What can be realistically expected? I think there are two basic scenarios: 1. Obama will be Bill Clinton, version 2, and we'll have business as usual but done a little more competently and pragmatically than during the Bush years. 2. Obama will be a transformational candidate like FDR, JFK and Reagan. 3. Obama will reveal himself to be the hard-left ideologue that the right fears him to be, and he will propose far-reaching and expensive government programs and tax policies to redistribute wealth, to hamstring business, and to elevate left-leaning minorities into positions of power and influence.
The third scenario isn't even worth considering, even though Rush and Fox will do everything they can to make it look like that's what's happening. The first scenario is very likely, given that the inertia within the Beltway is enormous, and getting it to change course will require an enormous effort and political dexterity. In this scenario Obama administration will make the same missteps, with updated versions of "Ask but don't tell", and nannygate in its first few months, the news shows and the blogosphere will obsess about the same old inanities.
It will be some variation on this movie theme we've all seen before: Obama like Clinton will be continuously playing defense, and he'll be rendered ineffective and a joke, just like everybody said such an inexperienced compromiser would be. And in 2010, the Republicans will make a comeback in the midterms, and we're back where we started. We shouldn't be too surprised if it plays out like this, and it probably will if Obama is just another run-of-the mill politician playing the game, the kind of president Hillary would have been. I don't think he is, but I'm not certain he's not.
But what would it take for it to play out according the second scenario? What does "transformational" even mean in this context? I have a couple of preliminary thoughts on the matter, and I"m interested about what others think. So here's my preliminary blueprint for scenario 2:
First, real transformational change isn't something that's engineered or programmatic, it's catalyzed and then managed. The broader society has to be ready for it; it just needs a catalyzing agent. So the first question is whether American society is ready to be catalyzed, and if it is whether Obama will seize the opportunity.
Second, if it's to happen, it can't be seen as the "left" imposing its agenda. It has to be perceived as a shift that is embraced by a broad center. I think there's a difference between what the Beltway establishment understands to be the center and what the real center is, and I'm not sure yet that Obama understands the difference, but I still have some hope he does.
Third, assuming he understands that Beltway reality is something he has to cope but which he must resist, he will have to go over the heads of the Beltway establishment types and speak directly to the American center--to its basic decency and to its just aspirations. He already has 52%, and I think he could win over another 10-15% if he can find a way to articulate the American idea as Lincoln, FDR, and Kennedy did, ie, in a way that rings true for that sixty percent. Ringing true means that all sane Americans can buy into it, and that those who don't will be shamed into silence or irrelevancy.
Fourth, then he can start moving on restoring the infrastructure of the American idea, starting with repairing the damage done to the constitution during the last eight years. If he could accomplish just that much in his first term, it would be for me a wild success. You can't do much if there is no foundation to build on, and right now I think that it has been so badly eroded, that it would be a mistake to be to aggressive in trying to tackle the more controversial social legislation.
He has to start where there is already broad consensus about problems that need to be solved--the economy, energy independence, the physical infrastructure. Healthcare, as important as it is, and gay rights might be too controversial to tackle in the first term. I don't know. He can't postpone dealing with the Middle East disaster, and I'm quite apprehensive that he will stumble there. But bottom line I'd be satisfied if the basic theme of the first term was restoring the infrastucture: the constitution, the economy, American standing in the world, and the physical infrastructure of roads, bridges, tunnels. That would be my proposed provisional blueprint--other thoughts?
P.S. Guy--forgot to say it yesterday: Happy 5th.