Nancy Pelosi Versus Obama?
A lot of people will be chattering today about this story by John Bresnahan, which does a nice job getting inside the evolving relationship, and occasional differences, between President Obama and Nancy Pelosi:
Nancy Pelosi repeatedly stood to applaud Barack Obama when he addressed a joint session of Congress Tuesday night. But in the days since, the speaker of the House has been standing up for herself — distancing herself from the president on Iraq, on tax cuts and on the prosecution of former Bush administration officials.
Pelosi’s aides say the speaker was comfortable playing the role of Obama’s shield during the stimulus fight — Republicans teed off on her rather than on the immensely popular new president — and that she remains strongly supportive of the administration on health care, energy and education reform.
But on Iraq and other high-profile issues that matter to her, aides say Pelosi has no intention of holding her tongue when she thinks Obama is wrong.
Power-obsessed Beltway insiders will scrutinize this for clues about who’s trying to take tacit shots at whom. Instead, we should look at this as a sign that the government is functioning the way it’s supposed to. The current cast of Democratic leaders aren’t afraid to disagree with each other, even publicly, as they hash out various ideas about how tackle the enormous challenges ahead. Obama has repeatedly said that he wants his allies to vigorously disagree with him, and there’s no reason not to believe him.
In political terms, meanwhile, I’m told there’s a faction inside the White House that thinks it’s a good thing for someone like Pelosi to be staking out a kind of left flank on key issues, because having a high-profile Dem leader appear further to the left (whatever that means) than Obama gives him more maneuvering room. I don’t really place any stock in this one way or the other, but the bottom line is that it’s unlikely that people in the White House will care much if Pelosi speaks her mind.
You did a piece a week or so ago about how Obama told unions and MoveOn to “make me do it”, or something to that effect. What Pelosi is doing is the same, although I think the number of troops in Iraq comment was more a matter of pandering than a serious study of the issue. My guess is that not only does the White House care, they want it as long as it’s focused on the right issues.
you’re talking about Obama hosting the progressive leaders and telling them that they are gonna be relied on to help drive the progressive agenda…does seem like a similar dynamic…
I think its great strategy whether they are coordinating it together or not. The last thing you want is for Pelosi and Reid to be seen as rubber stampers to President Obama. Now in turn he has to take shots at them too at times so as to not look like the tail is wagging the dog. The weak link of course is as always Harry Reid.
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Hey Greg I know this is off topic and out of left field but do you think at any point Reid might try to get Specter to switch sides before he gets primaried by Mike Steele next year? I mean Specter fails the litmus tests now of the Republican party by being pro choice as well as for civil unions, I would hope somebody is at least thinking about trying to turn him.
sgw, maybe though Specter is up for reelection in 2010 and unlike his colleagues from Maine is vulnerable in the general.
Politico is such a worthless rag. I mean, really.
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True but we are going to need his vote before then. By next year hopefully we will have universal healthcare passed as well as a green energy bill. I think its worth it now to make the compromise, especially when next year would be a maybe at best.
sgw, I agree it’s something to shoot for and it would be great if it happened. Just saying there’s some tension in pursuing both tracks.
We’ve just had eight years when everything that emanated from the White House was pretty much politically based, so you can’t really expect the MSM to change their attitudes when a new group comes in. Eventually some of them may finally get the idea that the new guys aren’t motivated solely to increase their own power. They are primarily driven to make this a better country and clean up the mess that their predecessors left, in other words, govern well. That means that different people will have different ideas about what needs to be done, and rather than go on some power trip, they will argue for their honest feelings that there are better choices than whatever has been suggested.
The President enjoys crushing mass appeal and his disagreements with Pelosi are representative of the “Big Tent” metaphor that surrounds Democratic politics. Thus, he will likely win most of these battles.
To me this is good for Obama, who in my mind likely exists philosophically on the far left but practices in the middle. It reminds me of Tony Blair and “New Labour” which caused the Liberal-Dems to have a bigger place at the table and the gave rise to the critical importance of coalition governments. Could we be seeing the rise of multi-party government as the Republicans are being cornered as a regional party, and liberals are making their differences apparent with Obama while he is taking the “middle” of the road? Regardless of the outcome the Democrats are far better off playing this way then repeating the Republicans’ door mat approach to George Bush leaving them nothing to run on, well except the leash you would use for a lap dog.
Does anyone still think that all of Obama’s efforts to rapidly grow the federal government, massively increase the national debt and control more of our lives is so that we will have a better, more efficient government? Seems like all this ‘change and hope’ is more about control of the American people.