Sometimes I think the Democrats have a death wish. For Harry Reid to ruminate about putting off health-care reform until next year is to give the Teabaggers even more time to stir up populist outrage about an out-of-touch Congress. With every poll showing that the No. 1 concern among voters is the weak job picture, the White House seems unresponsive. The news, first reported by BusinessWeek, that Goldman Sachs received a supply of H1N1 vaccine before many New York City hospitals fed into the simmering anger over the favored treatment of Wall Street. (Click here to follow Eleanor Clift)
The Obama team, confronted with losses in two major state governor's races, downplayed any bearing on the president, focusing instead on the shootout between the right and the far right in the upset win by a Democrat in NY-23, a traditionally Republican upstate congressional district. The GOP is having a nasty internal debate that could end badly for its hopes to regain power. Ideological purity is at odds with achieving majority-party status, and Sarah Palin's interjection in the New York contest is a template that will play out across the country in next year's races.
But to conclude that Democrats have no worries is "denial on steroids," says Bill Galston, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution and a veteran of the Clinton White House. However worthy and necessary the Obama priorities of health-care reform and climate-change legislation are, exit polls on Tuesday show the economy and jobs are the top priority for voters. "People give you credit for working on the problems that are most important to them, even if you don't solve them. If you're talking about things that seem peripheral, they will punish you," says Galston.
There's a good case that health-care reform will relieve corporate America of burdensome costs and boost job mobility, and that a new green economy is the wave of the future, but convincing people that these complex pieces of legislation are the most relevant way to address their problems is a tough sell, and Obama hasn't really tried, or at least it seems that way.
What Democrats miss most is Obama's clarion call, the visionary rhetoric that cut through all the noise of the campaign and signaled a new day in American politics. He fought so hard to keep his BlackBerry because he feared the isolation that comes with being president, and losing touch with the millions of newly engaged voters whom he had brought into the process. Many of them didn't vote on Tuesday, and their disappointment should serve as fair warning for Obama to adjust course.
The way forward should be evident in the unanimous Senate vote on Wednesday extending unemployment benefits along with a popular first-time homeowners' tax credit that will now also cover current homeowners who are in the market to buy a house. A bipartisan bill that called for a payroll tax holiday, or a reduction in the payroll tax for working people, would win broad support in Congress and help restore some of the lost trust among voters who fault Washington for favoring Wall Street.
Palinism may be off to a shaky start, but doubts about Democrats and their capacity to govern and deliver results shaped the races in New Jersey and Virginia, and are driving down President Obama's approval among independents. The latest Pew Research Center poll finds that nearly seven in 10 Americans (68 percent) say they hear "mostly bad news" about the economy. The headline on a USA Today-Gallup poll late last month asked, "How patient is America?" When asked what word best describes Obama, "socialist" had vaulted to No. 3, and "change," which topped the list during the campaign, no longer made the top 10.
Voters make decisions based on the information that gets through to them, and their instincts are on the mark more often than not. Democrat Jon Corzine lost in New Jersey because he did a lousy job as governor, and driving 90 miles an hour without a seat belt confirmed what voters suspected about his poor judgment. In Virginia, Democrats took a shellacking because Republican Bob McDonnell kept his eye on the economy, tying his Democratic opponent to what job-stressed voters regard as secondary debates about health-care reform and climate change.
As for that New York district, Newt Gingrich was right in saying that outsiders meddle at their peril. If Republicans want to be a majority party, they need to embrace a bigger tent. The GOP's internal war is already imperiling candidates with broader ideological appeal in Florida and California. Still, a Republican implosion is not enough to assure Democrats a safe harbor. As Galston points out, this is the next generation of the activists who transformed the GOP from losing with 39 percent of the vote with Barry Goldwater in the 1964 presidential election to winning with 59 percent with President Reagan in 1984. These are not people who are easily discouraged, not with the winds of a new conservative populism at their backs.
Eleanor Clift is also the author of Two Weeks of Life: A Memoir of Love, Death, and Politics and Woman, Child for Sale: The New Slave Trade in the 21st Century .
Uncommon Knowledge
Newsweek is committed to challenging conventional wisdom and finding connections in the search for common ground.
Newsweek is committed to challenging conventional wisdom and finding connections in the search for common ground.
