A week and a year after formally eschewing bipartisan governance with his speech at the House Democratic Retreat on February 6, 2009, in the aftermath of Republican Scott Brown’s election to the Senate in Massachusetts, President Barack Obama has returned to the rhetoric of bipartisanship as a central focus. As the polls were set to close on Brown’s January 19, 2010 Election day shocker, Obama summoned his former campaign manager, David Pfloffe, to the White House for a lengthy meeting to plan a strategic response. It appears to this observer that Pfloffe’s strategy, as adopted by Obama in the past few weeks, is to have Obama use his personal charisma to talk up the themes of the 2008 campaigh: the need for “change” regarding partisan governance, “Washington’s ways” and the dominance of special interests.
According to post-January 19, 2010 Obama, all of the above problems in Washington can be solved if the GOP would just “come to the table” and negotiate bipartisan policies with a willing Obama. From a communications strategy viewpoint, it appears the Pfloffe bipartisanship strategy has been fairly successful, as it appears that Obama has stanched the bleeding somewhat as his recent fall in approval has slowed to stabilize at approximately 48-49% approval. The key question, of course, for a centrist observer of these events is whether Obama’s return to the rhetoric of bipartisanship will be matched by actual negotiations with the GOP that result in centrist policy proposals or just more advocacy of his present left-wing agenda. Indeed, as former Office of Personnel Management Director Capretta posits:
In the daily back-and-forth of political news coverage, it is easy to lose sight of what a stunning turnabout this renewed interest in bipartisanship represents for Barack Obama. For more than a year, his administration attempted to govern based on an entirely different approach. The Democrats in the White House and on Capitol Hill welcomed any Republican willing to jump aboard their legislative plans. But, as the president and his top advisers repeatedly said, they were going to move ahead with “their agenda” — with or without willing Republican participation.
Any discussion of Obama’s proclivities and bipartisan bona fides must begin and essentially end with a discussion of the signature issue of his Presidency: health care reform. The next major event in the health care reform debate is the President’s “Health Care Summit” designed by the Administration and set for February 25, 2010. The Administration has noted it will produce a “compromise” version of its health care reform legislation before the summit, and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Senate Leader Harry Reid, along with Administration officials, are negotiating that “compromise” version this week.
As it stands now, there is no GOP input into these final negotiations between Obama and Congress regarding health care reform. Indeed, as the Democrats are negotiating a “compromise” version of health care reform now, and will produce it prior to the 2.25.2010 Health Care Summit with the GOP, the likelihood of an true centrist compromise between liberals and conservatives seems highly unlikely.
