Here on dailykos, some have argued that Martha Coakley’s loss is strictly her own, I beg to differ, there is a growing narrative that has emerged shortly after Obama’s election, the republican party, out of power and out of favor with the American people had to come up with a narrative that will lead them back to power – this is a period that also coincided with the rise of the tea party movement. The republicans saw an opportunity and tapped into some of the populist anger directed against President Obama.
I am not a Barack Obama democrat; instead I am a Howard Dean democrat. Ordinarily I should be a Barack Obama democrat; you know the usual stereotype: young, educated professional, you know the usual bull. I have watched this President actively since the beginning of 2007. I admired his educational accomplishments and his drive. However on the campaign trail, I noticed a sort of timidity – an emerging lack of will to take on a good fight – at the time I thought it was isolated and perhaps a virtue. I said to myself, he promised a different kind of politics, perhaps, this is what it is; a new kind of politics. I also revel in the ancestry we both shared.
Over the last one year, I have had reasons to go back to my initial suspicions, I had feared all along that while President Obama is charismatic and likeable, those qualities as desirable as they are, will not necessarily translate into bold and new thinking in American politics. Drew Westen, perhaps, the most accurate predictor of President Obama’s character has warned us about the impending catastrophe due to President Obama’s lack of leadership on some of the most pressing issues facing the American people.
Here on dailykos, some have argued that Martha Coakley’s loss is strictly her own, I beg to differ, there is a growing narrative that has emerged shortly after Obama’s election, the republican party, out of power and out of favor with the American people had to come up with a narrative that will lead them back to power – this is a period that also coincided with the rise of the tea party movement. The republicans saw an opportunity and tapped into some of the populist anger directed against President Obama. A lot of this anger was misplaced and I must say had some tinge of racism, the present American nightmare was not created by Obama, he inherited it. The party that gave you eight years of economic stagnation and two wars has partially succeeded in changing the narrative.
Now on a given day, you can hear Liz Cheney spouting off her nonsense about how President Obama is not keeping America safe! This, from a party that failed to react to intelligence reports prior to September 11. The tragedy here is that while the President has moved on a number of issues in his first year, the urgency of now that he often referenced during his campaign is yet to be felt in his one year in office. Barack Obama has been elected at a crucial time in American history; he is elected to lead. And lead without fear of any man or principalities.
The Republican Party and their ilk are not to be reasoned with, like Professor Westen said, it is a two party system and you have won. It is for them to be told what to do. If the Republican Party believes in the supremacy of their ideas (ones that were effectively discredited in the last eight years) they need to wait till 2012. The American people have tried the republican ideas and rejected it, by electing Barack Obama they were hoping that there will be a clear difference in governance; the lesson of the Massachusetts defeat is that they are suffering from a buyer’s remorse.
Massachusetts voters by electing the RINO Scott Brown have only shown the sophistication of their beliefs; but they are mistaken, by choosing Brown, they have only succeeded in choosing the worst of two evils. You complain of not getting anything done under Obama and then chose Brown, what you get is perpetual gridlock.
Despite the Northeast’s sophistication, this election result will play out differently in a Southern state like Alabama with a republican majority. It is near impossible for a democrat to win a senate seat that has been held by a senior republican for many decades no matter the prevailing circumstances. And that is why the blame for Coakley’s loss should be laid at the doorstep of President Obama.
For more than any reason, Ted Kennedy’s seat should not have been won by a republican even if he is a RINO. President Obama has to learn the right lessons from this defeat and course correct. I am not advocating a knee jerk response to this debacle; far from it, a careful study must be carried out to gauge democratic apathy and both short term and long term solutions applied.
As a first step, I will recommend the following to the president:
- Hire Howard Dean immediately: don’t let ego get in the way, this is a guy that wrote the 50 state strategy that made it possible for you to get elected in the first place. He knows how the game is played; the republican machine deserves their match; right now Dr. Dean makes sense.
- Next time you have to give a speech, speak like your life depends on it; let people see that you have some fire in your belly and display righteous anger when appropriate.
- Articulate the democratic ideology clearly and don’t run away from it; the republican ideology has been discredited and does not hold water; let me cite some reasons for you:
• The republican idea of little tax and less government is mere sloganeering. In reality the republicans have created more government not less. Think – the creation of the department of homeland security and many others.
• The republican ideology on aggressive foreign relations is also discredited; co-operation not aggression will determine which country will be successful in this century. Think – China.
• The republican ideology on jobs does not hold up to scrutiny. Reaganomics is discredited and a mere fallacy. The whole idea that the Republican Party is for business and the Democratic Party is against business is baloney. How do you wrap your hands on the fact that the Republican Party is for a low minimum wage for the same electorate that they claim to be fighting for. Let me digress briefly as it regards the minimum wage; a low skilled worker gets the minimum wage, at 40 hrs a week, he only made 280 dollars before tax. He does not have insurance for himself and any of his children if he has one. When he gets sick he goes to the emergency room, when his kids get sick, they also go to the emergency room; ask the Republican Party this question: who picks up the tab? Of course, the rest of us pick up the tab. In the end, the cost of doing business was passed on to the American taxpayer. So next time, the Republican party accuse you of not being friendly with the business community, tell them they are liars and reel out the statistics.
• Above all President Obama, you have to acknowledge that your days of bipartisanship is over, stop playing footsie with Lieberman, Susan Collins, Olympia Snowe and the rest of the gang. These group and mankind for that matter does not respond to negotiations all of the time, I happen to believe that what mankind yearns for is a strong but benevolent leadership.
President Obama, it is time to lead.