White House Chief of Staff Bill Daley resigns, finding no deals to be made

By Richard K. Barry

With all eyes on today's Republican New Hampshire primary, it was almost possible to miss the news that William M. Daley, President Obama's Chief of Staff, will be stepping down after what most people are calling a frustrating year. He will be replaced by Jacob J. Lew, the budget director. 

The New York Times had this to say about Daley's departure:

Mr. Daley, an affable former banker who is the son and brother of legendary Chicago mayors, proved to be an awkward fit on the Obama team. Recruited largely for his deal-making skills and ties to the business world, he failed to help his boss strike a huge budget deal with Republicans in the House.

After that failed negotiation, which led to months of acrimony between the White House and Congress, some of Mr. Daley's duties were transferred to Pete Rouse, a low-profile former Congressional aide with closer ties to the president.

That Mr. Daley was frustrated by Washington was no secret. In October, he told a Chicago TV station that he planned to leave the White House in January 2013, at the end of Mr. Obama's first term. It was not clear what precipitated his decision to leave now.

Is the obvious comment that a man with "deal-making" skills was not the best fit for the current dynamic in Washington? Old-school politics, with good-faith bargaining, which involves getting some of what you want in return for giving up some things, is not where we are at the moment.

We know that the Republican agenda is to ensure that Obama fails. The way they see it, nothing is supposed to happen. In that context, a deal-maker like Daley really had nothing to do.

Now that the election is in sight, different skills are required. Best advice for Obama may be in the immortal words of the late owner of the Oakland Raiders, Al Davis, who famously said, "just win baby."

Just win, Mr. President, with majorities in the House and Senate, then jam it down their throats in a second term, if that's how they want to play. It's not my first choice, but it's all they're likely to understand.

(Cross-posted at Lippmann's Ghost.)

Robert Reich says it will be Obama-Clinton in 2012

By Richard K. Barry

Okay, my break is over. Back to politics.

Robert Reich, former Secretary or Labor under President Bill Clinton, says that the Democratic ticket in 2012 will have Hillary Clinton as the vice presidential candidate. He's quick to point out that it's based on absolutely nothing, which reminds me that, also based on absolutely nothing, I suggested many months ago that Hillary would run for the top job in 2016. Hey, why not? It's all idle speculation, though, to be fair, there is some logic to Reich's musings.

Here's his thinking:

Obama needs to stir the passions and enthusiasms of a Democratic base that's been disillusioned with his cave-ins to regressive Republicans. Hillary Clinton on the ticket can do that.

Moreover, the economy won't be in superb shape in the months leading up to Election Day. Indeed, if the European debt crisis grows worse and if China's economy continues to slow, there's a better than even chance we'll be back in a recession. Clinton would help deflect attention from the bad economy and put it on foreign policy, where she and Obama have shined.

The deal would also make Clinton the obvious Democratic presidential candidate in 2016 — offering the Democrats a shot at twelve (or more) years in the White House, something the Republicans had with Ronald Reagan and the first George Bush but which the Democrats haven't had since FDR. Twelve years gives the party in power a chance to reshape the Supreme Court as well as put an indelible stamp on America.

I think we have all heard it said that Joe Biden covets the Secretary of State gig. I'm not sure where that comes from, but we've heard it, which means a job swap could work. And no matter what Hillary Clinton says, if offered an opportunity to position herself to become President of the United States of America, she won't say no.

Robert Reich is not the kind of guy who just says stuff. I think he may have a point. Bottom line is that this will all hinge on the extent to which Obama and his team think they need the help. If this is the only way they can get themselves comfortable with their re-election chances, I see no reason to dismiss the possibility.

And now that the GOP has finally stopped fooling around with the idea of nominating the gift to Obama that would have been Newt Gingrich, it does look like Mitt Romney. And if it's Romney, it will be a race. And if it's a race, all hands will be on deck for Democrats, maybe even Mrs. Clinton's.

Could happen.

(Cross-posted at Lippmann's Ghost.)

Romney's fair warning that his campaign will continue to lie

By Richard K. Barry

You'll recall the recent Romney campaign ad that so obviously took President Obama's words out of context that nearly everyone in the media called them on it.

