VPR, “Gotcha” Journalism and Grading Obama One Year In

February 2nd, 2010 by Matthew Dickinson

At the very end of yesterday’s radio segment on VPR, Jane Lindholm sprung a surprise question on me: what grade would I give President Obama after a year in office? (I know, on a radio segment devoted to evaluating the first year of the Obama presidency, why would anyone expect this question?   That’s why Jane is so deviously clever!)

She prefaced her question by noting that I gave my students grades all the time, and presumably they were based on more than opinion, and in fact reflected students’ actual performance.  She also noted that Obama had given himself a B+.

At this late point in the program – there was time for one last question – I had yet to bump the table holding the microphone, burped, coughed or insulted any of the callers – all behaviors characterizing my previous radio appearances – and was feeling pretty darn good.  Then Jane exercised her mild-mannered VPR version of “gotcha journalism” and put me on the spot.

Upon reflection I think there were two mistaken assumptions implicit in Jane’s question:  that my evaluation of students rests on more than mere opinion (hah!) and that it is possible to accurately grade a president while he is still in office, before we can know the outcome of most of his decisions.  Think, for instance, about how “history” will judge George W. Bush’s presidency?  I would think the judgment may differ if two decades from now we see a functioning democracy in Iraq, stability in the Mideast, and oil reserves flowing into the U.S.

And so my initial reaction – the one that played out in my head – was to answer Jane by saying, “No, I won’t give Obama a grade. It’s far too early to do so.  We won’t know the aftermath of some of his major policy decisions, such as escalating the troop presence in Afghanistan, or passing the stimulus bill, or the tactics used to push health care through Congress, for many years.  Moreover, before giving a grade, we need to discuss the criteria by which we should evaluate a president, and that is worth a separate program.  Rather than do a disservice to your listening audience, Jane, and present some simplistic answer, I refuse to answer the question.  Nothing you can say will change my mind.”

Sigh. Of course, that’s not what actually came out. Instead, I uttered a mild protest, gave Obama a grade, and followed that with a lame explanation of the basis on which I arrived at that grade.  It was a pretty simplistic analytic exercise – you can hear the whole sorry mess, including the grade I gave Obama,  here.

However, Jane’s question has inspired me to do better – I’m going to devote an entire post to evaluating Obama’s presidency to date.  As a prelude to that, however, I’m curious to hear what you think.  What grade would you give Obama one year into his presidency, and why? For what it’s worth, I’ve played this exercise with several people, almost all staunch Obama supporters during the 2008 election, and they have been almost uniformly critical of him.  A local Democratic activist game him a “D+”.  Another supporter said he had surveyed his friends – all Obama supporters – and the average grade was a C+.  A third said she’d grade him between a B- and C+.  In fact, of more than a dozen people I’ve questioned – all Obama supporters in 2008 – not one gave him a grade above B-.  These are all people who pay close attention to politics at the national level.

On the other hand, the callers and those who emailed comments to Jane’s show were almost universally positive in their assessments of the Obama presidency to date.  So maybe these disparate reactions are more indicative of differences in the people I hang out with (pessimists all) and those who listen to VPR (those people who live on another, happier, planet.)

Anyway, what’s your take on the Obama presidency? A simple grade will do but it would be nice if you gave a sentence or two by way of explanation. (As always, your comments can be anonymous – no need to provide your name if you don’t want!)

Best answer, as judged by the same grading standards I use with my students (throwing the essays down the stairwell), gets an “It’s the Fundamentals, Stupid!” t-shirt.

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My Message to the VPR World(s), with apologies to Kermit

February 1st, 2010 by Matthew Dickinson

In anticipation of the discussion about Obama’s presidency during the VPR gig at noon today, I want to step back from my usual approach of bringing social science theory and data to bear on issues of relevance to the American Presidency, no matter how dull or tedious the analysis.  Because the VPR audience extends far beyond the borders of Ripton, or even Vermont, and reaches into the far corners of this planet and many others (judging by my previous appearances some callers are definitely not from Earth), I’m going to wax philosophical for just a bit, in order to drive home a central point:  it’s not easy being President. (Cue Kermit the Frog.)

