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Why Democrats Hate Summer
Nick Wass / AP Photo
Obama’s mid-year train wreck puts him in the inglorious company of previous Democratic presidents. How the heat derailed Johnson, Carter, and Clinton, too.
For recent Democratic presidents, in summertime the living isn’t easy. President Barack Obama’s bucolic vacation at Martha’s Vineyard takes place after two extraordinarily difficult months, and was interrupted by the death of his close friend and ally, Sen. Ted Kennedy. The virulent protests at the town-hall meetings have damaged public approval for the president’s health-care plan. Attorney General Eric Holder’s announcement of a preliminary review into CIA interrogation techniques opens up politically dangerous questions about national security that Obama was hoping to avoid. A broken Republican Party is now full of energy and hope. Many liberals express frustration with the administration for its willingness to compromise on key issues. The fate of health care remains uncertain. After encouraging comparisons to Lincoln and FDR, it is not inconceivable that Obama will emerge from his first year with an economic stimulus bill and not much more.
After encouraging comparisons to Lincoln and FDR, it is not inconceivable that Obama will emerge from his first year with an economic stimulus bill and not much more.
Summers past do not offer a sunny guide. In August 1968, President Lyndon Johnson and Vice President Hubert Humphrey watched as their party disintegrated into civil war at the Democratic Convention in Chicago. Inside the convention hall, insurgents demanded a peace plank to the party platform and protested the war in Vietnam. Outside the convention, thousands of activists gathered in Grant Park. Chicago Mayor Richard J. Daley ordered police to be tough with the protesters. Humphrey found himself winning the party’s nomination just as police pummeled and tear-gassed protesters in the streets and marshals inside the convention hall roughed up and dragged away TV network correspondents on air. Americans watched aghast as Walter Cronkite, personification of Middle American moderation and calm, voiced outrage at a party that seemed out of control. Richard Nixon was smiling.
Fast forward to the summer of 1979: President Jimmy Carter already had experienced one bad summer in 1977, when his strong approval ratings started to plummet as his close adviser and friend, Office of Management and Budget Director Bert Lance, became embroiled in a financial scandal, tarnishing Carter’s image as a pristine reformer. By the summer of 1979, conditions had worsened. Unemployment rates were high, inflation rose, and OPEC had increased oil prices several times. On July 15, Carter, whose approval ratings had plunged to less than 30 percent, tried to uplift the national mood and his political fortune by delivering a speech in which he called on Americans to change their consumption patterns and accept the need for sacrifice. Though he didn’t use the word, it was dubbed his “malaise” speech because he appeared to blame the problems afflicting the country on the public’s bad psychology. His speech gave him a blip in support as addresses to the nation billed as answers to crises usually do, until within two weeks he purged his Cabinet, once again giving the impression of disarray and confusion. Americans reacted negatively. They saw a president who could not and did not want to lead, instead pointing the finger at them. By late-August, voters were expressing even stronger disapproval of Carter. And Democratic congressional leaders urged Sen. Ted Kennedy to challenge Carter in the Democratic primaries. Ronald Reagan was smiling.
President Bill Clinton governed through his own bad summer in 1994. The president initially thought that when he proposed health-care reform he would be able to achieve the domestic change that had eluded so many presidents before him. But Republicans and several sectors of the health-care industry mobilized in response to his plan by depicting the program as a big government takeover that would destroy the health-care system and open the door to socialized medicine. With legislation tied up in several congressional committees, the summer had begun in June with the Health Insurance Association of America re-airing its infamous “Harry and Louise” ad campaign. In June, House Energy and Commerce Committee Chairman John Dingell informed House Speaker Tom Foley that the committee would not be able to produce a bill. On July 23, during a rally in a national administration bus tour for health-care reform, first lady Hillary Clinton was confronted by a mob of angry protesters who booed and screamed as she tried to speak. “There is an old saying that I like,” she said, “which is if you don’t have the facts on your side, yell.” But the protesters would sidetrack the rest of the tour. “This issue got away from everybody,” lamented Maryland Democrat Benjamin Cardin. “It got away from all of us. And I don’t think anybody anticipated the amount of resources that would be marshaled against us.”
