[LongaDonga]

http://www.tnr.com/article/politics/...lection-truman

How to Win When You’re Unpopular: What Obama Can Learn From Truman

Norman Ornstein

With an economy seemingly on the precipice of a renewed recession, an angry conservative movement that regards him with disdain, and a disillusioned liberal base disappointed in his first term, Barack Obama’s bid for reelection next year will, by all indications, be a tough, maybe even uphill fight. But daunting as the campaign may seem, the president can at least take some solace in a precedent from 64 years ago: Harry Truman’s campaign for reelection in 1948—successful, despite a poor economic climate, and a polarized electorate—offers a promising path for Obama’s reelection. The question is whether he’s prepared to take it.

In terms of the difficulties they faced, these two Democratic presidencies have plenty of parallels. Most prominently, both were hampered by crippling midterm elections, fueled largely by anger about the poor state of the economy, which produced sweeping and across-the-board loss of seats for their party in Congress. In 2010, Democrats lost 63 seats in the House and 6 in the Senate, losing the House after four years in the majority and losing most of their comfortable cushion in the Senate. In 1946, Democrats lost 55 seats in the House—where Republicans grabbed a comfortable majority for the first time in sixteen years—and 13 seats in the Senate, giving Republicans there a 51-45 edge, their first majority in fourteen years.

The 80th Congress of 1947 and 1948 actually had some impressive achievements, acting with commendable bipartisanship on foreign affairs by enacting the Marshall Plan and a sweeping reorganization of the executive branch that included the establishment of the Defense Department and the National Security Council. But the Republicans’ record on domestic policy was something else entirely. As historian William Leuchtenburg put it, “they veered so sharply to the right that they alienated one segment of the electorate after another. They antagonized farmers by slashing funds for crop storage; irritated Westerners by cutting appropriations for reclamation projects; and, by failing to adopt civil rights legislation, squandered an opportunity to make further inroads among African-American voters.” At the same time, by pushing the anti-union Taft-Hartley legislation over Truman’s veto, they drove a labor movement furious with Truman back into the president’s arms.

[mdUzAMbG]

A conservative writer and think tank scholar telling Pres. Obama how to defeat the lackluster and/or crazy GOP presidential field by going on the attack against the crazy, do-nothing, overreaching Republicans in Congress, and citing a successful Democratic president who did just that.

Will wonders never cease.

(Not to mention Brad posting the article. But, that's no miracle. He doesn't really read what he posts.)

[casinochniks]

I missed the part where I was disillusioned. Considering the tactics of the GOP and Tea Party which in the past month I would go as far as to call "anti-American," Obama has lived up to decent expectations: the starts of a universal healthcare system, repealing DADT, repairing international relations... Plus he's made the GOP look absolutely silly in their usually strong point domain of security.

He's tried to work with the GOP but they are quite happy to let America suffer for the sake of politics. I'm happy with Obama's first term. It's the rest of Washington, people on both sides of the aisle, who I am fed up with.