To illustrate, consider a topic that I’ve posted about before: Obama’s handling of the War on Terror (no longer defined as such, of course.)

Long-time readers remember that I argued back at the start of Obama’s presidency that his conduct of this “war” would not vary much from his predecessor’s, in part because some of the more difficult issues (domestic surveillance, interrogation practices, and prisoner detention) had been worked out in often contentious negotiations between the courts, Congress and President Bush.  It is no surprise that where Obama has sought to differentiate himself most clearly with the Bush administration, (closing Gitmo, trying Khalid Sheikh Mohammed in a New York City federal court) he’s encountered the greatest resistance.  That Obama has hewed so closely to Bush’s strategy, and received so much pushback when he has strayed too far from it, says much about the constraints on presidential power.  But it is also a reminder of the rather intractable nature of the issues pertaining to the war on terror.

As an example, consider the fallout from the crotch bomber incident on Christmas Day.

While in custody, the crotch bomber (Abdulmutallab) was reportedly interrogated for some 50 minutes before being read his Miranda rights, after which he predictably chose to stop speaking. During those initial 50 minutes, it is reported, the FBI learned quite a bit about Abdulmutallab’s links to Yemen and Al Qaeda.  They decided to issue a Miranda warning in order to bring charges against Abdulmutallab in civil court (and in fact sent in a second team of interrogators after the warning so that this second group would have no knowledge of what interrogators learned during the pre-Miranda interrogation – all to insure a clean prosecution.)

Had Abdulmutallab not been issued his Miranda rights, but instead treated as an “enemy combatant” and held indefinitely, would the FBI have learned more?  Would they have uncovered information that would help prevent additional terrorist attacks?  Would they have been able to draw on NSA intercepts and CIA briefings to help piece together more of the relevant details?  Of course, it is impossible to know.  Reasonable, informed people can and do disagree.  The Obama administration, mindful I’m certain of the controversy centered on the Bush policy of indefinite detention of enemy combatants, decided to handle the crotch bomber through the “normal” justice system.  They did, no doubt, in part to send a signal that in contrast to the Bush-era policy, they will focus more heavily on protecting the rights of the defendants under the Constitution and international law.

What’s the lesson? The Preamble to the Constitution lays out that document’s objectives: to establish Justice, insure domestic tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general welfare and secure the Blessings of Liberty.  What it doesn’t do is tell us how to choose between those values – justice versus providing for the common defence; liberty versus insuring domestic tranquility – when they are in tension.  For that we have politics – a messy method for resolving these fundamental tradeoffs, but one that is probably superior to any other method we’ve been able to devise.

In the hothouse media environment of cable news shows and political blogging, in which presidents are routinely demonized (Obama soft on terror! Bush shredded the Constitution!) and accused of acting on the basest motivations, we forget that the decisions that reach the president’s desk are almost always the most difficult ones, often involving choices among equally important values, and with no obvious right or wrong answer.   Too often, the President’s critics dissect the flaws in the choice the President eventually makes, while ignoring the perhaps equally fatal flaws in the strategies Presidents may have considered but rejected.  To paraphrase John F. Kennedy, critics move on to new criticism, but presidents must take responsibility for the decisions they make.

When we evaluate the Obama presidency – or any presidency – we ought to keep this in mind. My goal today is to remind the many millions of those comprising the VPR listening and blogging audience around the world, and on other planets, of this simple fact.

Hope to hear from some of you at noon at: http://www.vpr.net/episode/47854/

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VPR, Health Care, and Viewer Mail: Did Obama Make A Mistake?

January 30th, 2010 by Matthew Dickinson

I’ll be back on Vermont Public Radio this Monday as a guest on Jane Lindholm’s Vermont Edition program.   We’ll be discussing Obama’s first year in office. You can email questions to VPR in advance – as I recall, some of the best questions and phone calls during my last visit came from regular contributors to this blog, so I encourage you to participate again.  The program begins at noon – send your questions in advance to:  vermontedition@vpr.net

(As always, I’ll be playing our word game contest in which I try to incorporate three words chosen by a random word generator into my answers, just to keep the vast VPR audience on edge.  Monday’s words will be:  “accord”, “smoking” and “perpetual.”)

