Maybe Obama is the centrist president I long for

This weekend should have been relaxing. It's almost August. Oregon is warm, dry, and sunny. Staining decks isn't my favorite activity, but I enjoy the simple manual labor.

However, for the past few days I've been running to my laptop every hour or two and checking on the progress of the debt limit negotiations.

Now that our investments have crawled back to within spitting distance of their value prior to the Big Crash, I'm not wild about a major market downturn -- which likely would happen if Congress and the President don't get their act together and avoid a totally avoidable economic crisis.

Fortunately, Obama has announced that a deal has been agreed to. This is a big relief. It looks like both fervent conservatives and hard core liberals are upset, so the deal must be fairly centrist.

Which means, I'm not totally happy with it.

Apparently revenue increases are off the table, notwithstanding Obama's repeated insistence that a balanced approach to deficit reduction be followed: spending cuts and revenue enhancements.

But in my saner moments late this afternoon, after I'd learned about the outlines of the deal, I realized that Obama is acting like the sort of president my wife and I agreed we long for.

Driving around together last Friday, we got to talking about politics and the insanity of how the debt limit negotiations have beeen going. We're seriously irritated at all the drama, hissy-fits, walkouts, stonewalling, and general refusal to compromise for the good of the American people.

"I could see a third party emerging," my wife said. "Voters are fed up with extremism. They want to see our country's problems dealt with, not just simplistic polticial posturing."

I agreed.

I told her that I could vote for a moderate presidential candidate, maybe even an open-minded conservative like Jon Huntsman, so long as he or she was committed to getting beyond the right-left, R-D, I'm correct-you're wrong partisanship that's keeping us from being a truly United States.

it wasn't until this afternoon, though, that a light dawned in the political neurons of my brain. As I was pondering how Obama's deal-making disappointed me in some respects, I realized...

Any president with centrist, moderate, middle of the road leanings is going to disappoint people who tilt strongly right or left. Maybe Obama is the guy my wife and I were fantasizing about. Except, he's real -- our here and now president.

Many progressives think that Obama is a sell-out. I've thought that way at times. However, I've come to view him as a chess master rather than a checkers player. Meaning, those who expect an obvious and direct move often are disappointed, because his focus is on long-term strategy which is too subtle to clearly discern.

I suspect that Obama and his advisors have a game plan for how this debt limit deal is going to play out up to and past the 2012 elections.

They understand how the expiration of the Bush tax cuts will fit into a Democratic strategy. They know that a majority of voters support a balanced approach to handling our budget problems, so are willing to accept this initial daal and work to make future deficit reduction policies more centrist.

That said, E.J. Dionne makes some excellent points in his "Yes to moderation, No to centrism" critique of Obama.

At heart, he’s a moderate who likes balance. Yet Americans have lost track of what he’s really for. Occasionally you wonder if he’s lost track himself. He needs to remind us, and perhaps himself, why he wants to be our president.

He could give four or five big speeches — preferably at community colleges in states facing economic trouble — laying out a clear, detailed and, yes, inspirational plan for what the country needs to do to regain its standing and its confidence. And then he has to fight relentlessly to take the debate away from those who think government’s only job is to diminish itself.

Obama’s advisers are said to be obsessed with the political center, but such a focus leads to a reactive politics that won’t motivate the hope crowd that elected him in the first place. Neither will it alter a discourse whose terms were set during most of this debt fight by the right.

There’s nothing wrong with moderation that immoderate doses of conviction and courage won’t cure.

Comments

[Randy]

Brian, I'm always kind of surprised at how mainstream you are on politics and economics.

Here's another POV

http://kunstler.com/blog/2011/08/weimar-meets-waterloo.html

[Randy]

The evidence grows that Mr. Obama is not a centrist president but just another corporatist who doesn't walk the talk. If you don't subscribe to Salon premium you are missing Glenn Greenwald who regularly and cogently holds the president's feet to the flame:
http://www.salon.com/news/opinion/glenn_greenwald/

[Randy]

Another realistic source of information is Automatic Earth

http://theautomaticearth.blogspot.com/2011/08/august-1-2011-of-ceilings-and-dungeons.html

[Blogger Brian]

Randy, I read the Automatic Earth post. I didn't find any suggestions for doing things differently, just an attitude of "we're screwed, so we'd better get used to it." How is this helpful? Maybe I missed something.

You're more familiar with this web site than I am. How does this person believe the United States should deal with its debt and deficit problems?

[tucson]

Since those in control of the US have demonstrated their unwillingness to allow recessionary forces to do their necessary work of correcting the extreme imbalances within the economy, there are only two options left - default and deflationary implosion - ruin, or a comprehensive takeover of the country by its creditors, both of which options probably occurring after a period of runaway inflation as the Fed and government desperately try to stop the inevitable.

If the former occurs the shockwaves will reverberate around the world like they did a few years ago, only worse, and we can expect a collapse in commodity and stock markets. Has your house lost value? Try another 50% drop after the 2012 elections going into 2013.

Until that happens it will be a case of inflate and inflate, to forestall rising rates and liquidity problems, which will make gold and silver probably the best investments around, but you sure don’t want to be around once the music stops. We should see gold around $1700-1800 by year end and the sky is the limit ater that.

Even gold and silver will bust eventually, but will still retain value while printed fiat money won't. It is therefore to be hoped for the common good that the US authorities make the right decision and surrender to the mercy of their creditors before it’s too late. Either way the American Empire is finished.

[Randy]

This post http://theautomaticearth.blogspot.com/2010/07/july-22-2010-big-picture-according-to.html

on Automatic Earth leads you through a series of essays that the two writers (Ilargi and Nicole Fosse) feel are the most important to their readers. Their advice is directed at individuals and how to survive what they believe is now an inevitable calamity. My dad's favorite saying was, "He who dance must pay the piper." In answer to your question there are no good solutions, only painful ones and I would personally lean toward an amalgam of ideas proposed by Kucinich and Ron Paul. A primer for all of this stuff is Chris Martenson's Crash Course http://www.chrismartenson.com/crashcourse

[Bob]

Tuscon,

I find your posts quite informative and right on! The US Govt and federal reserve have not allowed the natural economic cycles to run, while they hope in vain that more and more spending and more and more debt is going to stimulate the economy and pull us out of this mess we're in.

Honestly, I think we're finished. We're going to see the value of paper currency go down big time over the next few years. It appears that gold and silver are good insurance policies for protecting one's wealth. So, my friend, do you know any gold or silver IRA funds that have the actual metals to back them up - unlike the common gold and silver EFTs?

Bob

[Willie R]

Sorry folks - it's business as usual in Washington DC as of this evening, August 2nd. It continues to appear as though we will all perish individually, rather than as a society.

The nonsense will continue ad nauseam and ad infinitum.