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President Obama and Speaker Boehner golfing in June 2011.
It's hardly a secret that President Obama's efforts to reach out to congressional Republicans in recent years haven't been especially successful. Jon Meacham suggests today that the president might have better luck in a second term if he relies more on "socializing."
In this hour of reflexive partisan division, with Americans frustrated by Washington's seeming inability to address significant fiscal questions, among other issues, an inevitable question arises: Can President Obama do anything to create enough good will to pass some lasting reforms?
Here is a modest proposal, one drawn from the presidency of another tall, cool, cerebral politician-writer: use the White House and the president's personal company to attempt to weave attachments and increase a sense of common purpose in the capital. Dinners with the president -- or breakfast or lunch or coffee or drinks or golf -- won't create a glorious bipartisan Valhalla, but history suggests that at least one of our greatest presidents mastered the means of entertaining to political effect.
In this case, Meacham is plugging Thomas Jefferson, the subject of his new book, but I've heard this advice before.
In April 2011, David Brooks argued Obama and Paul Ryan would better understand each other's agenda if only the president invited the far-right congressman over for lunch. Soon after, New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg (I) advised, "The president's got to start inviting people over for dinner. He's got to play golf with them. He has to pick up the phone and call and say, 'I know we disagree on this, but I just want to say -- I heard it was your wife's birthday or your kid just got into college.' He has to go build friendships."
In December 2011, Roll Call ran a piece complaining that the president is "aloof" when it comes to schmoozing with lawmakers, and the article included a quote from Sen. Olympia Snowe (R-Maine) complaining that Obama doesn't do enough to keep in touch.
It's worth noting, of course, that Obama has invested some effort in this. The president has used events like the Super Bowl and March Madness to invite bipartisan groups of lawmakers over to hang out, hoping to develop a rapport. In May 2011, Obama invited a bipartisan group to the White House, not for a meeting or policy negotiations, but as part of "a get-to-know-you effort in the spirit of bipartisanship and collegiality." Republicans accepted the invitation -- and soon after launched the debt-ceiling crisis on purpose.
So much for schmoozing.
I understand the underlying point here -- in Washington, interpersonal outreach is important. It's easier to imagine policy progress when policymakers get along. I also understand the way the D.C. culture has traditionally worked -- there have been times at which lawmakers were on the fence before a big vote, and a president could gently apply pressure with a White House dinner invitation and an after-meal chat on the Truman balcony.
But the radicalization of the Republican Party has changed the game. Can anyone seriously believe Mitch McConnell and Eric Cantor would be more amenable to compromise if Obama called to chat from time to time?
As I've argued before, the notion that schmoozing will lead to progress rests upon the assumption that congressional Republicans are responsible officials, willing to negotiate and work in good faith, and prepared to find common ground with Obama. All they need is some face-time and presidential hand-holding. Once they can get along on a personal level, a constructive process will follow.
It's a pleasant enough fantasy, and I wish it were true, but everything we've seen over the last four years points to the limits of schmoozing. GOP leaders respond to Fox News and Rush Limbaugh, not interpersonal outreach from a president they've tried to undermine at every turn.
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Whatever President Obama does, he will be criticized by the right, so he might as well do what he wants . . .
Oh I get it. If only Clinton had just had more cocktail parties the GOP would not have wasted so much time on stained dresses. Are commentators fricking serious? The GOP doesn't need to get more drunk. They are drunk enough and are feeling no pain- not even after a severe beating at the polls. They are going to stumble along in the same direction they have. It's like all the confederate Generals and leaders who expected to be seated at Congress after the war so that they could block Reconstruction legislation.
They never gave up. Never.
Just look at Obamacare. What happened to Single Payer? It was "compromised" away, along with obscene concessions to the health care industry.
For what?
All the republicans except for one voted against it, even though it was by that point a republican plan. A compromise is what happens when both sides are supporting the plan. Even giving away the store resulted in nothing.
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Enough smooshing. Enough of the inside game. Organizing for America is the blunt tool that must be wielded relentlessly to bludgeon the GOP out of congressional seats. The only question is whether the President will cut them loose as an autonomous group to kick enough GOP representatives out of power that republicans will fear the electorate more than the lobbyists and shock jock media personalities who pull their strings..
As someone who worked in the world of "schmoozing" professionally (state politics in California for 10 years and Hollywood for 30), there's one Big Problem with this proposal.
Schmoozing only works if you're schmoozing somone whose word you can trust when it comes to making the deal at the end of the schmoozing. If you can't trust their word further than you can see them with your eyes closed, and there's a history of double-dealing on their part, then schmoozing is useless.