A good chunk of that discussion will undoubtedly focus on health care.  In anticipation of that topic, I want to answer some excellent questions several of you asked regarding health care and Obama’s first year in general, and to pose one of my own.  Health care is in the news again today thanks in part to this New York Times article in which Rahm Emanuel appears to indicate that passing health care has dropped down on the list of Obama’s legislative priorities.  Emanuel’s comments are not surprising; those of you participating in the live blogging of the State of the Union will recall that I thought Obama clearly signaled that he no longer was willing to expend time or political capital in getting the current health care legislation through Congress.

In reading through the various blogs after the speech, I detected what I saw as a stubborn resistance among progressives to read the writing on the wall indicating that health care reform is dead, at least in the short term; more than one blogger insisted that Obama had stated in his speech his renewed commitment to pass the health care legislation now in play on the Hill. In their defense, he did renew his support for health care reform, at least in the abstract, by saying, “Here’s what I ask Congress, though: Don’t walk away from reform. Not now. Not when we are so close. Let us find a way to come together and finish the job for the American people.” And, as Chris A. argued in his comments on the election night blog, there may be good political reasons to pass the Senate bill. Chris suggests that Democrats in the House who voted for health care will pay a bigger political cost with voters in November if they appear to reverse themselves by not supporting health care reform, and that the best way to get legislation passed is for House Democrats to support the Senate bill.  That may be true for most of those Representatives who supported health care, but I believe the aftershocks from Brown’s election, as interpreted through the media, changed enough votes in the House to make this strategy politically untenable.  Simply put, I don’t believe there’s enough political support in Congress to pass health care legislation in either chamber in its current form.

The placement of Obama’s “support” for health care near the end of his speech, against the backdrop of the political calendar that shows midterms just around the corner, clearly told me that Obama had come to the same conclusion, and that he preferred to put further health care debate on the back burner.  Emanuel’s comments add further credence to that supposition, as did Obama’s remarks during his open debate yesterday with Republican leaders. In that meeting Obama made no effort to provide a roadmap for ending the deadlock on health care and admitted that some of the closed-door dealmaking that led to passage of the House and Senate bills was “messy”.

With the midterms now less than a year away, time is working against those who support passing health care legislation. This raises the question: was pursuing health care reform a mistake? Yesterday, retiring Democratic Senator Byron Dorgan, now freed from the constraints of running for reelection, said it was; Obama, he argued, would have been better off focusing on the economy during his first year.  Hindsight is 20/20 of course.  But I said from the beginning of Obama’s election that he was unlikely to get Congress to pass sweeping health care reform, and that instead his best strategy was to lower expectations and focus on more modest changes, such as insurance reform and cost control within the context of the current fee-for-service, third-party payer health care system.  My reasoning had  less to do with the specter of Republican obstructionism and more to do with the inevitable drop in public support as health care moves from an abstract promise of “reform” to the specific legislative compromises that must inevitably be made to get reform legislation through Congress.  Remember, in the end the public doesn’t consider health care legislation in a vacuum – they compare it to the status quo.  For much of the public, the uncertainties associated with the reform proposals, particular on the cost side, outweigh their misgivings toward the current health care system.

I’m working on a longer post that examines why health care reform did not pass despite Democratic majorities in both chambers, but let me end this post by asking: Is Dorgan right?  Did Obama make a mistake in signing on to health care reform?  Or was the mistake perhaps in the tactics he used in trying to get Congress, and the public on board?

These are the questions I’ll try to address on Monday’s VPR show but I’m eager to hear your talking points beforehand.

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How High Does a Dead Cat Bounce? Assessing the Likely Impact of Obama’s State of the Union speech

January 29th, 2010 by Matthew Dickinson

The State of the Union serves three broad purposes:

  1. It is theater, in the sense of watching the nation’s political actors perform their traditional roles (greeting the president, standing, applauding) and occasionally ad-libbing (“You lie!”) – see Justice Alito’s mouthing objections to Obama’s mischaracterization of the meaning of the recent Supreme Court decision;
  2. It serves as an agenda-setting device that allows a president to present his legislative “wish-list”, but without necessarily influencing any of the factors that will determine whether that wish list is fulfilled;
  3. It is a modern day affirmation of a tradition with roots tracing back to the Constitutional provision that presidents should, from time to time, inform Congress of the State of the Union.

