It has been telling that Obama has recruited to his ranks a slew of veteran Clinton appointees of yesteryear. Much has been made of the manner in which this strategy seems to undercut not only his criticisms of Clinton style politics but also his promise of seismic change—he has surrounded himself with the detritus of the tradition he so proudly claimed to dethrone. Part of this is a concession to his youthful inexperience—he hasn’t been around long enough to have an entourage of aides all his own. Part of this is a concession to the Clinton wing of the party—the bitter primary engendered plenty of acrimony and if Obama has any chance of chastening his own party he’ll need the Clintons on his side. Along the same line of argument, it made sense to pull Hillary Clinton from the Senate and make her Secretary of State to remove her potentially pernicious influence on her cohorts—now her personal success more naturally coincides with his. The icing on the cake is the cache of restrictions this particular appointment puts on Bill Clinton effectively narrowing the window of opportunity he has for embarrassing Obama and his new administration.
It fast became commonplace to interpret Obama’s pick of Rahm Emanuel as Chief of Staff as a sign that he is tossing aside any real design on bipartisan compromise and that he is digging in his heels for political struggle. In this interpretation, Emanuel is a war time consigliere charged with ensuring that Obama’s agenda doesn’t go the route of Carter style fecklessness. This is partly true but ignores the extent to which Obama has to constrain his own party from precisely the brand of overreaching many conservatives eagerly anticipate as their consolation prize in a year of electoral setbacks; Obama is trying to head off the many divisions festering within his own party. Of the many obstacles Obama will face in establishing the new modes and orders he has promised will be the demands of patronage from all those who see themselves as the rightful beneficiaries of his success. He now owes a lot to many and it is not at all clear that all his promises can be prudently obliged.>
Now that the presidency is won, Obama has been working hard to lower the high expectations his campaign was premised upon—this is not merely a sign to the American people that miracles are not forthcoming but also a cautionary note to his own party to capitalize on their victory responsibly. On top of being an artful campaigner Obama has proven so far to be remarkably adept at political strategy, especially for one who has presented himself as above the political fray. It seems increasingly unlikely that Obama will allow Congress to overreach in the way many conservatives expect. Again, this is not to predict that Obama’s presidency will be a genuinely moderate one but rather well calculated and very liberal versus unhinged and very liberal. Conservatives will need a better and more effective plan than merely lying in wait for Obama’s inevitable unraveling—his extremely liberal agenda is actually more dangerous than anything we find in Congress simply because he is more aware of the many obstacles to its practical establishment. If Obama fails it will be because of the weakness of his liberal policies, not because of dithering or incompetence.