The word of a right-wing Republican nowadays - and I am not just talking professionally - you can't trust most of the local wingnuts you meet on a given day to keep their word, since it seems in their "religion/politics" that lying to a liberal is like the Mormons' "Lying for the Lord", a good and moral choice. The problem is that most wingers are psychopaths, and you can never trust the word of a psychopath.
As with most ideas from the otherwise-unemployables of the Beltway Ideas Factory, this is the usual moron stupidity.
I agree with damskippy and JohnMesserly's comments. From experience. My husband who had been a veteran of Korean War in a M.A.S.H. unit after Surgical training in New Orleans while he had been stationed at Fort Benning, Georgia, not only took his Masters Degree on the GI Bill but returned to surgical assistance in the early attempt at circulation of the blood outside the body for heart surgery. He "visited" those patients in-hospital during recovery to surmise their immediate status. Would you have guessed, to a one, that they would always ask his race or "where" he came from because they just weren't ready to accept the race that he was? This led to his being less enthused about attempting socializing with unknown whites;or who were friends of mine. I must say I met ever so many more Africans rather than African-Americans as a result of his Indian Professor of History(Think Gandhi)or was it his course in Swahili, suggesting that he help find housing for African exchange students; or it could have begun by my bringing home a Sudanese Family in the very early 1960s? I think that Obama had a lot of experience in a multi-racial setting several times over. But I just felt that I should bring up this particular side of it for those who don't imagine the daily racism you might run into from Congress when White Congressmen feel that having to work with a Black President somehow demotes their own status and they express how they highly resent it. The barbaric example of Turzai of Pennsylvania during this campaign cycle(who of course has failed in his floor slaming promise that he would bring Romney to the Presidency is outstanding after four years. Sam Alito is another who likes "tradition" more than politeness after he was allowed into Princeton but embarrassed Ruth Bader Ginsberg at Obama's first State of the Union Message
schmoozing only works if the people on the other side aren't dogs in the manger.
Gad. Are you saying Republicans are denying Obama something they can't use? Try another analogy.
This getting-along-with-Republicans crap is beyond stupid.
Anyone paying attention to Washington at all in the last 20 years since the ascendancy of Gingrich knows what the GOP respects: power and domination. Period. Nothing else. If you beat them and you're gracious afterward, they take it as weakness. These are recalcitrant bullies. You have to shove shhit down their throat and gloat before these knuckle-draggers respect you. And so that's what Democrats need to do. Use the raw power they have to the maximum utility. They have the Senate and the Presidency. They have to upcoming expiration of the Bush tax cuts.
Use them, damn it. Because the Republicans sure would. That we know.
To be fair, I think that the ego-stroking being referred to cuts across party lines. It's ridiculous, of course, and shows how the D.C. establishment is basically like a "court" filled with little prince-lings.
They are supposed to be doing their constituent's business. Full stop. The problem isn't a lack of schmoozing, the problem is the peacock preening that expects the schmoozing.
Hmmm . . . perhaps the more appropriate analogy would be the scorpion and the frog, since the GOP seems unable to change no matter what the consequences.
If only Obama had had some golf games and lap dance parties with the Congressional Birthers. Maybe they could have split the difference and agreed that it was not Hawaii or Kenya, but somewhere in between- say Indonesia where he was born.
Maybe we could get the Right winger House Science committee members well lubricated and we could meet the Creationists half way. Say, maybe the earth is not 6000 years old nor 4.7 billion years old, but say 50,000 years old.
And maybe some compromise can be made on whether fertilized zygotes are citizens. Maybe they will agree not to extend citizenship to all zygotes- say just white couple zygotes.
After all, we must admit we are part of the problem if we cannot see the need for compromise. Just make some happy talk with them and meet them half way.
The only problem with that, John, is that for the GOP it seems half way is the highway.
If I'm Obama, and I DO invite the Republican 'lawmakers' over for a meal, I'd have the Secret Service check them for stolen cutlery.
No, not for stolen cutlery after the meal, but BEFORE - when they try to steal sharp knives IN!
How about Obama start with the freshmen Congress members just arriving? I'm willing to bet that they would be star-struck in some respects to be invited to the White House before they even start their jobs officially. Leave the dinosaurs like Mitch McConnell and the "Young Guns" like Cantor out of the equation. These newly-elected Congress members have the same vote as the veterans and are probably more likely to be responsive to "schmoozing". As the old adage goes "If at first you don't succeed, try, try again". If the newbies show positive response, that may urge the veterans to rethink their position. Just a thought....
This sounds like a good idea! Initially it is important to reach out and make a strong first impression on those new to the Washington bubble as well....