John Talks Joe
Lloyd Grove is editor at large for The Daily Beast. He is also a frequent contributor to New York magazine and was a contributing editor for Condé Nast Portfolio. He wrote a gossip column for the New York Daily News from 2003 to 2006. Prior to that, he wrote the Reliable Source column for the Washington Post, where he spent 23 years covering politics, the media, and other subjects.
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Martin Jacques is the cofounder of the UK think tank Demos, writes a regular column for The Guardian, and is a visiting research fellow at the London School of Economics Asia Research Centre. His new book, When China Rules the World, is available now.
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Christopher Buckley's books include Supreme Courtship, The White House Mess, Thank You for Smoking, Little Green Men, and Florence of Arabia. He was chief speechwriter for Vice President George H.W. Bush, and is editor-at-large of ForbesLife magazine. His new book is Losing Mum and Pup, a memoir. Buckley's Daily Beast column is the winner of an Online Journalism Award in the category of Online Commentary.
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David Greenberg is a professor of history at Rutgers University and the author of three books, including Nixon’s Shadow: The History of an Image.
Julian E. Zelizer is a professor of history and public affairs at Princeton University's Woodrow Wilson School. He is the co-editor of Rightward Bound: Making America Conservative in the 1970s and is completing a book on the history of national-security politics since World War II, to be published by Basic Books.
Will Obama Stumble Like Ford?
Julian E. Zelizer is a professor of history and public affairs at Princeton University's Woodrow Wilson School. He is the co-editor of Rightward Bound: Making America Conservative in the 1970s and is completing a book on the history of national-security politics since World War II, to be published by Basic Books.
Obama's Pirate Coup
Julian E. Zelizer is a professor of history and public affairs at Princeton University's Woodrow Wilson School. He is the co-editor of Rightward Bound: Making America Conservative in the 1970s and is completing a book on the history of national-security politics since World War II, to be published by Basic Books.
The Republican's achieved their goal of delaying health care reform legislation in Congress, and then throwing everything they had at Obama--everything but the kitchen sink. No charge against health care reform was too wild or reckless not to pass muster with them, including the alleged Obama plan to exterminate Grandma.
Obviously, they have dropped all pretense of "bipartisanship" now that their goal of delay and attack has been achieved. There's not much more they can say about Obama or his health care reform short of calling him an alien from the X-Files sent to enslave and destroy humanity.
So a showdown is coming here, and it will be on purely partisan lines. Whoever loses this one is going to lose big.
I suspect that Obama is going to win, and I'll give my usual historical reasons. This is a reform cycle, the first since the 1960s, and the desire for real reform is not going to be abated in a year or two. It's going to last for a decade or more, and I don't care what the polls say today or tomorrow. This simply isn't a conservative era like the Second Gilded Age of the 1980s and 1990s, and that history is not going to repeat itself--at least not right now.
And Obama is bipartisan because he invites people in for beers? Give me a break. He proposes one way-left bill after another, and you give him credit for being bipartisan? When/if Obama moves to the center,then we can have this conversation.
neverlate: Obama IS in dead center. (If you don't believe me, listen to all of the complaints from liberals.)
Your problem is that you have gotten so far to the right that you can barely see the center, and the left is far out of your sight.
By the way, you are just lying again. Even if Obama gave Republicans everything they want, and deleted every vestige of Democratic desires from whatever bill emerges from Congress, he would still not get a single Republican vote.
Senator Jim DeMint (R-South Carolina) said,"If you're able to stop Obama on this, it will be his Waterloo. It will break him."
William Kristol advises, "With Obamacare on the ropes, there will be a temptation for opponents to let up on their criticism, and to try to appear constructive, or at least responsible...Resist the temptation. This is no time to pull punches. Go for the kill."
Senator Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) said on August 17th that even if he got a health care reform bill that had everything he wanted in it, he still wouldn't vote for it unless at least half of all other Republican Senators would also vote for it.
Grover Norquist, president of American's for Tax Reform, said: "My goal is to cut government in half in twenty-five years, to get it down to the size where we can drown it in the bathtub."
