In their superb book on last year's presidential election, "The Battle for America 2008," Dan Balz and Haynes Johnson, two gifted political reporters, persuaded David Axelrod, Barack Obama's political strategist, to share his Nov. 28, 2006, memorandum assessing the strengths and weaknesses of Obama as a potential 2008 presidential candidate.
Axelrod candidly questioned Obama's "willingness and ability to put up with something you have never experienced on a sustained basis: criticism." He added: "You care far too much about what is written and said about you. You don't relish combat when it becomes personal and nasty. When the largely irrelevant Alan Keyes (Obama's improbable 2004 Senate campaign opponent) attacked you, you flinched."
In just a little over seven months, President Barack Obama has more than demonstrated, if not the willingness, then certainly "the ability to put up with" criticism "on a sustained basis."
"The (2009 political) combat" has definitely become "personal and nasty." Who could legitimately blame the president for failing to "relish" viciously irrational attacks from nationally prominent TV commentators and opposition politicians comparing him to Adolf Hitler, accusing him of championing a "Nazi" health care reform plan and charging that he was not born to his late mother in the United States?
But to borrow the idiom of the president's favorite sport, basketball, what we do not know is whether Obama is willing and able to go "one-on-one" with U.S. senators and key members of Congress. That is, can the president, in order to save his embattled health reform plan, engage directly in individual encounters — some of which will almost certainly involve both conflict and confrontation — with congressional barons from both parties?
Medicare was created by the 89th Congress some 44 years ago.
President Lyndon Johnson, who could not communicate effectively over television, was in the White House. He was not a compelling public speaker. But President Johnson was able to persuade that 89th Congress to guarantee civil rights by passing the federal Voting Rights Act, to initiate federal aid to public schools through the Elementary and Secondary Education Act and to provide medical care to the needy through the passage of Medicaid.
Yes, Johnson did have large Democratic majorities in both houses of Congress. But remember that those Democratic majorities were deceptive because their ranks were swollen by conservative members from the then-still solidly Democratic South. Where Lyndon Johnson politically dominated was in his masterful ability to go one-on-one with members of Congress.
It was a talent Johnson perfected as Senate majority leader, when the enormously popular Dwight Eisenhower, a Republican, was president. Even with just a razor-thin Senate majority of only one or two votes, LBJ never lost a key showdown vote with Ike.
Somehow Johnson could always persuade that one needed senator to vote his way.
To convince a Senate colleague, LBJ reportedly explained that all he needed to know about that senator was whether his "mommy married 'up' or whether his mommy married 'down.'"
If Johnson's targeted colleague's mother had married 'down' — socially, economically, intellectually — Johnson explained, then the mother would have transferred all her hopes and her ambitions from her husband to her son. Therefore, Johnson concluded, all he needed to do was to convince the wavering legislator that with this vote he was going to make his mommy proud. Brilliant.
For the Obama administration and health care reform, now it is LBJ time. It is time for the president to prove that he will brave conflict and confrontation by engaging resistant senators and members of Congress in personal, direct encounters. It is urgent that Barack Obama prove when the game is on the line that, yes, he can really go one-on-one.
To find out more about Mark Shields and read his past columns, visit the Creators Syndicate web page at www.creators.com.
DISTRIBUTED BY CREATORS.COM
COPYRIGHT 2009 MARK SHIELDS
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Sir;... God love you for talking about the America that was, but we are not there any more, and while we all remember the Greats, the Cronkites, the Kennedys, and the LBJs; the fact is that this place has changed, and in twenty years not one of us will recognize this place if alive to do so...There are people who want to hold this land together with a big, warm hug.... There are plenty who want to kill it, and see it buried... Of the many thousands who revert to quoting the scripture of contitution, not a fraction have read it start to finish, or they would all see it as a means, and not as an end... For what great reasons was it written??? How near has it come to its own goals??? I can testify that if the constitution worked -we would not so fear our neighbors, and we would have no reason to fear for our futures...Look at the many causes for which the constitution was written...Is it at all possible that if the thing worked that we would ever have turned arms upon ourselves, or now contemplate the deaths of our countrymen with equanimity???The goals of the constitution lay far beyond the horizon, but they are still entirely fit and right and good... The road by which we were to achieve our goals is rutted, washed away, and turned toward another destination, but the goals are not at fault...Is Mr. Obama a tyrant??? Not likely; but it is certain that where fear is, ignorance reigns... Mr. Obama is a president of this country, but here the people are led by fear...Clearly, the majority of people are looking to goverment for justice...Just as clearly, others are animating hobgoblins of fear to keep the people from their just desires...All government needs is an excuse to vote as the right demands, because that is also where the money is... Yet; how long will we continue as one with the better angels of our nature taken for so many clay pigeons??? We all have to get something from this agreement, and from our constitution...It is not possible that it was designed to turn our enmity against our countrys heart, or that it was made only for profit, and not a bit for peace...There is nothing wrong with the right that education or intelligence would not cure...There is nothing wrong with the left that determination and ammunition would not improve... Anyone who tries to pretend that we are not now two nations, one without, and and one with all, is a liar and a cheat...The left should meet the right, measure for measure... The right a nest of petty demagogues and tyrants... Nothing save the willingness to stand up to them, to face them down, and reveal to them their true colors will save this entire people... We all have to demand what the constitution promised, or trash it whole excepting its goals... We have not failed the constitution... The constitution has failed us... There is not a single one of its goals that it has not betrayed and denied...The right tries to scare this land with a word: Revolution... For God's sake; Let the Revolution begin... Let the right show this people the poison in their hearts... Let them fire their wicks with the courage of Carolina against Sumpter... Let them ignite the wind, and reap the fire storm... I defy each and every one of them to show me how they are fit for freedom, or are proper Americans... The time for manipulating leaders with the pride of their Mommys is past... It is time to motivate this people with the eternal dream of mankind for a home where peace and liberty prevail...Thanks; and missed you on the News Hour... Your perspective is appreciated by many....Sweeney
Comment: #1
Posted by: James A, Sweeney
Sat Aug 22, 2009 5:44 AM
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Mark, I wish our president would hire you as his coach. It is time for the gloves to come off, and it's time for the Democrats to deliver, which they haven't done in any significant way since LBJ's time, as I wrote to you here on August 8 a couple of columns ago.
Obama has given the nice approach more than the old college try. He has the moral high ground for doing so, and he is absolutely entited to declare war, having exhausted all diplomatic options.
It is a sad fact, though not insurmountable, that our president has as many problems stemming from those shapeshifting groundhogs in his own party, who cringe and run for cover at the mere thought of exercising leadership, as he has from the treasonous right wingers in the Republican Party. Our poor president has enemies on all sides, including the gullibility and ignorance of the average voter, who can't see that yet again our nation is being swindled out of healthcare reform at least a half a century overdue on the notion that we must avoid at all costs the horror of a democratic government running healthcare.
Why in the world would we want to subject ourselves to such a hell--we all know how much the average citizen in nations that have done so is suffering from better health, greater longevity, and superior outcomes as indicated by just about any public health statistic you want to look at--when we can bask in the sweet familiarity of being held hostage by the corporate dictators running things now?
Comment: #2
Posted by: Masako
Sat Aug 22, 2009 9:42 AM
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Mark, You left us hanging. What did LBJ do if the legislator had married up?
Comment: #3
Posted by: David Elliott Bell
Wed Aug 26, 2009 9:31 AM
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