The last 2 glorious elections seems to have taught many of us the wrong lesson. The right lesson to learn from those elections is that the American people are pretty god-damn sure that the Republicans can't govern.
- They can't run the economy
- They can't defend us or run wars
- They have been taken over by a series of loonies, from Neocons to Laffer-curve crazies, to Falwell-Robertson fanatics.
That is the right lesson. What is the wrong lesson? That the American people love and trust the Democratic party to succeed. We only look good because the other guys look so bad....
My arguments are very "moderate" by DKos standards. I may very well be naive (or old-fashioned), but it seems to me that Obama can't do any more until the results of his first series of policy/law changes has had a chance to work. I include the health-care law (which WILL pass), but (IMHO) not the climate change law. [I don't think anything very substantive or useful will pass this year].
Put yourself in the position of a mushy independent - All he knows is that we had to get rid of the incompetent Republican SOBs. He is taking a wait-and-see attitude towards Obama. He knows that Obama is not a moron (unlike the last guy) and that is all well-and-good; but he doesn't know whether the Obama policy prescriptions will lead to anything like normal prosperity. And now he's being asked to double-down on climate change before he knows if the other initiatives (TARP, Stimulus, GM/Chrysler) are going to work.
An analogy to Bill Clinton's tenure may be instructive here. Bill Clinton came in at the end of a very mild recession --- and instituted some major tax increases for the rich...Unfortunately, he and Hillary made a terrible mess of the health-care thing and DADT. Suppose he had waited on both until after he had shown that his fiscal policies were working? By election day 1996, growth had resumed (3.6%) and the deficit was going down.
Suppose Clinton had tried for health-care reform when he had proven himself? Now, the analogy breaks down, because the Rethugs took over the House in 1994, and Clinton couldn't have gotten it anyway...
It seems to me that after you prove yourself it is just a lot easier to say "trust me". Isn't it? Imagine 2011: the Iraq war has wound down; Pakistan has put so much heat on the Taliban that they have retreated. Obama is now a proven CIC. Wouldn't then be the perfect time for repealing DADT?
I feel that Obama would get a better Climate-change bill in (say) 2013. Perhaps the dreck that passes in this Congress can be amended then. But wouldn't he be better off getting the right bill then?
[Of course, history proves I'm wrong -- the 2nd term of a President is rarely earth-shattering...But IMO that's wrong. That's when the major moves should pass.]
If the 'iron isn't all that hot', 'strike while the iron is hot' is a bad strategy. It just shows that we're not sure when we're going to get thrown out, so we better get everything we can right now. Suppose we Dems behaved like this is the beginning of a 30-year Democratic reign. What's the hurry?