La campania perdida
Mirar a Obama estos dias es miran a un lider con problemas para ajustarse a la salvaje contradiccion de demandas e impulsos.
Con las elecciones de medio termino acercandose, deberia el estar por encima de todo el partidismo? es su mision el aceptar las demandas de los republicanos o resistirlos y hacerlos aparecer como los endemoniados?
Y no nos olvidemos, fue el original estimulo muy pequenio, como los liberales de su partido dicen, o muy caro, como dicen los republicasno? estuvo en lo correcto cuando siguio el estimulo con la inmensa regulacion del seguro de salud, o estaria el y su partido mejor ahora si no lo hubieran hecho? y si despues de haber hecho lo del seguro de salud, deberian defender lo que hicieron ahora, como algunos democratas quieren, o deberian ignorarlo y solo hablar del empleo, como otros demandan?
Estas contradicciones estuvieronen evidencia cuando Obama dio la conferencia de prensa la semana pasada, el trato por todos los medios de sonar firme y flexible a la misma vez al hablar de los recortes de impuestos de Bush y sobre la ley de creacion de empleos.
Hasta cierto punto, estas encrucijadas son parte de ser el presidente, aunque ahora son mas agudas debido al estado de la economia y las prioridades conflictivas -salud y estimulo, rescater y preocupacion por el deficit - dentro de la agenda de Obama.
Pero estas dificultades tienen sus raices en factores que son muy raramente discutidos: la campania presidencia del 2008, la cual no dejo ni al presidente ni al pais preparado para los momentos que vendrian.
Una de las virtudes de la campania electora es, o por lo menos deberia ser, que provee de una plataforma dnde se debate a cabalidad los asuntos mas grandes que enfrenta el pais. Seguro, las campanias son largas, y a veces tontas. Pero por encima de toda la locura de forum que se ofrece el pais tiene que digerir las alternativas existentes y apuntar a ciertas resoluciones.
Eso no ocurrio como deberia en el 2008, y esa es la razon por la que atravezamos una severa encrucijada politica hoy dia. En parte, fue por la naturaleza de la campania y en gran parte por que no fue el momento adecuado.
La campania fue mas acerca de imagen y liderazgo que de la agenda politica. Los democratas no ofrecieron ideologia o sustancia diferente a la de los dos contendores, Obama y Clinton, excepto quizas por (ironia de las ironias) que Obama favorecia un plan de salud mas pequenio que el de Clinton. "Cambio" fue el mensaje, y dada la falta de popularidad de Bush, eso parecia suficiente.
Mas alla de eso, aunque es dificil recordar ahora, Iraq era el tema del debate mas intenso entre los democratas y entre los democratas y republicanos.
Mas importante aun fue el momento en que ocurrio la campania del 2008. La campania se hacia mientras Wall Street se derretia a mediados de Setiembre de ese anio. En corto, la campania se desenvolvio mayormente en una era que dejo de existir cuando el Gran Panico se apodero de todos, y simplemente no se vio las dificiles decisiones que vendrian sin un concenso al respecto.
Los rescates a la banca no fueron debatidos, por que no era la idea que Bush puso sobre la mesa ese otonio para manejar la crisis. (Inicialmente los $700 billones fueron para comprar los activos toxicos y no para darle dinero directamente a los bancos, se acuerdan? No hubo tampoco un verdadero debate acerca del estimulo economico, porque pocos se imaginaban que tan rapido la economia iba a caer.
Ciertamente los democratas siempre han querido un seguro de salud a cargo del gobierno, pero eso empezo antes de que nadie se diera cuenta de la dimension de la crisis economica, y como empeoraria el deficit fiscal. Cuando los democratas pedian el estimulo, tambien pedian los rescates a la banca y el seguro de salud al mismo tiempo. Realmente, nadie podia haberse imaginado esa posibilidad.
Hoy la encrucijada que mas problemas le da a la Casa Blanca es que los Americanos parecen odiar y no confiar en el gobierno, y al mismo tiempo esperan que el gobierno solucione la crisis. De nuevo, el problema puede ser rastreado a lo que la campania hizo o no hizo.
Todos deberian haber sabido que, al votar por Obama, ellos votaban por mas activismo, mas gobierno que si votaban por McCain. pero nadie -incluyendo Obama- sabia que cuanto mas iban a ofrecer.
