It was Keith Olbermann who put it so pithily in his scathing critique of Obama for agreeing to tax cuts for the wealthy: "This President negotiates down from a position of strength better than any politician in our recent history."
But along comes the New Start nuclear disarmament treaty, and we see a different kind of Obama performance. What makes the difference is hard to say: the issue? the way he's feeling that week? a vast complex array of other things being considered? I don't presume to know.
Here's what the New York Times' Peter Baker said in an article on 12-23-10:
Some aides counseled Mr. Obama to stand down. Losing a treaty vote, as one put it, would be “a huge loss.” But Mr. Obama decided that afternoon to make one of the biggest gambles of his presidency and demand that the Senate approve the treaty by the year’s end. . . .Along the way, he had to confront his own reluctant party leadership and circumvent the other party’s leadership. He mounted a five-week campaign that married public pressure and private suasion. He enlisted the likes of Henry A. Kissinger, asked Chancellor Angela Merkel of Germany to help and sent a team of officials to set up a war room of sorts on Capitol Hill. Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr. had at least 50 meetings or phone calls with senators. . . .
Even in the final 10 days, the effort appeared in danger of collapsing. The insistence of Democrats on passing unrelated legislation allowing gay men and lesbians to serve openly in the military upset the Republican conference and may have cost the White House five or more votes on the arms treaty. Administration officials worried last week that they did not have the required two-thirds majority in the Senate, and as late as Sunday, the president’s aides wondered whether to call off the vote. . . .
“The president made a gutsy decision that he was willing to lose it, and that was a gutsy decision,” said Senator John Kerry. . . . “Everybody said it wasn’t going to happen. Even colleagues on our side said it wasn’t going to happen.”. . .
[When key Republican senator on arms control, John Kyl, signaled that he wasn't going to support it after all] “There were people here who thought that was it, we were going to call it a day,” recalled one White House official. There was no Plan B. But Mr. Obama, who often disappoints supporters by not responding to Republicans more aggressively, decided this was a moment to fight. “He decided that he would settle on nothing short of full Senate ratification,” said another official.
Starting in that meeting, they laid out a strategy. Mr. Biden was supposed to meet two days later with several Republican luminaries. Instead, Mr. Obama would host the meeting and make a public pitch for the treaty. The White House ripped up plans for the weekly radio and Internet address to make it about New Start. Then Mr. Obama flew to Lisbon for a NATO meeting, where he encouraged European leaders to speak out for the treaty. . .
[Instead of continuing to press Mr. Kyl, they went after other Republicans.]
“It was very tricky, and it almost broke it apart,” Mr. Kerry said. “That was part of the overall high-stakes poker. A lot was hanging on different things.”
In the end, the gamble paid off on Wednesday with a 71-to-26 vote in the Senate to approve the treaty, called New Start, with Russia, culminating what turned out to be the biggest battle over arms control in Washington in more than a decade.
Some will give the credit to Joe Biden, scoffing at the idea that Obama fights for anything. Biden was a key player in persuading reluctant Republicansl but, if Baker is telling the truth, it was Obama who made the decision to fight for it out and out, and it was Obama who kept them to the task when nearly everyone else was ready to give it up.
So, why not do it more often? I don't know.
Ralph
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