Stating the obvious. Obama's outreach and leadership on healthcare reform has not been effective

[cali]

I don't believe that Obama is merely a tool of the corpocracy, though I don't think he's impervious to corporate influence and power. I actually believe his basic impulses and motivations lean toward the public good. BUT
I also believe he's overly amenable to compromise and doesn't necessarily have the stomach or chops to fight for real healthcare reform.

We need strength, conviction and clarity from the President right now. I'm not seeing that.

[mmonk]

1. His problem is Rahm Emanuel and bad advice.

Those problems will be his downfall if he doesn't stand up for anything to appease those that never listen.

[cali]

3. Maybe. But even if that's true, it still fits into the points I made.

[mmonk]

5. Yes, that's correct. Sometimes, when there are opposing views,

concensus is not possible and leadership is required.

[izquierdista]

10. Which boils down to Obama in the first place

Obama was the one who chose Rahm Emanuel, of all the people, for chief of staff, .

[Vidar]

16. That's true except for the fact that Obama selected Rahm & a cabinet full of corporatists.

[asdjrocky]

2. Something's happening here...

What it is, ain't exactly clear.

Clearly someone has dropped the ball, or never intended on picking it up in the first place. I'm holding judgment, but as I've often said, no public option, I'm out of here.

[customerserviceguy]

4. Perhaps this is inexperience?

President Obama didn't even spend anywhere near enough time in the US Senate to become acquainted with how things work there, and he has only Rahm Emmanuel's experience in the House to guide him there. LBJ didn't have that weakness.

[JeanGrey]

7. Obama is inexperienced. That much everyone knew.

I was hoping that he would surround himself with good people and have guts. But I imagine his advisors are pumping him every single minute with "you've got to drop this, your approval ratings are falling faster than a horse can trot".

Too bad he doesn't understand WHY they are falling...................

[customerserviceguy]

27. It was bound to

Nobody can maintain the ratings he had back around Inauguration Day. You use that momentum to accomplish the most important things on your list, and economic recovery had to be at the top of that list. Without that, there is no second Obama term, and there may not be a Democratic Congress, either.

You do what you can do (and maybe he's got one more rabbit up his sleeve), and you hope that it works come Election Day. Then, you get another chance, if you've picked correctly.

[WI_DEM]

25. Well Bill Clinton had, what six terms as governor of Arkansas and he couldn't get any health care

Obama will get a health care bill which will have some good things in it, and hopefully the public option, too.

[customerserviceguy]

28. If Bill Clinton had taken a better approach

than to put Hillary in charge, he might have accomplished the incremental reform that President Obama could now build on.

Hillary Clinton might be a seasoned political veteran at this point, clearly, she's a fast learner. But to stick an unelected person who never had any high office of her own into the job of redesigning the health care industry in this country right after she became First Lady (normally, a purely ceremonial 'post') was to court disaster.

I think a week from now, there will be a LOT of moaning around here. Congresscritters will have had a chance to meet, and say, "Well, I might not have had one of those knock-down, drag-out town halls, but you should have seen the flood of mail that I got on this issue! We've got to scale this back a few notches."

Mark my words, by next time this week, the public option will be dead and buried. It needed to be done before the August recess, if it was to be done at all.

[paulk]

30. Obama learned the wrong things from Clinton's failure

He had a real mandate, something Clinton did not have... he should have put his own plan out there instead of letting Congress lead. He needed to tell Congress what he would or wouldn't accept, iow, he needed to be the leader he promised us he was, not the consensus builder he has turned out to be.

This joint session he's called will be the defining moment of his presidency - his last chance to take the reins on healthcare...

[JeanGrey]

6. No. He caved to the teabaggers. He has watched his

approval numbers slide and in the end, it's all about self preservation. I knew it. God, we will never have single payer health care for all, the insurance companies will get richer and richer and that is really all there is to it.

[Kansas Wyatt]

19. All the polls the MSM keeps showing with Obama's numbers down.

They started showing polls about how he was handling Health Care change awhile back, as they showed all the teabaggers crusading against "socialized" Health Care. Sure there are a few in the opposing column that are teabaggers and die hard wingnuts.

But, has anyone had a poll stating exactly why people in these polls oppose Obama's Health Care change?

Why can't they see that people may oppose Obama's Health Care change, because...
1) He removed single payer right off the bat?

2) He then tried to work "deals" with the Insurance & Pharma Industries, much like Bush would have?

3) Then he tried to back off government option?

Now Obama's numbers are going down, because it is snowballing from the Health Care change. People wanted change, but that is not what the people have been seeing. They are tired of Corporate America getting everything their way, which is why the Democrats were voted into power in the first place.

Why can't they figure it out?

