I enjoy following the presidential horse race - how campaigns choose where and when to spend money, advertising strategy, etc. - so I've been spending a lot of time at places like Redstate.com these past 6 months. Two observations: 1) they are appalled at how their primaries have unfolded (no candidates left they really like) and 2) they are freaking out over President Obama's recess appointments to CFPB and NLRB.
What exactly did President Obama do?
Three years after pledging a new era of post-partisan cooperation, President Barack Obama on Wednesday declared war with congressional Republicans by unilaterally installing his nominee to head a new consumer protection bureau.
And the White House sees only political gold in doing so.
Obama also appointed three members to the National Labor Relations Board.
The new CFPB head, Richard Cordray, followed up with a post on HuffPo. Some excerpts:
....now, with a Director, the CFPB can exercise its full authorities -- with respect to both banks and nonbanks -- to help those markets operate fairly, transparently, and competitively....
....But sometimes, those consumer money troubles arise out of problems in the consumer financial markets. I have seen senior citizens lose their life savings to scams and fraud. I have seen young adults start their lives with crushing student loan debt burdens that they cannot afford. I have seen families bankrupted, and thrown out of their homes, by complex mortgages with spiraling interest costs and monthly payments that were never clearly explained.
In its first six months, the CFPB has taken significant steps to make consumer financial markets more transparent so they work better for consumers and for responsible businesses....
CFPB examiners are now on the ground at the nation's largest financial institutions, reviewing documents and asking tough questions about how these banks are complying with consumer financial protection laws.
One difficulty we faced until now was that, without a director, we were unable to address all the problems we were created to tackle. In particular, we lacked the ability to supervise financial institutions other than big banks -- like nonbank mortgage lenders and servicers, and payday lenders....
I am pleased to say that we will now be able to exercise the full authorities granted to us under the law and begin to supervise these nonbanks.
Yeah, Republicans don't like this guy. But they really don't like President Obama:
I can safely say that this is the ballsiest thing I have ever seen a President do that served absolutely no meaningful purpose at all. If Congress – and I am including Congressional Democrats in this – takes this lying down, it will set a breathtaking precedent and instantaneously demolish a significant part of Congress’ relevance.
Is the White House nervous about how this will be received? Uh, not really:
It was the latest milestone in Obama’s journey from bipartisan conciliator to partisan agitator, perhaps the starkest break to date from his campaign promises to change the tone in Washington.
“When Congress refuses to act, and as a result, hurts our economy and puts our people at risk, then I have an obligation as president to do what I can without them,” Obama said during a quick trip to Shaker Heights, a Cleveland suburb. “I’ve got an obligation to act on behalf of the American people. And I’m not going to stand by while a minority in the Senate puts party ideology ahead of the people that we were elected to serve.”
In one fell swoop, Obama managed to tap into voter frustration with Washington, distance himself from an unpopular Congress, buck up the liberal base and reassert himself as a latter-day Teddy Roosevelt, fighting for a “fair deal” for the middle class. He even stole some of the spotlight from Republicans a day after the Iowa caucuses.
The way his advisers see it, it would have been political malpractice to do anything less than circumvent the Senate Republican minority, which blocked Cordray not because they found him unqualified but because they didn’t like the law that created the bureau. Republicans, in their view, gave Obama little choice.
Norm Ornstein, a longtime observer of Congress and scholar at the conservative-leaning American Enterprise Institute, agreed: The GOP “was almost daring him to do something like this.”
How will this play with voters? The White House will be aligned with consumers against banks and financial institutions and Republicans will be screaming "but we weren't really in recess!" A moral argument versus a process argument. Which do you think wins in the court of public opinion?