Way left? What does Obama have to do to satisfy you people? Outlaw the teaching of evoIlution in schools? Expand the number of capital crimes? Open concentration camps for the pro-choice? Eliminate capital gains and inheritance taxes? Prohibit environmentalism? Invade Iran?
BransoMo: I think conservatives might be satisfied if Obama eliminated all taxes on everybody and at the same time tripled the size of our military.
mcmchugh99: You may will be right that Obama is going to win. (I hope you are.)
But this year may not be the year of his victory. I wouldn't be at all surprised to see defeat this fall, followed by a win in 2011 or 2013.
We will find out in a month or so, and we all have ring-side seats, so it should be interesting.
The Dems overwhelming control the House and until Kennedy died had 60 votes in the Senate. They do not need Republican support. Their problems is there are too scared to go it alone. And even if they go the reconciliation route, I don't think they will succeed. Many Dems have said they will not do that: Landrieu, Feingberg, Lieberman, Bachus, Conrad, Nelson, Dorgan. I think Obama & Pelosi underestimated the Blue Dogs resistance. This government takeover might be popular on the coasts, but not in heartland America, as the townhalls have shown.
Glenda1976: Those town hall meetings have shown that the conservative astroturft organizations are really, really good at lying and stirring up fear in people.
Alan,
What is Astroturf is the unions busing in people to townhall meetings, not to mention the ones they pay from Craigs List.
Glenda1976: This sounds like more Fox News BS to me. If you have any real facts, please post your sources.
McHugh, I hope you are right and that we are now too informed to have another gilded age... and I would say that the Second Gilded Age is still in full swing...
And to Julian Zelizer, I seem to recall that the last adminstration had two MUCH BIGGER trainwrecks in the summertime... Hurricane Katrina and a few years before that... what was that again?
It is becoming increasingly clear (thanks to Glenn Greenwald, Bill Moyers and others) that Obama does not care about significant health care reform--meaning the public option. His passive aggressive strategy has been successful in derailing true reform: hunkering down with Baucus, Grassley and Enzi well beyond perishable due date, his secret deal with big pharma, his use of language such as he "prefers" the public option...or that it is not the whole of the reform, but merely "the suspenders," his laxity when it comes to disciplining blue dogs, but his ferocity when it comes to correcting progressives (via Rahm). I wish it were otherwise, but I am becoming convinced that Obama will be quite happy with events and the health care unreavelling this August; and happy to rake in health care corporation donations for his re-election bid in 2012. I am so sorry for him and for America.
I don't doubt that he has been serving big business interests but he can't walk away from health care reform without splitting his party and guaranteeing that it loses future elections. It will also wreck a presidency that once had great promise.
The phrase "pull the plug on grandma" came from Obama himself, and it was a flippant, disastrous choice of words. The Freudian slip here is not that he wants to advocate for grandma's death, but that his passive aggressive flippancy opens the way for the very pushback--and failure--that he may secretly cherish.
I can't read his mind, but he does appear to be exhausted and overwhelmed, and somewhat shocked by the attacks against him and the health care reform bills. He shouldn't be. Nothing is going on here that hasn't happened many times before in US political history. i do think he got caught flat-footed, though, and that should be a lesson to him in the future, when cap and trade and immigration reform come up.
I don't expect much to come from financial reform and regulation, since it's very clear now that this is a DLC administration and in the tank for Wall Street.
The Clintons got caught flat footed. They had no idea what kind of armageddon the insurance companies would release on them. Everything Obama is doing now is based on the Clintons' failure. Obama knew there would be attacks, and he and his allies have been pumping out the TV ads from day 1. The negative numbers are a combination of a) the psycho right wing still being psycho, and b) the progressive wing feeling like the President isn't being hard enough on the blue dogs. I have a feeling that they'll turn around as the zero-hour actually draws near and it's time for Obama to get his game on. A good player saves his A game for the final quarter.
(I don't know if that's true, I don't know anything about basketball, but it sounds good right?)
