Question of the Week
Barack Obama campaigned on some pretty progressive issues: health care as a right of citizenship, a measured withdrawal from Iraq, a tax increase for Americans making over $250,000/yr., fighting global warming, increased spending on education, and more. But he also campaigned on changing the tone and ushering in a new era of post-partisan cooperation.
It seems unlikely that he will be able to keep both promises. Republicans will resist the Obama agenda fiercely, but Obama will have the clout and the Congressional support to fight back if he chooses to. This week’s question asks whether or not he should, and I’m curious to know what you think.
Do you think Obama should strive for bipartisan compromise and national unity, or should he use all of the powers and support at his disposal to advance a progressive agenda regardless of the opposition?
March 4th, 2009 at 9:03 pm
We’re well into the 2nd month of the Obama administration and he is already being chided for not living up to his bipartisan promises. This goes both ways, though, and it especially shows in the latest Rush Limbaugh comments. There is only so much one man can do when the other one digs in his heals and just plainly refuses to budge. The Republicans are obviously very uneasy about the popularity of the current president and will try to blame him even for the mess he inherited from 44 only to make him look bad. The notion that someone might want Obama and his administration to fail at this critical point in the history of the world is unbelievable. If they can’t work with him to get us out the hole that they dug, then the president should extend his hand less and less and just do as he must regardless of his campaign promise. There is only one president at one time as he has said before and now it is his turn.
It takes two to tango, but there is always only one leading man.
March 5th, 2009 at 11:44 am
Well said, Claudia!
I would simply add that Obama’s first priority is to lead this country out of the considerable mess he inherited, and that any bipartisanship is secondary to that. But to answer the original post, he IS keeping both his campaign promises: launching a progressive agenda AND extending his hand across the aisle. Republicans have repeatedly slapped that hand away (even after concessions were made to make them happy). Bipartisanship requires the participation of BOTH parties. Just because the GOP has declined to play the game doesn’t mean the game does not go on – there are plenty of players to ensure that we move forward. The GOP is like a pack of 3-year-olds who pout, “If we can’t do it my way then I won’t play!” and take their toys and go home. Fine with me – let the rest of us get to work – we don’t need them!
Republicans seem to think the definition of bipartisan is “Democrats roll over and keep doing things the GWB way.” (Of course, the word bipartisan was only recently forced into their vocabulary by the presidential election, so I suppose we must forgive them for their thick-headedness. It is admittedly a completely foreign concept to them, and as they continue to demonstrate: anything other than the status quo is deeply offensive and scary to them.)