Success

On November 3rd, 2010, the day after the Republican midterm victory, I proposed that Obama's strategy over the next two years should consist of two phases: in Phase One, he would imitate the folk image of Bill Clinton, moving to the center, trying to meet Republicans half-way, come together and get things done. Good, sensible, bipartisan things, like cutting the deficit. But since the Republicans would never agree to any of Obama's proposals, there would always be Phase Two: abandon the efforts at compromise, and start hammering Republicans for their refusal to play ball, tacking to the folk image of Harry Truman. The point of this strategy was that the economy will suck in November 2012, people usually blame the President when the economy sucks, and we want people not to be in a highly anti-Obama mood in November 2012. What he needed, therefore, was some way to convince people that the reason the government wasn't doing more to help was the Republicans, and the only way to do this was to a) establish that the Republicans were incapable of compromise, and then b) hammer them for it. Thus, the Clinton-to-Truman strategy.

And it looks to me a lot like Obama is following that strategy. Not only did he give a no-compromising-here jobs speech last week, proposing a host of center-to-center-left ideas for helping the economy/people that are known to poll well and daring Republicans to oppose them, but his deficit speech today was genuinely left-wing as well. Neither has the remotest chance of passage, at least not in this Congress, so he's done with the Clinton phase. The Truman phase has already begun in his lower-profile appearances, as he's taken to criticizing Republicans' inability to put country ahead of party, and it will really get into high gear once Republican refusal to play along with these two new proposals becomes written in stone. Until I see Obama failing to execute the Truman side of the plan, I'm prepared to give him the benefit of the doubt, because, after all, it looks a lot like he's doing what I told him to do.

But Ezra Klein, among others, does not seem to be making that connection. He acts completely as though Obama's efforts at being the most reasonable man in the room were genuinely aimed at getting the Grand Bargain, not the first part of an effort to pin the failure of the Grand Bargain, as well as everything else, on the Republicans. And I say, great! After all, the entire point of this two-part strategy is to get people to buy into the first half, so that when the pivot comes, it will be framed as "Obama tried to work with Republicans, but their sheer unwillingness to work with him has finally convinced him to abandon the effort." That's the message we need low-information swing voters to hear. They won't hear it from Fox News; I don't know what they're hearing from Fox News, but I assume it isn't the White House's ideal messaging. So all things considered, it's good if that's the spin that's being put on this Administration change of course even by people who think they should've realized that Republicans weren't playing in good faith months ago. Hell, maybe I shouldn't even be writing this, as it gives away the game, but whatever, I've written this theory of mine up before. The point is, it looks like the Administration successfully managed to convince at least some high-information types that they were genuine in Phase One. Let's hope that helps with the target audience.