Politics of Governance

If as expected, President Obama announces the departure today of Rahm Emanuel as White House Chief of Staff, there's likely to be a lot of blather all day and night about the evil Rahm, his style etc. ad nauseam, and in particular from self-anointed progressives who blame him for leading Obama astray into compromises and misguided sissy attempts at bipartisanship. And maybe even a little worry that his replacement, Pete Rouse, isn't enough of a progressive fighter. (Interesting piece on Rouse in the W Post.)

While I'm reluctant to dive back into this mess at the point that progressive politicos may finally be focusing on winning midterm elections rather than whining, I'm still shaking my head over their conduct. Sure, they've got legitimate disappointments, and differences on how to get things done (the outside game of pressuring Congress by going to "the people" on issues vs. the inside game of carving out legislation and getting votes for it) but I'd like to point out that their inability to shift from braying constantly about politics to examining and analyzing governing is part of the problem, and one of the chief reasons for any "enthusiasm gap" that might exist. A big result of that is they talk much more about GOPers than they do about Democrats and President Obama (except of course to complain.)

For example, late last week President Obama went back to the U. of Wisconsin campus where he made headlines during his campaign by drawing an audience of 17,000. This time his audience was 26,000 with thousands unable to get in. He gave a rousing speech, which he duplicated to a smaller but very enthused audience of younger voters on Thursday. But both speeches were pretty much ignored in the progressive blogosphere (only the reliable blackwaterdog at Daily Kos diaried the former some 24 hours later, and an apparently very young and not very ept diarist did the latter), and while Rachel Maddow presented part of the Madison speech, other progressive gabfests turned to the complainers, one of whom--with unearned arrogance dripping from his Ready-for-K Street suit--said he was heartened because Obama used the word "fight."

On the day of the Madison speech, Obama's in-depth interview with Rolling Stone hit the net, and was quite amazingly ignored by these blogs and shows. I hope to write about this interview more than once in the next few days, but for now, I want to quote just this from President Obama:

"When I talk to Democrats around the country, I tell them, "Guys, wake up here. We have accomplished an incredible amount in the most adverse circumstances imaginable." I came in and had to prevent a Great Depression, restore the financial system so that it functions, and manage two wars. In the midst of all that, I ended one of those wars, at least in terms of combat operations. We passed historic health care legislation, historic financial regulatory reform and a huge number of legislative victories that people don't even notice."

Why didn't people notice? Maybe because on progressive blogs, Sarah Palin and the Tea Party get more ink than Obama and the Democrats. Maybe because the blogs and shows are so focused on the latest Tea Party racist xenophobic comment, the latest Republican lie and GOPer mini-scandal. Look at Friday's posts on TPM, which I regard as one of the better sites: one after the other about Christine McDonnell and her resume fibs. And not much else.

Some may say these kinds of stories are sexier, but I really don't get that. What's so sexy about gossip, which is essentially what these most resemble? I'm not denying they are relevant to a candidate's fitness for office. But so is what they've actually accomplished in office.

The way I see it is this: the progressive blogosphere and media couldn't break their addiction to politics long enough to cover governance. And Obama--and Nancy Pelosi--were about governance, in a time of multiple crises that deeply threaten(ed) the country on several fronts at the same time.

This was true more broadly. As President Obama said in Rolling Stone: "What is true, and this is part of what can frustrate folks, is that over the past 20 months, we made a series of decisions that were focused on governance, and sometimes there was a conflict between governance and politics. So there were some areas where we could have picked a fight with Republicans that might have gotten our base feeling good, but would have resulted in us not getting legislation done."

But what frustrates people including me is this obsession with the GOPer freaks and with everybody's opinion on how things should be done instead of reporting on what was being done. Apart from the diarists propelled chiefly by their glands and the usual inflated egos attracted to the big political stage, a lot of it is due to this tight Washington/media game that big time blogs are now part of. People get reputations and air time for being controversial and as extreme as they can get away with. They talk to each other on each other's shows, and they bounce around in the same echo chambers.

I know I'm not the only one who followed them with bated breath during the campaign who has been largely turned off by them since the Inauguration. This is a cumulative thing--individual hosts and writers can probably point to stories they've done on governance issues. But careers apparently aren't made there anymore.

They basically have been playing the GOPer FOX game: they talk about the same GOPer folks on progressive blogs and shows as Fox News does, except that Obama is probably on Fox more. And they wonder why the Obama administration makes some intemperate comments about them.

Besides which, I doubt that it's effective. Except for the gossip buzz, nobody outside of Delaware cares about just how weird Christine O'Donnell is, and moreover, nobody outside that tiny state can vote for or against her. The only national story with impact on local elections is what President Obama and the Democratic Congress do or don't do. That's the story that hasn't been very well told.

Taking a tabloid or more pertinently, a social media approach to issues and elections doesn't cut it, at least not by itself.