He could have used the massive popular support to put pressure on his fellow Democrats to actually be responsive to their base.
And what form does that "pressure" take, precisely?
Obama won the 2008 election with a huge public mandate against Bush-era policies on a message of change, and then he squandered the political force he gained as a candidate and began capitulating from day one.
Because he didn't have enough votes in Congress. Remember Congress? The body that
actually makes the laws? How many Democrats were there in the Senate the day Obama took office?
57. How many votes does it take to break a Senate filibuster, a now-necessary condition for passing legislation?
60. I trust you can compare numbers, yes? 57 is smaller than 60.
I claimed that Obama "let go" of his popular support once he became President.
And what form did this "letting go" take? It certainly didn't take the form of Obama not asking the grassroots to do things:
quote:
President Obama urged his supporters to "get the message out" on his health care reform principles, calling a forthcoming organizing drive "our big chance to prove that the movement that started during the campaign isn't over."
http://www.theatlantic.com/...ts-for-health-care-fight/18444
That's from May 2009, only a few weeks into the health care fight. Or even earlier, on the stimulus fight:
quote:
As President Obama heads back out on the road to sell his economic plans, he tells his grassroots army that his election wasn't change but only the chance to make change.
In a video released today, he urges them to canvass their neighborhoods this weekend to build support for his $3.6 trillion budget that he says will "lay a foundation for lasting growth and prosperity" by investing in healthcare, education, and renewable energy.
http://www.boston.com/...igence/2009/03/obama_seeks_gra.html
Of course, because the Democratic base has no enthusiasm, these appeals had basically no effect
on the actual body responsible for legislation:
quote:
Democratic Party volunteers, trying to keep President Barack Obama's campaign spirit alive, blitzed Congress on Wednesday with thousands of pledges from voters urging support for his federal budget bill. The grass-roots drive is a major effort by Obama's team to change the way Washington does business.
Members of Congress barely noticed.
"I've never even heard of this," said Rep. Heath Shuler of North Carolina, a key Democratic moderate.
Rep. Peter DeFazio, D-Ore., saw the drive as just another stab by another group to influence him, hardly an Obama-era phenomenon.
"We get bombarded all the time," the 12-term veteran said. "I haven't seen any big uptick in my e-mails since they knocked on doors. It's not that effective."
http://www.mcclatchydc.com/...er-obama-grassroots-drive.html
The truth is that Obama exhorted his grassroots base to continue the work after the election, and like always, the Democratic base figured that they'd won the Presidency and could therefore all kick back. Obama did
exactly what you're complaining he didn't, and it had no effect - not because Obama is a bad president or a fake liberal but because
you're a bad voter. You, and me, and our Democratic peers.
As I said, Obama is the only candidate on the "left" (and I really consider him more "center" myself) that I've ever seen whip up such an energized base of popular support, which promptly disappeared after the election itself.
You're right. But as I've demonstrated, it certainly wasn't for want of Obama asking his base to keep up their participation in politics. He asked, and throngs of Democrats answered back - the hills resounding with "uh, whatever" and "naw, feeling rather nappish."
instead of continuing to rally his support, instead of hosting massive events with tens of thousands of attendees like during his election campaign to sell his proposals
Jesus Christ, Rahvin. The guy was running the largest Executive Branch in the western world. Do you
honestly think it's appropriate for the President of the United States - the whole United States, not just the Democrats of the United States - to be spending all that time on enormous spectacles and rallies? Who was going to pay for those rallies? Was that just supposed to come out of tax dollars?
Don't you think our Republican peers might have had legitimate objections to that? Wouldn't you have objected if Bush had spent 70-80% of his time at massive Republican rallies trying to gin up support for the war in Iraq or the privatization of health care?
You don't seem to have any notion of what actually happened when Obama won the election. When he won the election, several things happened, for instance:
1) He became President of the United States of America.
2) His campaign ceased to exist.
3) His campaign staff took jobs in the Federal government.
Not only did Obama have a new full-time job whose obligations and responsibilities basically forestall a pre-election campaign schedule; not only did he suddenly gain
legal obstacles to conducting such a campaign; his
campaign staff all suddenly had exactly the same obstacles - they had a country to run.
Obama went and started asking the minority Republicans for permission
Because he
needed their fucking permission! There weren't enough Democrats and Independents in the Senate to pass legislation without Republican votes. Only as the result of the completely unforeseen defection of Arlen Specter was Obama able to assemble a 60-vote supermajority in the Senate, which of course was immediately undermined by the Blue Dogs and DINO's, since the defection of even a
single legislator would scuttle any legislation, giving potential defectors enormous power to extort concessions and pork. You don't recall the "Cornhusker kickback"? Do you recall that its architect was a Democrat? Do you recall that the public option was taken out of the Senate's version of the health care bill because
Senate Democrats didn't want it there?
You've somehow mythologized the first two years of the Obama administration as his immediate capitulation to Republicans, but the actual truth - which I feel like I'm the only one who remembers - is quite different. We didn't get the public option or a larger stimulus because
Democrats didn't want those things. It was the
Democrats that Obama capitulated to, and why wouldn't he?
Who else was possibly going to vote for his agenda?
Why do you think the base lost steam?
Because his base was made out of Democrats!
using the public mandate to pressure them through Congress
How does the "public mandate" pressure Congressmen? Please be specific.
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