at all. Too many of my fellow liberals have consistently underestimated Obama's political genius, some to the point of acting if he'd been 'vacationing an Mars' for the past five years.

Look back to the comments pages of almost any liberal blog from last year, and see gthe number of posts that knew he could never beat Hillary, that she had it locked up, that those evil rotten superdelegates' were in on the fix, or that her winning rural Pennsylvania meant the whole of Appalachia would go Reoublican. Then he was so naive as to think she didn't have a plan to destroy him at the convention, and what about all those Pumas?

Then there was the general electiuon, which Obama kept losing, by not attackimg McCain, by not unleashing his own swiftboaters, by keeping the topic on boring issues instead of exciting personal attacks. And then McCain nominated a WOMAN VP and all the Hillary supporters, and especially all those PUMAs switched and won the election for McCain.

All the time Obama was being almost MLK-like in his focus on what the goal actually was, in his refusal to fight on unimportant issues, refusing even to let his supporters fight back, all the time watching the 'story of the day' being, not 'both sides attack each other' but 'Republican attacks become more and more ridiculous.' (Remembering, I believe, how Bull Connor made himself the symbol of the evil of the segregationists because there was no way of reporters 'balancing' the story by comparing Connor's actions with King's violent responses.)

And what's happened since the election? Obama's used the first 100 days governing the way he campaigned -- making some mistakes, but basically being the reasonable, calm, patient adult, trying to help the Republicans from committing political suicide, offering them seats at the table, a chance for them to make a case for their positions.

And the commenters are yelling 'he doesn't understand Republicans, he shouldn't be nice with them, maybe he's really one of them. (And meanwhile he's made more gay-friendly, science-friendly, liberal Constitutionalist appointments than all his predecessors combined and has gotten a lot of very liberal bills passed while the focus has been on the budget and stimulus.)

And again, what is the result? Republicans leaving their party in droves, Republicans being seen as Limbaugh-led Bachmans -- horrible image of the month -- balanced by the 'magnificent competence' of Michael Steele, the principled consistency of John McCain, and the calm sanity of Sarah Palin.

Poor, naive Obama, aomwhoiqw syumbling his way to victory after victory. Is there an 'inner-city variant' of "I'm just a simple country lawyer"?

[Prup (aka Jim Benton)]

that 'letter-salad' in the last line was meant to be 'somehow stumbling' I think one of my cats thinks he's an editor.

[Sir Charles]

Prup,

I thought you were just showing off your fluency in some Eastern European tongue.

I agree with your take on Obama -- he's a chess player who sees the board many moves down the road.

[nimh]

Looked more like some Inuit variation to me.. ;)

Well I was never a Hillary supporter. And I did think from pretty early on - since the SC primary, basically - that he would beat Hillary. But I was still pretty sceptical on some of the stuff I mentioned.

We don't all neatly fall into these set categories of, I dunno, people who realise Obama's unfailing greatness and blinkered Hillary holdouts. The caricature doesn't fit.

[Prup (aka Jim Benton)]

You missed a point that perhaps I made badly. I was laughing at the nervousness of many commentators who 'knew' Obama had lost the election. My point about the Hilary holdouts was that they turned out to measure in the high hundreds, if that. My point is not "Obama's unfailing greatness" but the fact that he has demonstrated a political skill the angst-riders seem to miss entirely.

And, Sir Charles, he may be a good chess player. He's a GREAT poker player, and that's the skill I see him demonstrating, playing his opponents as well as he plays the cards he's dealt.