Greg Sargent continues to bring up the key false narrative being pushed in reaction to Bill Daley's selection for chief of staff--that this is a "correction" in an administration that has governed from the left. He follows up in a great post today, noting that (of course) the Third Way picked up the lie and ran with it in their reaction to Daley's selection.
Maybe it's true that "the left's agenda" has not won the support of a majority of Americans, but that claim has nothing to do with the agenda Obama actually pursued during his first two years.
This is a matter of simple factual reality. Obama and Dems passed a smaller stimulus than many on the left wanted. Obama and Dems jettisoned from health reform the core provision liberals sought, and embraced solutions once championed by Republicans. Wall Street reform was not as ambitious as the left had hoped. The Obama administration has escalated in Afghanistan and justified it with rhetoric that Republicans wholly approve of. Has embraced many Bush policies on civil liberties and terrorism that the left despises.
Obama, in other words, embraced a mix of liberal and Republican solutions to the crises he inherited. While his agenda was undeniably the most ambitious in a generation, the general ideological complexion of his approach can at best be described as governing from the "center left" -- precisely what Daley chastised Obama for allegedly failing to do.
To add a bit on just one of those issues: the health reform bill pushed by the administration, the bill that eventually passed, was modeled primarily on the law Republican Mitt Romney signed into law when he was governor of Massachusetts. It contained many elements Republicans had been espousing for years (until it actually came time for a Democratic majority to sheperd the bill), and it was negotiated with every major industry involved. AHIP wasn't just at the table, a former WellPoint VP essentially wrote the bill for Sen. Max Baucus, the bill that ultimately was passed. White House aide Jim Messina dealt the public option away with for-profit hospitals.
Health reform rant aside, back to Sargent:
If Dems internalize the idea that Obama's achievements represented politically-disastrous liberal overreach, it could weaken their resolve to aggressively defend them. It's no accident that Blue Dog Dem Dan Boren is simultaneously supporting the GOP repeal push and hailing the choice of Daley as a sign that Obama recognizes the ultraliberal error of his ways. These are two sides of the same coin. Thankfully, most Dems aren't doing this, and instead are rallying to defend the Affordable Care Act. But again, this is only the start of a much broader two-year argument....
To be clear, there's no arguing with the fact that Obama is going to need to win back independents in a big way in advance of 2012. To the extent that the Daley pick helps him do that by showing he's trying to "recalibrate" relations with the business community and the nation's "job creators," or that he "gets it," that's fine. And if Daley does a good job doing what he was hired to do -- run the White House -- then great. But when the Daley choice is used to reinforce a narrative that undercuts Obama's chief accomplishments, it's worth taking the time to push back.
What's also clear, as the 2010 elections should have amply demonstrated, is that Democrats can't win on Independent votes alone. Obama still has some room to alienate the activist left, because in the very fact that we're the activists we'll still vote, and at least some will still be the boots on the ground and the checks in the bank. Some, but no means all. The chances of a serious primary challenger right now are very slim. (Unless we see something like a deal with Republicans to seriously damage Social Security. In that case, all bets are off.)
But what does a Democratic president tacitly disavowing the major accomplishments of his administration mean for the much larger number of disaffected Democrats and Democratic leaning Independents who didn't show up on November 2? These are the voters who need to hear a compelling argument from the leader of their party for their votes. The Third Way way is not going to bring them back.
(Or what Atrios sez, in a lot fewer words.)