What it typically does not do is provide a president with any additional political leverage, either within Congress or among the public at large.  Those relationships are governed by more fundamental factors that usually swamp any short-term effects of the State of the Union speech.

This is easy to forget if you are one of those political junkies who pay attention to things like the polling of focus groups consisting of people who watched Obama’s speech, or who get your political analysis from one of those echo-chamber blog sites.  For example, CNN conducted a pre- and post-speech survey and found that Obama’s address was received very positively or positively by 78% of those in the focus group.  Seventy-one percent of respondents said that the agenda Obama proposed will move the country in the right direction.   This assessment was echoed in blogs like Nate Silver’s, who pronounced the President’s speech a “three-run homer.”

The problem with these results is that they gauge the reaction of those who actually watched the speech – and that audience is almost always skewed toward a president’s supporters.  (Hence, Silver’s assessment.)  Consider this data from Gallup:

Clinton’s audience was predominantly Democrats, and Bush’s Republican (ignoring independents).  I expect that Obama’s will skew toward Democrat.   They are, not surprisingly, likely to gauge the speech pretty favorably (”a three-run homer!”)

However, when we look at the country as a whole, the impact of Obama’s speech is likely to be trivial.  Consider this data from Gallup assessing the post-State of the Union bounce achieved by presidents dating back to Carter in 1978:

The average “bounce” across 24 State of the Union speeches is actually negative, although essentially zero.  (But  see Clinton’s speech in 1998 – can anyone suggest an explanation for his 10-point jump?)  In short, expect Wednesday’s speech to have no impact whatsoever on Obama’s political standing among the public or within Congress.

This is not to say the speech served no purpose – it did.  It is clear that Obama used it to signal a change in direction in his presidency, with a renewed emphasis on a more moderate political tone and a laser-like focus on one issue: jobs, jobs, jobs.  Health care and foreign policy are on the back burner.  His goal is to prevent a reprise of 1994, when Clinton’s failure to get health care through helped create conditions for a Republican landslide in the first midterm elections.  For the next several months, expect the White House to be in full campaign mode as it seeks to minimize losses in the upcoming midterms.

In the meantime, I’ll post the post-speech data as soon as I get it.

P.S.  Great participation and excellent comments on Wednesday’s live blogging.  Max was the only one who called the over/under on the use of the word fight correctly.  (Sorry, Max – no t-shirt awarded in this contest.)  I count six uses by Obama of the word “fight”, not counting “firefighters”, which falls three short of the over/under I posted at the outset of the speech.

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Live Blogging the State of the Union Address

January 27th, 2010 by Matthew Dickinson

9 pm. Ok. we are watching the NBC feed.

Things to look forward to tonight:

1. The media narrative.  Look for lots of talk about Obama needing to “right the ship”, reassert control of the agenda, turn things around, reconnect with the people, etc.

2.  Tone – look for Obama to come out with his new populist stance.   I’ve put the over/under for mentions of “fight” or “fighting” or versions thereof  at 9.

3.  Republican reaction – they want to signal their willingness to work with Obama, so can’t come across as too stridently opposed.  Look for them to applaud on jobs related tax cuts or education.

4.  Audience reaction.  Historically, presidents rarely get a popular boost from the state of the union, in large part because the audience is predominantly supporters.

5. Obama needs to simplify his message. He has a tendency to work too many themes into his national addresses.  He needs to focus on one thing tonight:  jobs, jobs, jobs.

6.  Other than a brief mention of health care – I don’t think he’ll focus too much on it.  Of course, he’ll stress the need to pass comprehensive health care, and it will get big applause from Democrats, but I think that train may have left the station.

(Jack’s taking the over on the fighting references.  Anyone else?)

He’s on – look for about an hour speech  with applause.

Boy he sounds alot like Fred Armisen!

Worst of storm has passed….perhaps.

Chris – good catch.  Jefferson presented it in writing to Congress and that set a precedent until Wilson.

As usual,  Nancy is chewing something – incredibly distracting. Is it a throat lozenge?

He’s clearly taking the middle-class, man of the people populist tack.

