When Senator Obama ran his history-making campaign, he promised a post-partisan politics and, of all his promises, this may be the one he has adhered to most vigilantly. He has tacked to the center on national security and civil liberties, has included industry players in every major policy discussion, and gave House Republicans much of what they wanted on the stimulus bill. He got zero Republican votes for his efforts.
And that seems to be the trend. No matter how hard this administration tries to include opposition views and moderate its position, Republicans and, increasingly, moderate Democrats continue to obstruct and even to weave conspiracy tales of liberal perfidy. Cap-and-trade legislation with broad public support was rendered so feeble as to be unworthy of the trees to print it. Giving up single-payer health care in pursuit of a compromise “public plan option” looks increasingly unlikely to yield either. His very moderate Court pick is denounced in very public forums by very serious politicians as “racist.”
The Mr. Nice Guy routine is not working. America faces real crises in the years ahead, and “solutions” acceptable to everyone are not solutions at all. Health care isn’t unaffordable by accident; insurance and drug companies made their executives and shareholders rich making it so. Global Warming isn’t an act of God; Energy and Auto companies depend for their profits on dirty, unsafe fossil fuels. Solving the very serious problems facing America is going to mean pissing somebody off. The sooner we face that fact and build the coalitions necessary to win, the better.