En su lugar, el pais esta decidiendo lo que piensa en vivo y en directo. En retrospectiva, el presidente hubiera estado mejor si la campania hubiera ofrecido una panorama mas claro, y una oportunidad de ver la luz amarilla que ahora son tan brillantes. Es que Obama no leyo bien su mandato o es que nunca lo tuvo?
The Lost Campaign
By GERALD F. SEIB.
To watch President Barack Obama these days is to watch a leader struggling with wildly contradictory demands and impulses.
With midterm elections approaching, should he be above the partisan fray or in the midst of it? Is his mission to lure Republicans into more economic stimulus measures, or to demonize them for resisting?
.And by the way, was his original stimulus package too small, as his party's liberals now say, or too expensive, as Republicans charge? Was he right to have followed the stimulus with big health legislation, or would he and his party have been better off if he'd left health alone? And having done health care, should he be defending it now, as some Democrats want, or ignoring it to talk only about jobs, as others demand?
The tug of these contradictory impulses was evident when Mr. Obama held a news conference late last week, at which he tried to sound simultaneously firm and flexible on rolling back Bush-era tax cuts and passing jobs legislation.
To some extent, these cross-currents simply go with being president, though they are made much more acute by both the economic mess and the conflicting priorities—health and stimulus, bailouts and deficit concerns—within President Obama's own agenda.
But these struggles have their roots in a factor that's rarely discussed: the 2008 presidential campaign, which left neither the president nor the country fully prepared for the momentous decisions that followed.
One of the virtues of a presidential campaign is, or at least ought to be, that it provides a platform to fully debate the biggest questions the nation faces. Sure, campaigns are long, and sometimes silly. But amid the madness they offer a forum for the country to chew over the choices before it, and point to some resolution of them.
That didn't happen as much as it should have in 2008, and that's one reason for the severe political cross-currents seen today. In part, the culprit was the nature of the campaign itself, though in large measure the problem was bad timing.
The campaign was less about policy agendas than about image and leadership. On the Democratic side, there was little substantive or ideological difference between the two main contenders, Mr. Obama and Hillary Clinton, except perhaps (irony of ironies) that Mr. Obama was the one who actually favored the slightly more modest approach to health overhaul. "Change" was the main message, and, given the unpopularity of President George W. Bush, that often seemed enough.
Beyond that, though it's hard to remember now, Iraq was the subject of the most intense debate both among Democrats and between Democrats and Republican nominee John McCain.
More important was the timing of the 2008 campaign. The bulk of the campaign debate came before the Wall Street meltdown that began in earnest in mid-September of that year. In short, the campaign unfolded mostly in an era that ceased to exist when the Great Panic set in, and thus simply didn't vet the tough choices to come, or produce anything like a consensus on them.
Bank bailouts weren't really debated, because that wasn't the idea the Bush administration put on the table that fall to deal with the crisis. (The $700 billion financial-aid package originally was to buy up "toxic assets," not to shovel money directly to banks, remember?) Nor was there a real debate about an economic stimulus plan, because few envisioned how far and fast the economy would fall.
Certainly Democrats had always been four-square behind a big health overhaul, but that started before anybody realized the full dimensions of the economic crisis, and how it would drive up the federal deficit. Were Democrats really pledging to do stimulus, bank bailouts and health at the same time? Not really, because nobody quite imagined that possibility.
Key primaries are set for Tuesday, with national attention focused particularly on races in Delaware, New York, New Hampshire and the District of Columbia. Aaron Zitner discusses. Also, Wendy Bounds looks at the growing market for home bunkers, but today's buyers are less worried about nuclear Armageddon than common dangers like tornadoes and hurricanes.
.Today, the contradictory impulse most vexing to White House officials is that Americans appear to hate and mistrust the government, yet at the same time expect that government to fix the economic mess. Again, the problem can be traced back to what the campaign did and didn't do.
Everyone should have known that, in voting for Barack Obama, they were voting for more, and more activist, government than if they'd gone with Sen. McCain. But nobody—likely including Mr. Obama himself—knew just how much more was to be offered.
Instead, the country is deciding what it thinks in real time. In retrospect, the president would have been better off if the campaign had offered a clearer preview, and a chance to flash the yellow warning lights that are so bright now. It wasn't so much that Mr. Obama misread a clear mandate as that he never got one.