Leadership, Obama Style, and the Looming Losses in 2010: Pretty Speeches, Compromised Values, and

[BR_Parkway]

Leadership, Obama Style, and the Looming Losses in 2010: Pretty Speeches, Compromised Values, and the Quest for the Lowest Common Denominator

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/drew-westen/leadership-obama-style-an_b_398813.html

As the president's job performance numbers and ratings on his handling of virtually every domestic issue have fallen below 50 percent, the Democratic base has become demoralized, and Independents have gone from his source of strength to his Achilles Heel, it's time to reflect on why. The conventional wisdom from the White House is those "pesky leftists" -- those bloggers and Vermont Governors and Senators who keep wanting real health reform, real financial reform, immigration reform not preceded by a year or two of raids that leave children without parents, and all the other changes we were supposed to believe in.

Somehow the president has managed to turn a base of new and progressive voters he himself energized like no one else could in 2008 into the likely stay-at-home voters of 2010, souring an entire generation of young people to the political process. It isn't hard for them to see that the winners seem to be the same no matter who the voters select (Wall Street, big oil, big Pharma, the insurance industry). In fact, the president's leadership style, combined with the Democratic Congress's penchant for making its sausage in public and producing new and usually more tasteless recipes every day, has had a very high toll far from the left: smack in the center of the political spectrum.

What's costing the president and courting danger for Democrats in 2010 isn't a question of left or right, because the president has accomplished the remarkable feat of both demoralizing the base and completely turning off voters in the center. If this were an ideological issue, that would not be the case. He would be holding either the middle or the left, not losing both.

What's costing the president are three things: a laissez faire style of leadership that appears weak and removed to everyday Americans, a failure to articulate and defend any coherent ideological position on virtually anything, and a widespread perception that he cares more about special interests like bank, credit card, oil and coal, and health and pharmaceutical companies than he does about the people they are shafting.

The problem is not that his record is being distorted. It's that all three have more than a grain of truth. And I say this not as one of those pesky "leftists." I say this as someone who has spent much of the last three years studying what moves voters in the middle, the Undecideds who will hear whichever side speaks to them with moral clarity.

so, so much more at the post

[BR_Parkway]

1. Less than 0 - that's one of those cowardly unrecommends, right? figures

[ixion]

2. anything ever so slightly critical of the current leadership

is mocked and scorned, sadly.

I'm amazed at the hypocrisy.

[donco6]

3. I couldn't have said it better.

Great article - says exactly what I'm feeling and thinking.

[Vidar]

4. K&R.

[jonnyblitz]

5. this is quite good. nt

[tridim]

6. Meanwhile, no president has ever accomplished so much good..

in so little time.

Including HEALTH CARE REFORM which no other president in history has accomplished. NONE.

Good try HuffPo, but it just makes you look like the professional whiners on DU.

[BR_Parkway]

7. What exactly is a professional whiner? And what in the article isn't true?

This is exactly how it's being handled, and in spite of some refusing to acknowledge that some of us might have a point, there's plenty of support that's dropping far too quickly

[tridim]

10. A little self-reflection should answer your question.

[BR_Parkway]

12. Again with the non answers - such a fierce advocate - I would have

expected you to be able to say something

No where in the article does it ever say the man hasn't done good - only that he's done safe - and the bare minimum anyone who would have been elected a Democratic President would have done.

See the difference being that we who criticize have also been willing to admit the good things he's doing, and we keep pushing for more. Unfortunately, those who are simply cheerleading destroy their own credibility by never ever finding fault - it's him, not HIM - and he's human. I don't expect to agree with anyone who sits in that office on every decision, but I do expect them to stand up and lead on the issues they promise.

His style, more and more apparently to more and more of us - is not to lead, not to fight. It's disappointing and probably will mean that what could have been accomplished in so many areas will fall far, far short of what does.

In case you haven't figured it out yet, those of us who criticize actually do want him to succeed. Hell, I wanted Bush to be successful at doing things that were right for the country, we'd have been much better off for it. Why wouldn't I want the at least that much from Obama?

[pnorman]

8. K & R the above posting!

(If that were allowable)

[bemildred]

9. Look, the US' political elites HATE populism, almost all of them.

It is up to US to keep throwing their asses out of office until they get a clue. Nothing else will bring about real reform, no knight of any hue is going to ride in and save our asses for us because he is pure and noble of motive.

[abq e streeter]

11. K and R ..Once again, I wish I didn't agree and fervently hope the author and I are wrong

Disappointed in the apparent unrecs too... I recced it when it was at plus 3, and afterward...still at plus three. It's a highly intelligent, well thought out and presented analysis, and I would hope that we at DU are mature enough to move this type of intelligent analysis to the forefront for discussion whether we agree with it or not. I recced an OP the other day written by someone I almost always disagree with,because it was an intelligently worded and reasonable question that the DU member who wrote it posed, and I recced because I thought it was worth discussing . This one is a piece that is worth reading and considering whether or not you agree with it, and I hope it moves to "greatest" so many others can see it and consider the points Mr. Westen makes.

[BR_Parkway]

15. When you think of what could have been, it's such a shame - maybe

the next 3 years will prove the author wrong, but he's dead on for the last year for certain

[abq e streeter]

16. sadly, he is "dead on" for this past year--if I were infinitely more eloquent than I am,

I would have written almost exactly what Mr. Westen did. And yes, the "what could have been"; it's heartbreaking, and frightening, because as pathetically compromised/sold out etc as most of the upper echelon of our party is, a return to power by the Christian-Taliban republican party would be a virtually unprecedented disaster.

[emilyg]

13. kick

[soryang]

14. The defense industry knows where he stands on war

He's all for it!

Some one needs to send Obama a copy of Kennedy and the Unspeakable by James Douglass.