There's no doubt that 2010 is proving to be a politically challenging year for Democrats, but despite the terrible -- and apparently deteriorating -- economic situation, there are still some easy opportunities for Democrats to score points. Unfortunately, they are missing far too many of them, and to get back on track, the White House is going to need to step up its game.
Here's three examples:
- The White House should defend Social Security from Republican proposals to slash it, privatize it, and even (in Sharron Angle's case) to eliminate it entirely. This might undercut their official "neutrality" on the entitlement reform commission, but the political upside of championing the most effective and most popular social program in American history dwarfs any political risks associated with pissing off Alan Simpson. Failure to engage in this fight is unilateral political disarmament of the worst kind. The DNC is showing signs of getting involved, but this needs to come from the White House itself.
- The White House should champion massive new public investments in clean energy technology and infrastructure to create jobs and to break our dependence on fossil fuels. President Obama has done a great job touting the energy programs that were in the original stimulus, but failure to ask for more creates a cognitive dissonance: if they worked so well, why don't we need more, given that the economy has not recovered and that we aren't even close to getting off of fossil fuels. If President Obama doesn't say we need more, doesn't that undercut his message of enthusiasm about what we've already done?
- The White House should view progressives as potential allies instead of as possible enemies. Progressives generally want the same goals that the White House has embraced and while there may never be complete synchronicity between everyone on the left and everyone in the White House, President Obama will end up getting more support from the political left than from any other group. Instead of looking for opportunities to get in fights with the left, the White House should look for opportunities to join forces. At times that might seem like an impossible task to those in the White House bunker, but every time they come out swinging, they make it harder and harder to work together. Even if there's an element of high school politics to this, the White House needs to rise above that. They are the White House, and fair or not, the burden of leadership falls more heavily on them than anyone else.
To the extent that the White House has failed to take advantage of these opportunities, I think the primary reason is ineffective staff work. Often, it seems too many staffers are driven by a 1990s mindset about how politics works. Ultimately, though, President Obama is the only one who can turn the ship around. I know it must be frustrating for people in the White House to be held to such high standards; after all, by ordinary standards, they've accomplished a tremendous amount, and yet they are still receiving incoming fire. But fair or not, these aren't ordinary times. These are times that call for greatness.