Our Changing Globe

Posts Tagged ‘elections’

Mr. Obama got a lot of help from a lot of people and from many interest groups including the media to get where he’s got and the question has to be asked, “so what does he owe, and to who?”. 

Most of the different interest groups that helped Obama to get elected are already working on wish-lists that they hope he’ll feel obliged to ‘honor’, but given the nature of Obama’s victory it’s not clear how much he really ‘owes’ to anyone. 

Many people such as Norman J. Ornstein from the ‘American Enterprise Institute’ insist that the unparalleled ground organization and campaign infrastructure that Obama built makes him less reliant on groups like the labor unions, “He doesn’t have the traditional strings attached”, Ornstein said. “For labor, it’s not like they can come to him and say, “You would not be president were it not for us”. And Steve McMahon who was a democratic strategist concurs, “He owes nothing to anyone except the people who elected him”. 

Right now, the labor unions are pressing Obama to move quickly on universal healthcare and also on legislation that will make it easier for workers to organize. The Latino advocacy groups want immigration reform and even the ‘National Trust for Historic Preservation’ want full federal funding, “to protect our heritage”. 

Also waiting in the wings are the more moderate elements in the Democratic party, Wall Street and big business that helped fund his campaign. 

A huge saving grace for Obama is that he rejected campaign contributions from political action committees and federal lobbyists which means that at least he clearly owes them nothing. 

In addition to the various interest groups many politicians around the country backed him and many of them did so early on in the campaign and although it’s unclear who will be rewarded Obama personally thanked McCaskill and Kaine on many occasions for their backing and Napolitano and Sebelius are on several appointment lists in Democratic circles with Napolitano being pushed for ‘Attorney General’ and Sebelius for ‘Health And Human Services Secretary’. 

Perhaps the bottom line is that the biggest outstanding debt that Obama has is to his grass-roots supporters and it would seem that they presently understand that he will not be a miracle worker, and Obama himself is already working to lower expectations. 

Departing from prepared remarks last Friday he said, “It is not going to be quick, it is not going to be easy to dig ourselves out of the hole we are in”.  

There are hopes and intentions and then there are the carved in stone realities that need to be overcome in order to achieve them.

Like all politicians and perhaps the ones that reach the highest echelons in particular, Obama most likely hopes to leave a lasting and favorable legacy at the end of his four or eight year tenure.

He will inherit amongst other things the worst financial crisis since the thirties, an Iran that is close to being able to create nuclear weapons, wars in Iraq and Iran, dwindling oil supplies, rising unemployment, climate change issues and the probability that Israel will elect a right wing leader in February 2009, and making things even more difficult are the sky high expectations of the American people and much of the world.

A possible upside to the seemingly endless list of crises is perhaps the need for bipartisan action that will be needed to help solve some of them and this may buy Obama and his administration a little time, but not much because the democrats in congress will be eager to act after waiting eight years in the wings. The most likely things to get pushed through at an early stage are the ‘State Children’s Health Insurance Program’ which has considerable Republican support, embryonic-stem-cell research, a bill that that would overturn a limited Supreme Court decision on women’s ability to sue for wage discrimination, and some cross-party cooperation can also be expected in the area of the financial crisis.

Clinton’s second chief of staff, Leon Panetta issued a statement saying, “Not in my lifetime has a president confronted such a series of very serious crises that are facing the country. He’s also going to have to appeal to the public’s willingness to sacrifice in order to rally them around some of the tough decisions he is going to have to make” and Mr. Obama who understands this only too well, said on Tuesday night, “The road ahead will be long. Our climb will be steep. We may not get there in one year or even one term, but America — I have never been more hopeful than I am tonight that we will get there. I promise you: We as a people will get there”.