Presidential Schmoozing Isn’t Just For Republicans

 

Sen. Joe Manchin lamented on Sunday that President Obama doesn’t schmooze enough.“It’s just hard to say no to a friend,” he told Candy Crowley on CNN’s State of the Union. Steve Benen is unimpressed:

Obama has gone further any modern president in bringing members of the opposing party into his cabinet….incorporating ideas from the opposing party’s agenda into his own policy plans….Obama invited several GOP lawmakers to the White House for a private screening with the stars of the movie “Lincoln.”….How many of the invited Republicans accepted the invitation? None….Obama has hosted casual “get-to-know-you” gatherings; he’s taken Republicans out to dinner on his dime; he’s taken House Speaker Boehner out golfing; and he’s held Super Bowl and March Madness parties at the White House for lawmakers.

In general, I’m on Benen’s side here. I think he probably overstates just how hard Obama has tried to be sociable, but in the end, I don’t think it mattered. It’s been a matter of settled public record for a long time that Republicans were dedicated to forming a united front of obstruction from the day Obama took office, and nothing he did was going to change that.

But in fairness, Manchin says in this interview that he’s talking mostly about his fellow Democrats here. And this is an area where Obama’s style probably has hurt him a bit. It hasn’t hurt him a lot—ideology, self-interest, and political survival will always count for a lot more—but I imagine that Democrats in Congress would be willing to back Obama more strongly if they felt a personal connection with him. Most of them don’t, and this has produced a more fractured party with less enthusiasm for backing difficult policies. Obamacare is probably a good example. Right now, when it’s having so many birthing pains, is precisely when you want Democrats coming to its defense most passionately. That’s a tough sell for obvious reasons, but I imagine that more of them would be stepping up if they felt that they owed it to their party leader. Ditto for other difficult policies, like the U-turn on Syria, the negotiations with Iran, and some of the pseudo-scandals of the past year. Strong relationships wouldn’t have turned night into day on these issues, but I’ll bet it would have helped.

 

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WHO DOESN’T LOVE A POSITIVE STORY—OR TWO?

“Great journalism really does make a difference in this world: it can even save kids.”

That’s what a civil rights lawyer wrote to Julia Lurie, the day after her major investigation into a psychiatric hospital chain that uses foster children as “cash cows” published, letting her know he was using her findings that same day in a hearing to keep a child out of one of the facilities we investigated.

That’s awesome. As is the fact that Julia, who spent a full year reporting this challenging story, promptly heard from a Senate committee that will use her work in their own investigation of Universal Health Services. There’s no doubt her revelations will continue to have a big impact in the months and years to come.

Like another story about Mother Jones’ real-world impact.

This one, a multiyear investigation, published in 2021, exposed conditions in sugar work camps in the Dominican Republic owned by Central Romana—the conglomerate behind brands like C&H and Domino, whose product ends up in our Hershey bars and other sweets. A year ago, the Biden administration banned sugar imports from Central Romana. And just recently, we learned of a previously undisclosed investigation from the Department of Homeland Security, looking into working conditions at Central Romana. How big of a deal is this?

“This could be the first time a corporation would be held criminally liable for forced labor in their own supply chains,” according to a retired special agent we talked to.

Wow.

And it is only because Mother Jones is funded primarily by donations from readers that we can mount ambitious, yearlong—or more—investigations like these two stories that are making waves.

About that: It’s unfathomably hard in the news business right now, and we came up about $28,000 short during our recent fall fundraising campaign. We simply have to make that up soon to avoid falling further behind than can be made up for, or needing to somehow trim $1 million from our budget, like happened last year.

If you can, please support the reporting you get from Mother Jones—that exists to make a difference, not a profit—with a donation of any amount today. We need more donations than normal to come in from this specific blurb to help close our funding gap before it gets any bigger.

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