Competence is the word being used in questions about Congressional Democrats' political tactics. Have their tactics been effective -- or even well thought out? Their inattention to the Massachusetts senate campaign calls into question their ability to govern.
The Massachusetts debacle certainly jeopardizes much needed reform in health care and other sectors. But please, New York Times editors plead, no desperate reactions. No sudden turns to populism.
The Democrats had an exceptionally weak candidate in Massachusetts, but the results call into question their tactical political competence. The party now has less than 10 months to get it right before the midterm elections, when they are in danger of losing more seats in the House and the Senate. It is indisputable that the Republicans have settled on a tactic of obstruction, disinformation and fear-mongering, but it is equally indisputable that the Democrats have not countered it well. ...
Obama, Times editors write, bears no responsibility for what happened in Massachusetts. Nor is that loss a repudiation of health reform.
To our minds, it is not remotely a verdict on Mr. Obama’s presidency, nor does it amount to a national referendum on health care reform — even though it has upended the effort to pass a reform bill, which Mr. Obama made the centerpiece of his first year.
The president has been careful and deliberate. But he needs to ramp up his reaction times in key issues.
We admire Mr. Obama’s intelligence and the careful way he makes decisions. It is reported that he seeks out dissenting views doggedly. He tells Americans the truth. We don’t want Mr. Obama to turn into a hot populist, but he can be too cool and often waits too long to react at big moments. If White House reporters are still making jokes two years from now about checking the president’s pulse, the nation will be in big trouble.
President Obama gets it: he will have to "turn around his presidency in a drastically altered political environment that will test his
leadership, his instincts and his political dexterity as never before."
“If there’s one thing that I regret this year, is that we were so busy just getting stuff done and dealing with the immediate crises that were in front of us, that I think we lost some of that sense of speaking directly to the American people about what their core values are and why we have to make sure those institutions are matching up with those values,” he said. “And that I do think is a mistake of mine.”
The president alluded to his own reputation for emotional distance from voters suffering from a troubled economy. “What they’ve ended up seeing is this feeling of remoteness and detachment where, you know, there’s these technocrats up here, these folks who are making decisions,” he said. ...NYT
