The dust has settled now on the debt-ceiling debate, and many liberals believe President Obama both gave away too much in this negotiation and has a habit of giving away too much in negotiations with Congressional Republicans. A theme has emerged that Obama 1) consistently gives away his main concession items without demanding enough in return; and 2) goes to such lengths to be fair and reasonable that he encourages brinksmanship from the other side. In his recent guest-post on this blog, Brian Pappas thoughtfully explored a separate line of criticism charging that Obama fails to enunciate a compelling narrative that would strengthen his BATNA of declaring impasse and seeking electoral victory.
It occurs to me, however, that these critiques make sense only if what Obama is doing is negotiating as an interested party. But he may not see his role in quite those terms. Remember that Obama was trained in mediation in law school, not negotiation. He often seems to position himself as a neutral, working with key stakeholders to identify solutions but not advocating strongly for a particular position. That is how he rose to political power in Chicago, and those themes suffuse his public statements. People describe Obama as “leading from behind,” but it may make more sense to describe him as not leading at all, but as facilitating a problem-solving process among the various stakeholders, including both Republicans and Democrats in Congress, the Chamber of Commerce, Wall Street, the unions, the public at large, etc.
If that construct explains at least some of Obama’s behavior, the question then is whether it is appropriate for a President to adopt the role of neutral. On the one hand, as Chief Executive, he is a manager responsible not just to his own party and supporters, but to the entire country. We have divided government, like it or not, which means he does not have the option of toeing a strict Democratic party line even if he was so inclined. A good manager finds ways to involve disparate groups of stakeholders in the decision-making process. Obama does that (or at least, he tries to).
On the other hand, the President must act. He cannot walk away from the table after the stakeholders agree on a resolution. He carries out their policies. In doing so, he has tremendous latitude and discretion. The choices about how the policies will look in practice are largely his. Arguably, the country should know what his priorities are, and just as arguably, the people who voted for him should know that he intends to pursue the objectives he stated in his campaign. In that regard, perhaps Obama has an obligation at least to enunciate the clear narrative that Brian calls for, if not to actively pursue a more assertive negotiating posture.
It seems clear in the weeks since the debt-ceiling debate that Obama is now more willing to call Republicans out for refusing to deal. He may now feel compelled to shift away from neutrality and toward assertiveness. That course carries risks, too, however. His poll numbers have fallen as he has become more obviously partisan. Do independent voters prefer the “neutral” Obama to the “assertive” Obama? I suspect many Republicans believe they do, and would be more than happy to see Obama define himself in opposition to them.
Thanks for this post. I have been saying since the 2008 campaign–and I’m not the only one–that Barack Obama constantly acts like a mediator. From the health care negotiations, to the “beer summit,” to the tax deal at the end of 2010, to the debt ceiling negotiations this year, he continually tries to bring the two sides to a conference table where he can facilitate an effort to find common ground.
His base finds this hugely frustrating since they think that the left would get a more favorable outcome if the President took a more aggressive negotiating position for his side. I think that is debatable, and nobody can say for sure if Democrats would have gotten better deals had the president acted in a more partisan manner. I think you are right, however, that at least the middle ground of public opinion (the people who are going to decide next year’s election) would be uncomfortable if the president acted in a more partisan, strident manner.
Since the president is trying to be the neutral in chief as well as the leader of his party, he has to keep reassuring his base that he is pushing their interests, while at the same time presenting himself to most of the country as the person who is trying to find a reasonable middle ground between the extremes.
Proof that how we see the world affects the way we interpret events.
The narrative provided in this blog post, from my view, is terribly biased. So biased as not represent reality.
We need a mediator to facilitate a discussion on this topic!
In the absence of a really good mediator I fear the conflict will continue to escalate and the consequences will not be good.
Who might be qualified to mediate?