Huffington Magazine Issue 12-13 | Page 49

USING THE BULLY PULPIT For the president and his defenders, there is a ready rejoinder to complaints about the inside game he played. In the end, the stimulus was passed and the economy was saved. Health care reform got done and tens of millions of people were granted access to health insurance. Obama, unlike any of his predecessors, notched that historic achievement. “Knowing him, my suspicion is that he was a very smart, intuitive man who was looking towards HUFFINGTON 09.09.12 dure. Not just on substance. They wouldn’t even give him a vote just to close down filibusters... I’m sure he was frustrated. He thought he was going to be bringing Democrats and Republicans together, not just Democrats together.” Among Obama’s advisers, Axelrod was perhaps the most aware of this dynamic. At a caucus meeting in early February 2010, Sen. Al Franken (D-Minn.) laced into him and others for not showing enough spine and leadership. “The fact is, when you have a party that expands from Ben Nelson to Bernie Sanders that is a lot of territory,” Axelrod conceded in an interview. THE DEMOCRATIC CONVENTION ive mistakes, trying to cut a deal with PhRMA. They gave PhRMA too much in the process,” AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka told The Huffington Post in the spring of 2010, shortly after the Affordable Care Act passed. “They didn’t talk to us about it. They made that deal off the record.” “And then when he started talking about jettisoning the public option, that’s when we started saying ‘This is ridiculous.’ It’s almost like they didn’t know how to negotiate,” Trumka added. “[Obama would] say ‘It’s not important.’ And anybody who’s been around a negotiating table knows, if they say it’s not important, consider it gone. You don’t even concern yourself with it. But if he was going to give it away he should’ve gotten something major in return for it. He got nothing.” Politically, moreover, the president’s brand had been damaged by his own party. “I think part of the sad commentary that is unusual for Obama is that he had overwhelming Democratic majorities and was still having to play an overly inside game,” said Andy Stern, the former head of the Service Employees International Union. “He should not have been having to play an inside game with his own team. Even on proce-