Now let’s Have an Obama-Palin Debate
voices.washingtonpost.com
President Obama’s decision to televise his Q&A with House Republicans was one of his shrewdest political moves since he transformed the 2008 controversy around his pastor, Jeremiah Wright, into an occasion to discuss race in American life.
The hour-long session accomplished two things that Obama has been struggling for months to achieve. It set his political base on fire, even as it set a post-partisan tone that political Independents, who have been straying from him in the polls, like so much.
Evidence of how the base took the event was all over the blogs (Daily Kos, for example, live blogged the event), and tellingly, MSNBC’s Keith Olbermann and Rachel Maddow merged their shows on Friday into a two-hour special that broadcast of the entire session, along with commentary by the two of them and Chris Matthews.
For progressives, this was Obama on the offensive, facing down his opponents and getting a chance to confront and coolly undercut conservative claims that have demonized his stimulus program and undermined his battle for health care.
For example, Rep. Tom Price (R-Ga.) claimed that the Republicans’ health plan “would provide health coverage for all Americans” and accomplish all manner of other things “without raising taxes by a penny.” Obama calmly replied that “if you say, ‘we can offer coverage for all Americans, and it won’t cost a penny,’ that’s just not true. You can’t structure a bill where suddenly 30 million people have coverage, and it costs nothing.” Point (and match?) to Obama.
And when Rep Mike Pence (R-Ind.) scored the president’s economic policies for the nation’s high unemployment rate and asked why Obama would not support “across-the-board tax relief,” Obama countered that 1.35 million of the jobs lost this year were lost in January and February, before any of his policies had taken effect. As for across-the-board tax cuts, Obama said he was not in favor of “greater tax cuts for people who are making a billion dollars.” He added:
I may not agree to a tax cut for Warren Buffet. You may be calling for an across-the-board tax cut for the banking industry right now. I may not agree to that. So I think that we’ve got to look at what specific proposals you’re putting forward, and -- this is the last point I’ll make -- if you’re calling for just across-the-board tax cuts, and then on the other hand saying that we’re somehow going to balance our budget, I’m going to want to take a look at your math and see how that works, because the issue of deficit and debt is another area where there has been a tendency for some inconsistent statements. How’s that? All right?
All right, indeed.
The session was a reminder of how few occasions there are in American politics (outside of presidential debates) in which average citizens get to see the parties square off and test their ideas in a real back-and-forth. It’s a flaw in our system. Congressional debates occasionally do this, but many of these are now highly stylized -- and they are not in the easy-going, easy-to-follow format of Obama’s encounter with House Republicans.
But if the meeting was good for Obama with his base, it was also useful for his effort to win back middle-of-the-road voters. Obama was occasionally tough in his repartee, but his overall style was friendly, and he repeatedly spoke respectfully of Republicans. For example, he praised Rep. Paul Ryan (R-Wisc.) as “a pretty sincere guy.” But underscoring his overall point of how demonized he was in Republican circles, Obama immediately noted that he didn’t want his kind words to be used against Ryan in a Republican primary. So he added: “I didn’t mean it. Don’t want to hurt you, man.” Even the Republicans had to laugh.
More seriously, Obama went thoroughly post-partisan at many points in the discussion, notably with these words:
We’ve got to be careful about what we say about each other sometimes, because it boxes us in ways that makes it difficult for us to work together, because our constituents start believing us. They don’t know sometimes this is just politics what you guys -- or folks on my side do sometimes.
Criticizing your own party at the same time you are criticizing the other party goes down very well with independents.
The Q&A was a smash success, and we need many more. Let’s have Obama do the same kind of session with the Senate Republicans. Then, let’s have him debate potential 2012 Republican presidential candidates, starting with Sarah Palin, and then, perhaps, Mitt Romney. I’m quite serious. Tens of millions of Americans would turn on to politics again. The potential Republican candidates will accept, if only for the publicity and a chance to prove they can take on Obama. And no, let there be no media moderator, no one keeping time, no one to give one of the participants a chance to hide. Just the two of them, and they can take the discussion wherever they want. The beauty of the Baltimore event was that it was just Obama and the Republicans, with no one outside politics getting in the way.
This sort of discussion would be far more enlightening than the average run of televised politics. And it would serve as a reminder that the president is a politician, not a king. The opposition has a right to challenge him. The power of the leader in a democratic republic comes not from force but from persuasion. Let the Republicans step up and test Obama’s ideas against theirs. It will be fun to watch, and good for the country.
Here’s hoping that what happened in Baltimore is the start of something big.
By E.J. Dionne | January 30, 2010; 6:35 PM ET |