[JeanGrey]

29. Maybe because they don't want to "figure it out".

Maybe because it is easy to make promises and harder to deliver. I'm done with it. I wish I had backed Kucinich.

[SemiCharmedQuark]

8. Part of it, I think, is the learning curve on moving from a legislative to an executive position.

The last senator we had that became a president was JFK, I think. He had problems asserting himself during the first part of his term.

[marmar]

9. Agreed. He's way too amenable to compromise (Clinton redux) ........

..... You cannot negotiate with terrorists, which is what the Repug party has become.

[JohnnyLib2]

11. Oh, boy, someone is doin' a little hell-raisin' on DU today.

I basically agree with the OP and good luck with the defending of it!

[cali]

12. I don't feel compelled to defend the obvious and heaven help us if

mild toned OP is considered hell raising.

[JohnnyLib2]

17. I might be wrong (!); we'll see who chimes in later in the day.

:hi:

[Odin2005]

13. I think he didn't expect the Blue Dogs to be such turncoats.

That's why I think he got Rahm on his team, thinking he would use him to shmooze the Blue Dogs in the right direction when necessary while being able to say that he's "listening to centrist opinions". I don't think he expected them to be this stubborn, especially since people like Kent Conrad are pretty liberal in other areas. I think he's trying to figure out how to deal with the Blue Dogs right now.

[Beetwasher]

14. It Hasn't Even Really Started Yet

The push comes NOW, in the fall. Timing is everything.

Meanwhile, the Repubs have blown their wad early, over the summer w/ their lies and showed their hand, the momentum is now coming back to our side.

[Proud Liberal Dem]

22. His poll numbers will go back up too IMHO

What I think we are seeing is pretty much a repeat of what happened last summer before the election. People here need to calm down a bit here IMHO.

[ThomWV]

15. He should be reminded that the Republicans didn't lose because they were inflexible

they lost because their policies were unsound. In fact the public supported their inflexibility - it was seen as backbone and respected as a strength. Many was the interviewee who said the reason the loved W. was because you knew where he stood and he didn't back down. Obama begins with appeasement and increases its level as he moves backwards toward our adversary's position.

[TexasObserver]

18. He is squandering his mandate and failing to lead Democrats.

He can't even enunciate a simple, cohesive message about what he's trying to accomplish with health care.

He needs to start thinking in terms of workable slogans and simple messages that sell. His tendency to overtalk everything muddles the process.

[WeCanWorkItOut]

20. Zeke and friends are also part of the problem (IMHO)

Zeke and some others seem to have trouble thinking outside the box.
Actually, there are quite a few ways to save health dollars
besides the ones Zeke envisions. For example,
better use of nurse practitioners. And a much bigger
push for healthy lifestyles. More health education.
More pressure on insurance companies. Limiting
the monopoly powers of doctors and hospitals.
But is there any evidence that Zeke and friends
ever mentioned these things to Obama?

Of course one of his advisors did not want to mandate individual insurance.
Unfortunately, that humane notion was compromised away.

[Proud Liberal Dem]

21. You forgot to add......."yet"

I don't think that his lack of outreach and/or leadership on HCR so far has been because of his incompetence or because he isn't "impervious" to corporate influence and power. I think that it's part of his plan to get it through. I mean, realistically, anything he could've done, particularly this past month, would've been drowned out by the "birthers," "teabaggers," and "deathers" and I think that he knew that, so he just let them have their "field day" and make themselves look nutty and he also wanted to let the Pubs signal which way they were going to go which, sadly, is not going to be towards seriously working on HCR. It sounds like he is getting ready to go balls to the walls for HCR but I don't think that the timing is coincidental or because he's "feeling the heat". As I recall, he let the Republicans have their RNC "hatefest" last year and let it look like his campaign was floundering, absent, not really doing anything- to the point a lot of us here on DU were getting worried and upset with him, and then he ramped up his campaign shortly thereafter and stayed on the offensive and, well, we all know how the election turned out. We seem to be seeing more or less a repeat of everything he did last year to win the election and the same worry and anxiety here about whether Obama is doing enough or being strong enough but there is little doubt in my mind that we will ultimately get HCR with a PO and possibly something even something better if we're probably not even going to be working with the Pubs.

[scheming daemons]

23. The game's not over yet, cali

You'll see.

[WI_DEM]

24. I agree. He has not been on a consistent strong message but then neither has the dem party

[Vidar]

26. Trying to craft policy through townhall meetings is suicidal in the present

political climate. The public is being mislead by corporate mass media & an opposition party full of agents provocateurs. He should have quietly crafted a bill, with input from focus groups & professional polls & then forced it through.Instead we have circus-like townhall meetings reminiscent of some truly awful Garland & Rooney musicals where neighborhood kids got together to put on a play.

Both actors obviously have done many excellent shows, but these were sorry vehicles built on a ludicrous premise.