Obama was absolutely right when he said everyone gets all wee wee'd up in August. They said he had lost steam in the election, and he steamrolled all opposition. Now they're saying he's lost steam in healthcare, when there isn't anything like a final bill on anyone's desk. Life support? Are you kidding me? The democrats will not fail on this, because they can't. Failing here will mean political peril for every single one of them. And not only that, but they have far too much political power to be derailed by a vocal minority. Don't count Obama out. Reporters have made that mistake in the past. I suspect that, when the dust clears, we'll see that Mr. Zelizer is merely feeling the effects of the August wee wee.
Absolutely right. Great comment. The real action begins in the fall--as Chris Dodd said this morning, responsible U.S. senators are not going to be legislating a historical bill of gargantuan effects and proportions based on a few derailed town halls. Everybody knows better than that, and Democrats know for sure that failure is not an option. I also expect we will be seeing a much more active and engaged Obama. This thing will come together and get passed--and I wouldn't be surprised if he brought on a few Republican votes to move over the 60-vote threshold.
There will be no Republicans that vote for this bill. None. I don't even want them to. If even one Republican votes for this bill it will mean that it's so watered done as to be useless.
Why is it when Republican's get government down to size to where they can drown it in the bathtub they are always the ones who start the expanding of big government?????? They have yet to even try and drown government in the bathtub. So why do they even bother with this phrase??? Who do they think they are kidding with this nonsense???? It just plays well for all the idiots who aren't bright enough to figure out they are source of all the bloat.
Democrats hate summer because southern hick neocons are more used to operating in the heat.
When Americans object to a health plan by labeling it "socialism" without any further explanation, as well as "Nazi," and greeting others with "Heil Hitler," we have reached a new low in American dialogue. Those against health care reform have an outlook that employs the Fascist method of "end justifies the means." And the dreaded end for them to avoid by any means would be to see Obama succeed in reducing the expenditures for health care and in covering people who don't have it. That would be political dynamite. So keep yelling "Heil Hitler" to scare people away from knowing what's good for them. Remember: Republicans bitterly fought against Social Security as "socialism" and Medicare, too. What interest have they shown in working people except to give them a placard and march them to a town hall?
Republicans, having no good arguments against health care reform, are now reduced to fear-mongering and name-calling.
Unfortunately, having had a lot of practice with these tactics over the years, Republicans are quite good at them.
Maybe the "real Americans" will catch on someday...
There are many great arguments against Obamacare: will increase the deficit, will not strenghen health care, will cover illegal aliens despite what the Dems say, will cause rationing because you can not bring 50 million more people into the system with out more doctors, gives Health Commissioners the right to your tax returns if they so choose. The reasons against this bill are endless. And I haven't even mentioned death panels or the the VA Death Book.
Glenda1976: It's a good thing you didn't mention "Death Panels" or the VA "Death Book", because these are both conservative lies.
Costs? France has the best health care system in the world, yet pays only half as much per person as we do. Are you saying that Americans are too stupid to do what every other industrialized country in the world has done?
We already have rationing in the U.S. Just ask the 22,000 uninsured Americans who die each year because they could not afford medical treatment.
As for illegal aliens, hospitals are already required by law to treat them in emergency rooms, where it costs all of us 20 times more than it would if they were covered by universal health care.
How about some REAL arguments against health care reforms, Glenda?
The only one you present that is even half decent is the shortage of doctors.
Hey Alan,
Have you not been reading the news out of Britain, Canada & France. They are complaining about their own government run healthcare. Women who have breast cancer not treated, babies born in hospital hallways. And who wants to be like France? Cradle to grave government control. I believe their tax rate is in the 60% range. No thank you. Like I told Marionnetta, do your own research of the monstrosity and stop echoing whatever Chris Matthews tells you. Off the subject, but since you want us to emulate France, would you support us emulating their use of nuclear energy instead of windmills & pixie dust this administration advocates?
Glenda1976: Sorry, I don't echo Chris Matthews - he's a little too conservative for me. I echo Rachel Maddow and Keith Olbermann.
I like French health care - or the health care of any other industrialized country on earth. Any of them are better than ours. Nuclear power is a nice red herring - I wish you luck in hooking somebody with it.
You forgot (or ignored, I suspect) that the French system costs only half as much as ours per person. Therefore I would expect our taxes to go down, or better yet be applied to reduce the $9 trillion national debt accumulated by Reagan and the two Bushes.
