There was an important development in the 2012 presidential election this week, but it had nothing to do with Mitt Romney, Newt Gingrich, or Ron Paul. And truthfully, its importance goes far beyond the perpetual campaign.
White House Chief of Staff Bill Daley resigned. Chris Cillizza described Daley’s departure in his Washington Post blog, The Fix.
Brought in to rebuild the White House’s relationship with the business community and Congress, Daley leaves the job as Obama seems to have found his stride by explicitly running against Congress and, to a lesser extent, the business community.
“What he learned was that business refused to make nice regardless of what he did,” said one former White House aide of Daley. “Wall Street was just never going to be there.”
The departure* comes at the same time as the release of a new book, The Obamas, by New York Times reporter Jill Kantor. The book, which I have not read, is said to show that Michelle Obama had philosophical differences with Pres. Obama’s first chief of staff, Rahm Emanuel, and that the president might have been better off listening to her than him.
Perhaps the greatest point of friction between Michelle Obama and Rahm Emanuel involved the push for health care reform. Like several staff members (specifically David Axelrod), the first lady was skeptical of, if not outright opposed to, the backroom deals being cut to advance the legislation…
When the whole enterprise seemed to have fallen apart, following the election of Massachusetts Sen. Scott Brown, a Republican, the first lady was furious…
“She feels as if our rudder isn’t set right,” the president told his aides.
Lately, the ship seems to have righted itself, but not without throwing a little ballast overboard. As Cillizza recalled:
The defining moment of Daley’s first nine months as chief of staff was the debt ceiling fight, which began in earnest in the spring and continued into early August…
The aftermath of the debt ceiling debate — at least in terms of the electorate — was a “pox on both your houses” mentality that drive approval ratings for Obama and Congress lower and lower.
Asked about his efforts to build bridges between the White House, Congress and the business community, Daley joked this fall: “Oh, it’s going great. Can’t you tell? I mean, things are just really great. The debt ceiling was no problem, and the business community loves us. They love the rhetoric. And, just, no problems.”
As Daley grew sarcastic, many of us grew sicker and tireder of hearing business lobbyists like the Chamber of Commerce whine about “uncertainty.” We were taught, back when schools had civics classes, that risk was a basic tenet of capitalism, necessary if reward was to follow.
The Occupy movement changed the station of public sentiment. Instead of hearing, as we had for months, that we must cut the deficit and that we must do so by ceasing essential public services and welshing on the payment of earned benefits, we began to hear about income inequality. Finally, we were talking about the right issues. Including, according to Cillizza, Obama.
Then Obama and his team made a drastic course correction that ran exactly counter to why Daley was brought in as chief of staff: the President started to fight Congress — purposefully and deliberately.
It began in late October with a series of executive orders signed by the President aimed at making clear he would do everything in his power to act even as if [sic] Congress would not. Then came Obama’s speech in Kansas in early December that amounted to a populist broadside against the Republican-led Congress.
And then there was the showdown over an extension of the payroll tax cut at the end of December where Obama stood his ground on the need for a temporary, two-month extension and dared Congressional Republicans to let the tax cut expire. Republicans blinked, Obama won.
Daley’s replacement isn’t putting Obama out on any creaky limbs. Jacob “Jack” Lew is the director of the Office of Management and Budget, as he was under Pres. Bill Clinton, and is highly regarded in Congress, even among Republicans. Still, Lew is known as one of the last of the old-school “pragmatic liberals,” not to be confused with the new moderates.
Lew’s appointment fits with the leftward, populist tone that Obama has adopted as he enter [sic] the campaign season. The new chief of staff is a staunch liberal: he started his political career canvassing for anti-war hero Eugene McCarthy in 1968 (he was 12); his adviser at Carleton College was Paul Wellstone, later an iconic liberal senator; and one of his first jobs in Washington was working for Democratic lion and former Speaker of the House Tip O’Neill.
We’ll see where Lew’s influence takes him but we can only hope that his appointment means smoother sailing for Obama.
* It’s worth noting that Daley is expected to co-chair the Obama re-election campaign.
It’s all bullshit. Obama has proven himself to be a dyed-in-wool classic conservative Republican. This is precisely why the GOP is having a devil of a time finding someone to run against him — they have to go even further RIGHT of Obama and they really can’t without looking like complete fringe lunatics!
In the meantime, Obama is again donning his liberal sheep’s clothing, trying to make people forget that there is a lying, backstabbing wolf underneath who kept all of Bushie II’s policies — even broadened them; immediately leapt into bed with Wall Street (even appointed little Timmy Geither [I have shoes older than him] to service Goldman Sacks on the federal dole.
Enough.
Anyone who continues to believe they are going to get any progressive legislation, policies or changes by continuing to vote in the pre-chewed, pre-rigged federal elections in this country is as crazy as the people who run for office anymore.
Obama is a liar and a snake oil salesman.
He has no more sympathy for the OWS movement, the 99% of us or our children. This is just a GAME to him, as it is to the 535 assclowns in Congress. We would be better off appointing public officials by lotto.
Marble for Pres!
I would like to take a moment to remind everyone the difference between Obama and McCain (or any other tool of the Republican order). During the election season, while our economy was callapsing and the Republicans in charge where only worrying about bailing out the banks, McCain proposed a Hoover-style spending freeze while Obama proposed multiple stimulus’ to keep America running.
Everything else was just politics.
So marble, who do you support in 2012?
Spot on, Trish. What we’re going to see between now and August is Team Obama running to the left to solidify emo-libs, OWS, the professional left and unprofessional lefty cranks like yours truly while Team Mittens has to run so far to the extreme right that, come the spring, they’ll be trotting him out at NASCAR hootenannies covered in tea bags and wearing a tricorn hat.
After the conventions, both camps will steer toward the middle, and, all things being equal, that will be much easier for Obama than Mitt, who is going lose independents by going all tea baggery.
As we discussed over the water cooler, Mitt is also going to have choose as his VP a Protestant (not Catholic, so not Rubio and not Chris Christie) Southerner in order to appease the half-witted goobs that comprise the GOP base and now run his party. This will also scare off Inds.
What could cinch a second term for Obama would be an Ind run by Ron Paul, who might just do it. He’s got the money, the time and nothing to lose — except his son Aqua Buddha’s standing in the GOP establishment, for whatever that is worth.
And I know you’ve asked this before, but let me ask it again: Will someone please explain how Dr. Paul or anyone can be a libertarian and yet simultaneously insist that gubmint bureaucrats be put in charge of the uteruses of all 4 million Americans who get pregnant every year?
Jon, here’s a really good summation on Paul: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/bob-cesca/the-fantastical-crackpot-_b_1200608.html