Mark Schmitt thinks that Barack Obama’s bipartisan tone has worked pretty well, defining the landscape and marginalizing a Republican Party that’s gotten steadily crazier in opposition. Matt Yglesias isn’t so sure:
To take just one example, climate change. The administration and the congressional leadership have ruled out the use of the reconciliation process to pass their energy/climate agenda. Since it’s completely inconceivable that you could get 60 votes in the Senate for the sort of cap-and-trade proposal that Barack Obama outlined during the campaign, this means they’ve preemptively surrendered on an agenda that they ran and won on during the course of a two-year presidential campaign.
….So you can say that congressional obstruction has succeeded in derailing Obama’s efforts on the most important short-term issue that congress has jurisdiction over, and also derailing his efforts on the most important long-term issue that he’s facing. That’s pretty impressive for a small and unpopular minority!
I’d sort of agree with this except for one thing: Obama never really campaigned on cap-and-trade in the first place. Sure, it was part of his energy proposal if you dug down into his website and looked for it, but during the debates, on TV ads, and in speeches, he barely even mentioned it. It was all windmills and blue skies and green jobs. He did virtually nothing to build any public support for the tougher parts of his energy plan.
Now, maybe that was the right thing to do. Presidential campaigns aren’t notable for going out of their way to highlight tough choices for the electorate. Still, the result is that there’s essentially no organic public support for cap-and-trade right now, which means it’s wide open to demagoging by Republicans. This in turn makes it scarier to on-the-fence Dems, which is why a really solid cap-and-trade bill not only can’t get 60 votes in the Senate, it might not even be able to get 50. Partisan gridlock may be responsible for some of that, but Obama’s unwillingness to risk selling it during the campaign deserves some of the blame too.