As for complaining, people will always find reason to complain, no matter how good (or bad) health care is. I bet the 22,000 uninsured Americans who died last year because they could not afford medical treatment would love to be able to complain about our health care!
Alan,
You Dems might gain more credibility with the American people concerning healthcare if you would take on one the biggest reasons for sky high health care costs, your trial lawyer buddies. When you start talking tort reform, then I'll know you're serious, until merci bon coup or whatever.
Alan D2
I so appreciate a voice of reason here. We live part of the time in France and part of the time in California, because of ancestry and work. YOU are absolutely right in every way. How do the Republicans and right wing succeed in lying to people and buffaloing the masses? Why are Americans so un-informed? No one in France that I associate with, has a word of complaint about our French health care.
Heavens, we have house calls--for maybe $15! And doctors who really care about their patients and listen to their needs in a humanistic way. In this country greed and inhumanity seem to be tolerated blindly. Why?
Are Americans (I am half American, half French) in general really so easily fooled and rendered selfish, ( to the point of being against common sense?)
This whole debate reminds me of mass panic out of Animal Farm (Orwell) or worse. This tragically uninformed lady should be thanking you for your knowledge and research. I thank you!
PetiteNanan: Thank you for your kind words.
I appreciate your confirmation of the quality of health care in France. You are very fortunate to have had personal experience with both systems.
Unfortunately, most Americans are rather insular, with little or no exposure to other countries. And with the current economic crisis, there is a lot of fear in this country, which spills over into our current attempt at health care reform. There is a lot of misinformation on TV and on blogs like this, and few people have the time to ferret out the nuggets of truth.
As you are doubtless aware, the Republican party is generally a tool of the wealthy in this country. The wealthy, being able to afford any medical treatment they wish, have little need for health insurance. Therefore, they see no need to pay for anybody else's care either. Given their economic and political power, they have done their best to demonize anyone promoting universal health care. As you can see, they have largely succeeded, although I hope Obama may yet win Americans to a public option. Compassion seems to be in short supply among conservatives these days.
Bonne chance, PetiteNanan!
Glenda1976: Please. Malpractice insurance accounts for 0.1% of all health care costs in the U.S. Eliminating suits will not have a significant impact on costs.
Both Alaska and Texas have passed tort reform of the type I suspect that you want. Health care costs have not gone down in either state.
Republicans are being unAmerican and uncaring for trying to stop everyone from having healthcare. And I don't mean the people at town halls. I mean the Republican party. These guys are getting health care paid for by the taxpayer and they don't they taxpayers should get the same deal. Helping your neighbour is called being Christian but helping your neighbour get healthcare is called Socialism?
PS Glenda 1976:
Quit listening to Faux news. They are lying to you.
Marionetta,
Stop walking in lock step with Chris Matthews and do your own research. Read the bill, it's all in there. The part about the tax returns should scare you do death. Where is the ACLU when you need them?
Marionetta,
Why don't you listen to your own party. Howard Dean, I'm sure made a mistake in being so blunt, when he said the Dems would not add tort reform to the bill because they could not fight the trial lawyers. So they would rather burden the American people but not their fat cat friends the trial lawyers. Like I said, do your own reseach.
Write postcards. Call Congress. We've had the slimy tsunami of vomit-&-offal out of the Axis of Greed insurance industry and its minions the lickspittle Republicans and the handful of Republicrats. We all got soaked and tattered.
If, however, we want the beloved community to prevail, those of us not drowned need to write postcards and make phone calls.
Say: Public Option is utterly essential. Let the Republicans filibluster.
And when you get blue, ask yourself, "Other than that, Mrs. Lincoln, how did you like the play?" Enjoy your secret wry smile, and press on, regardless.
Why a "Public Option" when all the federal government needs to do is regulate the health insurance companies right out of business leaving single payer as the only option except members of Congress.
Obama's face does not seem to have his smooth countenance, like when he connd the moderates.
seem's like a lot of angst in his face in the picture headlining the article. Take your socialist Obamacare and sell it to Rezko.
Thank you.
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