The New York Times describes the backstory like this:

On October 16, 2008, campaigning in Londonderry, New Hampshire, Obama cast his opponent, John McCain, as out of touch with the problems facing the country – a month after the financial collapse that saw the American economy crater. Obama was expressing his incredulity at McCain’s lack of understanding of the full import of the world-engulfing fiscal crisis: “Senator McCain’s campaign actually said, and I quote, ‘If we keep talking about the economy, we’re going to lose.’ ”

Romney's ad was constructed on the lie that the words actually spoken by the McCain campaign were spoken by Obama. It is in fact an old trick, but no less disgusting for that fact. When you draw attention to what someone else said, it doesn't mean you said it yourself, or that you hold the same views. Pretty clear, right? 

It got a lot of press at the time, so no need to go into it again.

What's new is the Romney campaign defending the tactic. Here is what a top Romney operative had to say about it:

First of all, ads are propaganda by definition. We are in the persuasion business, the propaganda business…. Ads are agitprop…. Ads are about hyperbole, they are about editing. It’s ludicrous for them to say that an ad is taking something out of context…. All ads do that. They are manipulative pieces of persuasive art.

Chew on that for a moment. Romney's team is saying that in politics everyone lies so it's not a big deal, in fact, we should expect it. 

Apparently, whenever Romney or his campaign says something, we should assume that we are being manipulated. We should have no expectation that they have any respect for the truth. By their own admission, we should expect that their statements are hyperbolic and out of context. 

This is what they are telling us about how they are and will continue to run their campaign.

Thanks for the heads up, Mitt.

As Greg Sargent writes:

Between this new quote and their boast that the ad’s mangling of context was strategically brilliant because it won reams of media attention, it almost seems as if Romney advisers are trying to persuade political reporters and commentators to abandon any standards they might use to judge tactics and rhetoric throughout this campaign. Of course, one would hope this will have the opposite effect.

Let's hope. 

Final word on this is that as Gingrich continues to surge, we can expect Romney to get more and more desperate. Much as we were all being told that, among the GOP presidential hopefuls, Romney was the adult in the room, it seems that he is also a lying and manipulative adult. Isn't that wonderful?

(Cross-posted at Lippmann's Ghost.)

Latino voters are still with Obama

By Richard K. Barry

Maybe not surprising, but a Univision News/Latino Decisions poll released recently made clear the strength President Obama continues to have with Latino voters.

According to the poll released Tuesday - one year before Election day 2012 - registered Latino voters in the 21 states with the largest Latino populations prefer Obama over the top three GOP presidential candidates, Herman Cain, Mitt Romney, and Rick Perry by a two-to-one margin. The president is up 65 percent to 22 percent on Cain, 67 percent to 24 on Romney, and a whopping 68 percent to 21 on Perry.

That is certainly good news for Obama, and this is good news too:

If demographic trends are an indication, Latinos could play an even greater roll in 2012 than they did in the 2008. Last election, 6.6 million Latinos voted, but next year a record 12.2 Latinos are set to vole, a 26 percent increase from 2008, according to projections from the National Association of Latino Elected and Appointed Officials (NALEO) Educational Fund. Simply put, they are the fastest-growing voting group in the nation.

One other number worth noting is the very high percentage of Latino voters who are not blaming Obama for the struggling economy.

Sixty-seven percent believe that President George W. Bush is most responsible for the nation's economic woes (including 25 percent of Latino Republicans) and only 19 percent say Obama shoulders most of the blame. Those numbers track significantly higher than the sample of the general population, which split 50-33 percent between Bush and Obama.

Clearly the president will not want to take any constituency for granted, but this is a pretty good point from which to start making a pitch with this particular voting community.

(Cross-posted at Lippmann's Ghost.)

The inevitability of a brutal 2012 campaign season

By Richard K. Barry

In an otherwise insightful piece, Charles Babbington had an article recently at The Huffington Post with the following headline: "2012 Presidential Race Expected to Be Close, Campaign Likely to be Brutal."

I suppose there may be some disagreement at this point that the race will be close, though I doubt it. This country is pretty much split down the middle, and the past three years of the Obama Administration have done nothing to change that.

But on the point that the campaign is also likely to be brutal: ya think?

