A Fork in the Road

Together with the intense criticism of the House-passed economic stimulus package, former Sen. Tom Daschle's withdrawal as President Obama's nominee to be Health and Human Services secretary brings the new White House to an important fork in the road.

Down one path is the possibility of Obama's administration being perceived as incompetent and setting a modern record for shortest honeymoon. Down the other is the opportunity -- despite facing the sort of problems that plague any new administration -- of his being the successful transformational presidency that his backers fervently pray for.

It's likely that had Daschle not been a close friend, one of the earliest and most important advocates of Obama's candidacy, and someone who could have been a huge leader on health care reform, Obama would have abandoned him more quickly. Coming right after the administration had endured painful and embarrassing disclosures about Timothy Geithner's taxes, Daschle's problems had a compounding political effect.

Obama stuck with Geithner as his Treasury secretary nominee even though he was neither an old friend nor an early supporter. Rather, he was retained because the financial and economic communities see him as a superstar, someone worth the dent he was putting in the administration's image. But with Daschle's problems following Geithner's and being spotlighted in a front-page story and lead editorial in The New York Times, too much damage was being done.

Whether Daschle jumped or was pushed doesn't really matter. If one didn't happen, the other would have.

At this point, the Obama administration must have close to a zero-tolerance policy for more problems of this kind. Further incidents would begin to erode confidence in the new president. His critics would smell blood in the water and attack mercilessly. Anything other than zero tolerance and the administration runs the risk of appearing incompetent, hypocritical, or both.

That brings us to the problem of the House-passed stimulus package. What was so impressive about Obama's victory last November was that in winning 53 percent of the popular vote and 365 electoral votes, he showed a breadth of support that suggested a transcendent appeal. He was able to attract votes far beyond the traditional reach of liberals. He was the first Democrat since 1964 to carry Indiana and Virginia. He prevailed in Florida, Nevada, and Ohio. He captured college graduates by 8 points, those with some college by 4 points, suburban voters by 2 points, and men by 1 point.

But the House-passed package suggested an effort exclusively of, by, and for Democrats, and it played to some of the worst stereotypes of the Democratic Party and of politics as usual on Capitol Hill. It implied that Obama had become a captive of, rather than the victor over, old-style politics.

If Obama plays his own game, he can win. He certainly did in 2008. But if he plays someone else's, he loses.

In a recent article for The Democratic Strategist, a Web-based publication that provides a forum for some of the smartest Democratic pollsters, theorists, and thinkers, Andrew Levison argues that the strength of Obama's appeal last year was in his determination to build a large and durable coalition, not to merely win with a very narrow majority. This strategy was crafted to bring about significant social reforms and change; it is not an abandonment of progressive values but instead a more effective way of achieving those objectives. To make real change, you have to try to do big things with broad-based support. History shows that the biggest and most meaningful public policy changes of the last century were achieved through bipartisan efforts, not by one party muscling its agenda through.

Congressional Democrats are understandably anxious to put into place those programs and priorities that got nowhere while Democrats chafed under Republican rule. Expecting them to take naturally to this very different approach by Obama is unrealistic. For that very reason, the Obama White House must begin sending in the plays, or it risks having Hill quarterbacks call their own in ways that run counter to the president's game plan and have much less likelihood of success.