The Barack-Bill Parallels

The 2010 midterms are looking a lot like the 1994 election. Why that might not be bad for Obama.

Florida Senate candidate and tea-party darling Marco Rubio is riding the wave of what he calls "the single greatest pushback in American history." While his view of history and the impact of other populist movements can be debated, there's no doubt that Scott Brown's win in Massachusetts has thrust Senate Democrats into a deep panic. They complain they have no message and no leadership, and they're angry at their leader, Harry Reid, and at President Obama, when their own failure to act is a big part of the public's dissatisfaction with Washington.

A mistake that Senate Democrats made, and that many wish they could take back, was their support for the Iraq War. They doubted the evidence for war but feared Republicans on national security, and they were mousetrapped. Now they've fallen into the same dynamic on health care. They're afraid of the Republicans and the tea-party cries of government takeover and socialism. Their failure to act cohesively to pass legislation is turning their worst fears into a self-fulfilling prophecy. (Emphasis added)

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Obama's tenure so far is strikingly similar to '93 and '94 when another young Democratic president entered office with high expectations and soon found himself down in the polls and battling a wave of conservative sentiment. The advisers around Obama would never admit it, but losing one or even both houses of Congress might be better for Obama than the gridlock paralyzing his agenda. History in our partisan age suggests that for a president to be truly successful and get big legislative achievements, a divided Congress may be necessary. Only then does each party have some stake in governing, and maneuvering room to compromise. (Emphasis added)

Clinton never would have been able to sign welfare reform if the Democrats controlled Congress, and the same is true of the balanced budget that Clinton achieved in '97. These were Republican initiatives that many Democrats would have resisted. It seems absurd that with 59 votes in the Senate, Obama can't get health-care reform done. That's because embedded in that 59 are a number of Democrats who will not vote for health care again. There's a different mindset among Democrats in February than December—they're looking out for themselves, not for him, and they're thinking parochially when it comes to legislation. If Obama wants a jobs bill, he will have to go up to Capitol Hill and be engaged and tell the Democrats what he must have for his political survival—and for theirs, come November. (Emphasis added)

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