From day one conservatives have launched attack after attack on Obama that he is literally not really an American. And that even if he is legally an American, his values are not American, whatever that means.

Rather than having a good faith policy debate about, for example, the optimal size and role of government, conservatives came flying out of the gate, with the help of Fox, and Rush Limbaugh and so many other right-wing crackpots, with arguments that America had very nearly been taken over by an enemy force and that it had to be taken back (and perhaps, it was not infrequently implied, by force).

Yes, as Babbington rightly points out, there are policy differences between left and right, the kind that typically occupy debate amongst Democrats and Republicans, and these will surely play a central role in the campaign.

The differences typically take the form of blind reliance on free market mechanisms from the right and arguments for a robust role for the state from the left. Yes, we all know that.

To that extent, as Babbington writes:

The Republicans have their script: they just need to pick the person to deliver it. It will portray Obama as a failed leader who backs away when challenged and who doesn't understand what it takes to create jobs and spur growth.

Well, yes and no.

If Romney is the Republican candidate, the GOP will probably try to frame the debate in terms of "savvy businessman" vs. "community organizer."

And if the economy remains weak, as it no doubt will, and if the job numbers continue to be poor, this approach is going to be the GOP's best shot to take the White House and other races.

Problem is that the other dynamic at work, the one that won't go away, is that Obama is not just the wrong person for the job, that he doesn't have the skill set, but that he hates America, that he is foreign to our way of life, literally and figuratively.

The Tea Party anger may be expressed as frustration about the functioning of the economy, but its passion has always been fueled by this type of culture war.

This may be why Romney consistently fails to catch fire with enough of the GOP base to put the competition away. This may be why pretenders like Trump, Palin, Perry, Bachmann and Cain are tried on for size at fairly regular intervals.

Romney is not a cultural warrior and the radical right, the truly energized segment of the party, knows it.

Yes, things will get ugly in 2012, but not because of traditional left-right policy disagreements. They will get ugly because 2012 will be a battle for the soul of the nation, as the radical right sees it. And that can't be waged from the perspective of dry policy prescriptions. It can only be fought on the basis of what it means, they would say, to be a real American.

Though I believe Romney will be the nominee, and that he will try to marginalize the culture war narrative in his campaign, the radical right won't let him do it. This has become too important to them.

Romney, as the nominee, will be fighting a two front war: Obama on the left largely on economic policy, and the Tea Party and fellow travellers on his right who think they are fighting an epic struggle to reclaim the America they have lost.

It's going to be ugly, but not in conventional terms. Romney hopes he has a winning script, I'm just not sure he can limit the discussion in ways he might like. In fact, I'm sure he can't.

In politics as in life, any time your opening gambit is that your opponent is a fraud, things can only go downhill.

The practical question is the extent to which swing voters / independents are going to see this kind of ugliness as counterproductive, especially in a climate in which they are legitimately fearful for their economic survival.

(Cross-posted at Lippmann's Ghost.)

James Carville is right, Dems should worry first then fight to win

By Richard K. Barry 

In a recent radio interview, legendary Democratic strategist James Carville said what any thinking politico in the Democratic ranks should be thinking:

Everything worries me in this environment. Nobody's gotten elected with these kinds of numbers. So, I'm worried about the general election. I profoundly admit that. Again, Romney's just making a technocratic kind of confidence argument, and he's really a windsock kind of guy. If you don't like his position on something, give it a day and he'll change it.

Carville then went on to take predictable shots at Perry and Cain, but the point is that being worried is a rational response from Democrats right now. Still, as a strategist, Carville knows that you want to get your Democratic base worried and motivated in part, I think, because the GOP presidential hopefuls are so pathetic that it's hard to take them seriously.

As Carville surely implies, however, in this economy all challengers have to be taken seriously.

Perhaps the more we watch the GOP field, the more comfortable, even complacent, Democrats are becoming with their expectations of re-election for Obama.

Bottom line is that this would be a mistake. Yes, they are a pathetic bunch, the GOP presidential candidates, but the state of the country now and likely leading up to the general election is not good for incumbents. And Democrats are going to have to fight with everything they have to retain the White House.

Along with Mr. Carville, let's be worried, very worried, and then get to work.

(Cross-posted at Lippmann's Ghost.)