Across the so called progressive blog-o-sphere the hand-wringing and worrying about President Obama has been repeated so often that it is like listening to a toddler tell the same joke over and over for weeks. The cuteness factor wears off in a hurry and soon you just pray that a new diversion will get the little tyke onto some other shiny object.
The trouble where I sit is that most folks think about what Obama should be doing while wearing very narrow blinders. I think much of the HCR debate fits that frame.
Over at the National Journal, Ron Brownstein looks at the field of play without the blinders of conventional wisdom and I think he nails it in this graph:
The fight has opened a second window into Obama. The key here is his 2008 campaign assertion that “Ronald Reagan changed the trajectory of America” more than Richard Nixon or Bill Clinton did. The health care struggle suggests that Obama views changing that trajectory as the ultimate measure of a presidency’s success. His aim is to establish a long-term political direction — one centered on a more activist government that shapes and polices the market to strengthen the foundation for sustainable, broadly shared growth. Everything else — the legislative tactics, even most individual policies — is negotiable. He wants to chart the course for the supertanker, not to steer it around each wave or decide which crates are loaded into its hull.
The entire piece is worth a read.
I think the Obama Era after HCR is going to get pretty interesting.
Cheers
dengre
ps: But first, HCR must pass… So please plan on setting some time aside to make a few calls on Saturday–we need to keep the pressure on full boil.
Update: Moses2317 give us a great calling list for the morning.