The Obama Administration has been trying to govern according to the old DLC triangulation theories, which provide that that progressive ideas are too scary for the American public and that each and every one of them must be dialectically fused with its opposite proposal from the right, to arrive at a position just a notch to the left of the Republican position, cutting the Republicans off from the independents and undecideds, who will then be to the left, on the Democratic side of the issue.
This worked to some extent for Bill Clinton, though it failed to get Gore elected. But by now, it's an outdated strategy. The Republicans have figured out how to counter it pretty well, they've had the time to study it and its architect, Dick Morris, is now a faithful servant of the GOP. It's a risky approach, because the "consensus" position arrived at through such triangulation is actually not held by anyone. Unless the public comes to see the position as the "middle of the road" one, there is a possibility of simply sitting down between tow chairs. After all, actually driving down the middle of the road is a suicidal move, since you are in neither line of traffic. Let us hope somebody can jerk the wheel back before a total wreck occurs.
Dring the election, Obama talked of fairly bold visions untethered to the Republican counterargument. That is what lifted him above the politicians he faced in the primaries. But he did speak of consensus, of the possibility of finding common ground on every issue. And this approach has now blossomed into a classical triangulation policy making approach. And the Republicans were ready for it, countering it and negating any political gain that might accrue to the President from its use.
One of the most effective things the Republicans have done to counter this strategy is placing their positions away from the plane on which the Democrats are trying to have the discussion. They leave the Democrats nothing to triangulate from, because there is no point to the at which the arguments meet. Obama talks about escalating health care costs and the humanitarian case for expanding health care. The Republicans talk about totalitarian dictatorship, the death of individualism and government death panels. There is no meeting point where the Dems can come to and sit down just to the left of the Republicans. For example, Obama tried to answer the death panel charge by dropping the end of life counseling coverage requirement. But nobody who is concerned that their government is being transformed into a totalitarian regime gives a shit about end of life counseling, cutting or leaving end of life counseling in no way affects this position. The radicalization of the Republican party via the infusion of "tea party" extremism therefore serves the purpose of neutralizing the Democratic attempts at coopting their positions.
Another effective counter move to take away the coveted label of moderate which successful triangulation is supposed to bestow on its user, is to shout "radical" at every move Obama makes. Obama wants to brand himself moderate, he is branded radical, the public in the best case scenario discounts both and in the worst case scenario begins to suspect that some radicalism is lurking behind all the smoke. And since the triangulators thrive by demonizing all radical, non middle of the road positions, being labeled radical is by the triangulator's own admission a horrible sin. Some great ideas are in fact radical, real change is a status quo system is radical, but one cannot say that now that one has fought so long to be viewed as a consensus driven moderate.
And once the independents and undecideds no longer understand what purpose the government's policies serve, or to see them as the only responsible choice, the support for those policies on their merits turns out to be non-existent. For example, some people support universal coverage. Some do not support any expansion to government expenditures on health care. But nobody supports an extra 10 trillion that will largely go to private insurance companies as "subsidies" on policies the price of which those companies are apparently able and willing to raise astronomically year after year. Some people wanted the government to set rates and others wanted the government to stay out of it, but nobody wanted what is actually happening, the private companies using the government action to justify enormous increases in rates. This is what sitting between two chairs looks like in politics, you lose your base, lose the independents and enrage your opponents. And two years after winning in a landslide, you find yourself facing one.
And what's worse, after the crashing down of the artificially constructed and carefully triangulated false consensus positions, you are left to grope for the values you originally held, so that you can at least begin to reclaim those, and find that they are no longer viable, they too have been discredited by your abandonment of them, by your treatment of them as extreme and unacceptable to the majority of Americans (which fact, after all ostensibly motivated the previous moderation of your positions). Can Obama even remember that he planned to conrol spiraling health care costs, or that he was going to actually act on meanglobal climate change, and can he begin taking strong stands on these issues having compromised them away so thoroughly?