Obama’s `change’ runs up against Washington culture

More than one million people braved bitter cold and long, pre-dawn lines for the inauguration of a US president who promised to change “business-as-usual” in Washington and heal the wounds of a sharply divided country.
Barack Obama entered office with sky-high expectations on the heels of his deeply unpopular predecessor, George W. Bush. In his inaugural address Jan 20, 2009, the centre-left Democrat pledged “an end to the petty grievances and false promises, the recriminations and worn-out dogmas that for far too long have strangled our politics”.
Obama said that those who elected him the country’s first African-American president in November 2008 had “chosen hope over fear, unity of purpose over conflict and discord”.
Yet as Obama marks the end of his first year in the White House, the country is as divided as ever. The euphoria that accompanied his historic election has subsided, and Obama begins 2010 with approval ratings of around 50 percent, among the lowest ever for a president entering his second year in office.
Every major 2009 vote in Congress came down along party lines, starting with an unprecedented $787 billion stimulus package in February and ending with massive health care reforms that squeaked passed the Senate and House of Representatives.
Public anger boiled over. The conservative “Tea Party” movement saw thousands flocking to Washington to protest that Obama’s big spending plans would bankrupt the government and introduce socialism. Opponents of health reform turned summer townhall meetings into shouting matches and heated face-offs.
What happened?
Matt Dallek, a historian and visiting scholar at the Bipartisan Policy Centre, a Washington-based think-tank founded by a group of moderate former lawmakers, blames the failure largely on “structural problems” that have confounded presidents for decades.
“Obama is far from the first president and presidential candidate in modern times to promise to change the culture and unite the country, and then when he arrives in Washington, unity becomes very elusive,” Dallek said.
Those structural problems include a media environment that has grown increasingly partisan in its coverage of politics, and a never-ending election campaign atmosphere that will only worsen as the country gears up for mid-term congressional elections in November.
Obama has brought a change in tone to the White House, Dallek said, pointing to serious efforts to attract the support of opposition Republicans towards the beginning of his term. But these eroded as the White House became “increasingly disenchanted” with the lack of results over the course of the year.
Left-leaning Democratic lawmakers, who hold the majority in both houses of Congress, and their conservative Republican opponents have been at loggerheads through most of Obama’s first year. Critics argue Obama encouraged the divisions by leaving the crafting of major legislation to congressional Democrats who put less of a premium on bipartisanship.
Part of the problem is the magnitude of Obama’s agenda, much of which involves once-in-a-generation type reforms of domestic policy. Dallek expects Obama to make a renewed effort at compromise in 2010, when Congress will likely consider ambitious bills on climate change, financial regulation, immigration and the still-sluggish economy.
In contrast to the plague of bipartisanship, public interest groups give Obama credit for some major changes to Washington’s culture of influence and lobbying.
Obama gets good marks for improving transparency and reducing the clout of special interest groups. One of his first directives as president barred people from taking administration jobs that could impact their former companies.
Craig Holman of the watchdog group Public Citizen said the lobbying community has been “screaming high heaven” for much of the year, a sign that Obama has been successful in limiting the number of former lobbyists in White House positions.
“We’re seeing a fundamental shift in the way lobbying is done in Washington,” Holman said. The directives are encouraging lobbyists to return to their original purpose: Providing information and expertise, rather than bestowing favours in exchange for influence.
There have also been exceptions to the partisan divide, notably on some foreign policy issues. Republicans mostly supported Obama’s plans for a 30,000-troop surge in Afghanistan and cautious draw-down of forces in Iraq. It may have helped that Obama chose to keep Defence Secretary Robert Gates, who was first appointed by Bush.
There is some potential for cooperation in 2010. Obama has promised to work towards cutting the skyrocketing federal budget deficit, an issue where he could receive Republican support. A bipartisan group of three senators is in the process of hammering out a compromise on legislation to curb climate change.