First applause line:  hopefulness hits home!

We do not give up, we don’t quit (Churchill – we will never surrender)….applause again for the Amurican people…

And who are the evil people!  the banks!  We all hate the banks! (How’s Tim Geithner feeling right now?)

Oh, he supported the “last administration’s bank bailout program” – how long can he play that card?

I forget – did he cut taxes?

Real interesting play here – do you notice how playful he is?  A real effort here to break through the “cerebral aloof” Obama and try to connect with the middle class.  It’s all part of the package – jobs, taxes, man of the people and more jobs for real people.  Smart, smart, smart!

And no mention of health care!

Jobs, jobs, jobs.  He gets it.  The question is: how do you pay for a jobs  bill.

Republicans like America’s business!

A critic might suggest that in order to grow businesses, you need banks to loan money… and he jumps on it.   Fitting with the populist theme, we are helping “small business” – never the big businesses.

Tax credits – this is a line out of the Republican playbook – ended capital gains.

The Left has to be incensed here – this is really a pretty centrist agenda: tax cuts, tax breaks, tax incentives -  Obama has seen the light, and it ain’t the moving Left.   Say goodbye Daily Kos, Andy Sullivan, etc.

Is that the first mention of health care?  Chris says yes…

“I’m not going to sit here and listen to you badmouth the United States of America!”  Let’s go Otter!

Where is this segment going besides drawing applause?  is he leading up to health care?

Financial regulation – a veto threat!  He’s trying to show some spine.  I’m sure people are wishing he said the same thing for health care  – where is health care?

How the times have changed – bipartisan support for nuclear power!   Offshore oil drilling!  Nancy just swallowed her tongue!   What party is he representing?  This is amazing!!

This is a rather lukewarm endorsement of the climate bill!

Jaime has a link to what commentators are saying (see her comment for the link)

We are all for exports, but how do you increase them when companies are laying off workers and banks aren’t loaning? This is meaningless boilerplate – enforcing trade agreements, strengthen trade relations, blah blah blah. Meaningless…

Education is a potentially bipartisan issue – Bush capitalized on this.  I think he can get Republicans on this….a mixture of spending and stricter accountability.  Win-Win…

Community colleges – another shoutout to working families, and a shot at banks profiting on students loans for good measure.  Again, a nice touch…

Here that Midd students?  You shouldn’t go broke listening to me lecture!

Finally – health care.  No laughing matter….

This ought to be interesting – does he double down, or pay lip service to reform?  (A shoutout to Michelle – she doesn’t look real enthused!)

The CBO estimate just isn’t going to cut it.  If he’s serious about reform he’d drop that.  This is lip service unless he comes out specifically for what’s in one of the two current bills.  Let’s see if he’s serious…

Take another look?  He just kicked it under the bus…

Health care just died.   He threw in the towel….A year of effort and it’s done.

Let’s move on … and he is on to the deficit….and blaming the previous guys…

(Chris A.  – are you arguing that he’s serious about pushing for health care?)

Nancy does not like a spending freeze…

A second veto threat – but this is largely meaningless because he just exempted roughly 3/5 of spending in the form of Medicare and Social Security and the Defense Department.   Totally meaningless…

Still another bipartisan commission to study Medicare  — politically safe and a clear sign that he’s passing it on to another generation of Americans.

A freeze that takes place next year?  That’s how budgeting works?   There’s the lead Youtube video….sigh…

Who took the “under” on fighting – I haven’t heard the word yet?

(Jack – that’s the second veto threat by my count).

Lobbying disclosure, yawn…. .

See Bert Johnson for an opposing perspective on the impact of the Court decision – he suggests it will have no impact at all, or very little…

Earmark reform.  I hear he also wants to outlaw rain falling on weekends….

Transparency?  After how the health care negotiations took place?

A subtle jab at filibusters and holds…. .

He is still digging the bipartisan hole – it plays well, but it simply is unrealistic without action

(Chris – I think your take on health care is right..)

Amy – yes, it was!

Boy, he’s really playing the “friendly” card…

You watch, he’s still going to have to play tough on security…  and there it is.  More Al Quaeda captured or killed than the previous guy did!

