fortable with that type of politics.
Explaining this spring how
he would manage to enact his
agenda in a second term, Obama
was still looking forward to sitting down and cutting deals. This
time, he said, Republicans would
be nicer because he’s not running
for re-election.
“I believe that if we’re successful in this election, when we’re
successful in this election, that the
fever may break, because there’s a
tradition in the Republican Party
of more common sense than that,”
he said. “My hope, my expectation,
is that after the election, now that
it turns out that the goal of beating
Obama doesn’t make much sense
because I’m not running again,
that we can start getting
some cooperation again.”
HUFFINGTON 09.09.12
polls indicate that the public is
aligned with Obama on the majority of issues, from Medicare to taxes
to foreign policy.
Playing the outside game, however, requires enjoying the fight. As
Jared Bernstein said, it means going to someone’s backyard and telling them to their face that they’re
wrong. It means using political
force to win with a bare majority
rather than reaching consensus.
It means letting go of the illusion
that the Republican Party is looking to work with you.
For Obama, whose brand remains
very much tied to the idea that
partisanship can be overcome, it
remains unclear whether he’s com-
THE DEMOCRATIC CONVENTION
CHIP SOMODEVILLA/GETTY IMAGES
House Speaker John
Boehner holds a news
conference at the U.S.
Capitol Visitors Center in
Washington, D.C.