It is in the nature of politicians, and political observers–mea culpa!–to overread election returns. The Democrats certainly did this in 2008: their mandate was to focus on an economy that Republican-style deregulation had brought crashing down (with a major assist from Larry Summers, Fannie Mae and Freddy Mac), and also to bring an end to the era of Bushian arrogance overseas. The mandate didn’t include an across-the-board imposition of the perennial Democratic wish list, even though health care reform and energy legislation, including a price on carbon, are very much in the long-term interests of this country. There was an economic crisis; Barack Obama was hired because he seemed cool and rational dealing with it during the fall campaign and John McCain did not.
This time, the mandate is more ephemeral. The national vote was probably no more than strong disapproval of the President’s inability to get the economy moving again, aided and abetted by a general bedfuddlement about why Obama wandered off into health care and cap-and-trade when there was so much meat-and-potatoes work to be done. But the Republicans, especially the loonified precincts of the party are taking these results are an indication that the public wants to do everything from repeal health reform to privatize social security. In such moments, clever politicians retreat to the ancient tactic of jujitsu–use your opponent’s momentum drive him off a cliff.
Frank Rich has a good jujitsu idea for the President in his column today. Put the spotlight on the Tea Party leaders, bring them to the White House, ask them to make specific proposals, publicize just exactly what people like Jim DeMint and Michelle Bachmann want to do. Bill Clinton did a version of this in 1995: he let the Republicans try to set the budget agenda during the first nine months of the year, let them overreach, which they did, culminating in their disastrous shutdowns of the government in September and again in December.
Meanwhile, Peter Baker has a sobering piece about how the Republicans might mess up one of the President’s most successful foreign policy initiatives–the reset with Russia. The President has moved wisely in a number of foreign policy fields–the strategic value of his current non-China visit to Asia is a good example–and one hopes that the Republicans understand that their victory had absolutely nothing to do with international issues, and that the martial agenda of the neoconservatives is best left on the shelf at this delicate moment.
Also: I think Jonathan Cohen is on the right track here, with his proposal that the Obama Administration find work for these four unemployed governors. I’d especially like to see Ed Rendell and Ted Strickland assume major roles in the Administration–as a part of the President’s White House inner circle. They’re grownups, they’re terrific executives, they’ve had recent experience outside the bubble, in the real world.