In posts yesterday about higher education & the FDA regulating cigarettes, I wrote about a new phenomenon: corporations that have historically and vociferously opposed something Obama is pushing suddenly decide to switch & work with him.
So are these two just smarter, more astute companies better able to see which way the political winds are blowing. Or are they just trying to get in front of the wind so that they have a better chance of blowing it in the direction they want?
Yes and yes is the answer.
In a post today, More Industries Want To Be Part Of Obama's Solutions Not Part Of The Problems, I found a 3rd example, and it's a doozy: the insurance & drug companies that opposed health care reform in the 90's now want to be part of Obama's health care solution!
Obama's approach to politics & statecraft is working.
As I wrote in Obama Brilliant Legislative Strategy Now Applies To All 3 Of His Top Goals, the President has a low testosterone approach to politics and statecraft; a speak softly but carry a [not obvious] big stick strategy if you will. When it comes to Congress and getting education, health care and energy/environmental reforms enacted, he doesn't confront Republican or Democratic opponents head on, instead he creates situations that practically force them into negotiations on his terms.
In the case of today's news of the 90's health care opponents now sitting down at the negotiating table, the "situation" he's created is the CW impression that the health care reform train is leaving the station and that if they want to have any say whatsoever in the outcome, they better publicly state they are on board (even if everyone understands the majority of their bodies are still hanging off the train).
So Sorry Dick Cheney, Obama is once again proving the lesson most of us learned in the schoolyard: that bluster, bullying, punching and yelling that you have the biggest stick around:
1. almost always backfires
2. rarely gets you what you want
3. usually means you don't