“Combat” troops out means roughly 30,000 Americans will still be there by most estimates – all the troops will not be coming home.

(Chris – don’t pick on Max.  I’m surprised he’s up!)

Instead of going to funerals, Joe Biden does commissions….

Jack – No, he doesn’t really believe we are leaving Iraq, but he gets around it with the use of “combat troops”…..

what consequences, in particular?   My mother used to threaten me with that …. “you just try me!”

jaime – you are absolutely right – really treading a careful line there to sound tough but not alienate the base.

He’s finishing with reference to American values, and relatively bipartisan issues.

Again, how exactly does he work with Congress to repeal don’t ask, don’t tell?  He could end it now, with a stroke of the pen!   This is mostly rhetorical fluff here – no real hard choices, no details, instead an appeal to abstract principles and promises to do “the right thing” with little recognition that if it was so easy to do that, it would have taken place already.

And here’s the reference back to his no Republican or Democratic values – only American values.

Anyone watching focus groups here?  How’s this change mantra playing?  Are people listening?

Too much pointing fingers – this from the guy who spent much of this speech pointing the finger at Bush!

He just threw health care under the bus – and he’s criticizing others for failing to do what’s hard?  Is this playing?

Marty – my read at the outset is that the Republicans were going to play this really safe – they have the political winds at their back and don’t want to provide any pretext for voters to turn against them…

Ok – talking heads time – what are you hearing?  What’s the first take?

My initial thoughts:

1. The obvious omission here was health care – he essentially signaled that he won’t push for the current bill.  It’s back to the drawing board.

2. Second, the Republicans were on their best behavior.  The political winds are at their back and they really didn’t do much catcalling although there were a couple of moments of snickering.

3.  Obama was clearly trying to come across as more personal, more human, more emotional. He understands that people are angry – he’s angry too.

4.  He clearly caught the message from Massachusetts – from here on it’s all about jobs, jobs, jobs…much of the substantive focus was on taxes – cuts, exemptions, credits, etc. – very Republicanesque.  Nuclear power, offshore drilling – he has clearly signaled, in light of Massachusetts, that’s he moving to the Center and daring the Republicans not to work with him.   I think it is a very good strategy, but it will have the netroots in open revolt tomorrow….  .

This is a man who is politically chastened, who sees support among the middle eroding and who is facing a potential loss of the Democrat’s working majority in a matter of months unless the economy begins turning around.

The biggest problem:  can he get a bitterly divided Congress to take up his proposals?

Thoughts?

jack agrees, a move to the middle.  Others?  do you agree he threw health care under the bus,  and has adopted Clinton’s triangulation strategy, only this time doing it before losing the Congress, whereas Clinton did it after losing the Congress?

let’s watch the Republican response.  Clearly they’ve learned from the Jindal fiasco, when he gave the speech from a hallway in his house!  This setting is much more fitting…

(Jack – no t-shirt. I didn’t hear fight once.  I heard alot about Amuricans….)

The Republican reaction is on: it’s  jobs, jobs, jobs – and you won’t get it through more government!  It’s an easy pitch, but will it work without being matched with reform?  The private sector got us into this mess  … Republicans have to have a program….I guess the program is Facebook and Twitter – he’s going for the 18-29 year old vote.

Drill, baby, drill!

(Jack – you are welcome – great participation tonight.  Even Max!)

Jaime – agreed.  the techo-references just don’t fly.

Wow – Scott Brown is now the face of the Republican party!   And a shot at Obama and Dem’s for coddling the Christmas bomber.  That’s a winner….

And the common Republican themes – federalism, individual choice, deregulation….the Reagan mantra.

(Is that young lady crying?  Or is she on painkillers?)

OK, that’s it… I’ll be on a bit more taking final thoughts while I unwind with a scotch and, of course, tomorrow I’ll try to give an update on the post-speech reactions.  My sense is that the netroots are going to be completely up in arms here.

Chris – do you mean the “rainbow” coalition seating behind McDonnell?   I thought they were typical republicans!

I have an early departmental meeting tomorrow, so I’m going to call it a night.  Great participation from everyone – you outdid five thirty eight tonight in terms of comments.  And, of course, you were alot smarter… .

More tomorrow…

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