Might as well get started now

Bill Keller begins his op-ed exercise of "Salvaging Obama" by modestly noting that "It’s not that I want the president to think small ... [but] this is a time to revive the best features of a stalled presidency, not to launch grand new initiatives." Hence on domestic matters, in which Congress would be involved (egads!), he proceeds to advise some little stuff: a little fiscal deal, maybe, and perhaps a little more wedging in the politics of immigration reform.

At the end of Keller's op-ed, however, reality seems to bite; thereupon he radically revises his counsel of small stuff and drops what seems to me a massive new initiative:

It may well be that--despite the evident voter unhappiness with Washington gridlock--Congress will continue to be unmovable. In which case...       

Nationalize the midterm elections.

... [Obama] should miss no opportunity to portray the 2014 elections not as 435 House contests and 33 Senate races, but as a national referendum on our government dysfunction.

That's huge, is it not? To hold not so much congressional midterms, but a national referendum on what should only euphemistically be called "government dysfunction"?

We passed dysfunction more than two years ago, in the summer of 2011, when Republicans first threatened to take us all down in a mammothly nihilistic tantrum. "Dysfunction" suggests that something is functioning--not well, not normally, but functioning nonetheless--yet American governance has come to mean a squalid consistency of official inaction interrupted only by gangbanging blasts of debilitating shutdowns and criminal extortion.

This isn't governance. It's a fucking street fight--albeit a trifle one-sided. When I see headlines like this one--"White House seeks Republican immigration help"--I wonder what sort of Stockholm-syndrome or Rob Ford crack the WH is smoking. It's seeking Republican what?

That said, Keller resides more comfortably in the WH camp than he acknowledges. He, too, wants to see if Congress is "movable." I see no reason to wait and see ... again. Indeed I have seen no reason all year. If President Obama wants to salvage his second term, he's got to go all offense, all the time, simple as that.

 

Comments

[AnneJ]

Good idea, but what would that mean? I thought he did a good job going on offense during the shutdown/debt ceiling fight, and I thought he'd learned his lesson about that bunch already.

[Peter G]

"White House seeks Republican immigration help" translates to: White House keeps issue toxic to Republicans simmering while seeming to seek bi-partisan compromise. A lifeline the Republicans are sure to decline despite the fact that they desperately need to expand their base of support beyond old white people. In much the same way the Republicans are offering to help fix ACA.