I like the idea of going after the 'newbies'. It does make sense, because these guys are the ones who will get the taste of DC and want to stay there. With them going back to their districts saying I worked with the president and he's really not as bad as we thought. This might encourage a re-election! More important (not that this would happen) the lobbyist might lose influence now that the newbies can work with the president.
He also started off his first term holding regular cocktail parties, to which I seem to recall Republicans were invited. Doesn't seem like that helped much, either.
I do believe he also went to a GOP pundits house, had a bunch of right wingers over and they had a great time......here's what I think, having met the President and worked with him in Collage. He scared the pants off them. He is so cool, smart and focused, that he freaked them out, if Mr Obama does really well (thiy think) it could end up creating the permanent Democratic Majority all over the country. So they put their heads together and figured they would obstruct, obstruct and obstruct.
Dont think that they didnt put plans in place. Take over the state houses, rig the congressional districts so they could go Dem, no matter how hard the GOTV worked. its clear that the nation voted for a Dem House, but the districts were drawn so that would not happen.
We know what people (Republicans) like 'free stuff'. Free dinner! Hey I'll vote for that!!! But working with the president to do what the constituents sent us here to do, naawww, that's not worth the effort. We have Grover, Rush, Glen and lobbist to support! Can turn on them because the voters will turn...Wait haven't the voters already started to turn? LoL!!!
The GOP needs to get over it! The election is over, Obama won. Time to move on and do the business of the country in the best interests of the country, not in their own political best interests!
Sorry, you're asking for the impossible. Wish it was otherwise.
Thomas Jefferson was a schmoozer?
LBJ got stuff done.
Glad you reminded me, Luz CanN, because to me Thomas Jefferson is more interesting for his eccentricities. People perpetually forget that like his forerunners to the Presidency, Tom had slaves; not just figuratively. He fathered them.
There was never anyone like LBJ. He could tickle their dicks with one hand while twisting their arms with the other.
This kind of pandering crap elevates the status of the schmoozee, while providing said schmoozee with that much more insult power when the middle finger is given to the schmoozer at a critical future moment. The schmoozee gets extra credit for f'ing over his golfing buddy, which was going to happen anyway.
This is an extension of the Friedman unit. Just another 6 weeks/months of whatever laced with some bromantic interludes will bring peace and harmony to the process.
Absolute BS.
I came back and found my article which, of course caused me to notice something:
"In April 2011, David Brooks argued Obama and Paul Ryan would better understand each other's agenda if only the president invited the far-right congressman over for lunch. Soon after, New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg (I) advised, "The president's got to start inviting people over for dinner. He's got to play golf with them."
This is Hilarious ! I read Brooks quite often. But only in duet with Gail Collins. She is a great humorist. During the last campaign season she never let it be forgotten that Mitt Romney put Seamus on the roof of the car en route to Canada.
She didn't nag about it. Good Heavens,No. It was just that everybody kept reminding her by posting her (even in the duo Brooks/Collins format)and requesting more Seamus! But isn't Brooks the guy who wrote "Bobos in Paradise: The New Upper Class and How they got that way".
And isn't Mayor Bloomberg the guy who got the ultimate "middle finger" from the GOP's very own George"W." Bush on their way to the Republican Convention at Madison Square Garden? For which the schmoozer had rented a yacht to dock in the Hudson, when what Michael Bloomberg had in mind was how the Ultimate Conventioneers would encourage a flow of money to be spent in Manhattan, hotel reservations, shop and restaurant money, etc. Being stiffed like this by the inappropriate public behavior of a jerk was first pointed out to me by Ron Suskind's coverage of the phenonmenon. I often mention to people that when H.W. came out to impress the moderate Republicans of Princeton with his Merry Men of the Secret Service, the Campus and environs could not get rid of him. He is the man who invented himself; but, I won't say as What.
This is just more of the same ol' "Obama is a big meanie to Republican's" meme we heard the last four years.
The R's had a chance to play ball and instead decided to set the ball on fire, stab it a few times and bury it under a filibuster for four years.
@!$%# 'em.
I presume Thomas Jefferson and the elected officials of the day were educated and well-mannered.
If the elected officials of our day were such (yes, I'm looking at you, House Republicans) and would remember what they are there for, then it wouldn't matter at all that President Obama is aloof. And frankly, looking at some of the Washington players, I can't blame him.
Their main goal is to obstruct gov and drown it in the bath tub , so in their eyes they ARE doing their job , the msm just constantly refuse to acknowledge this when this subject comes up , and the flip flop gop will change the subject when this fact is pointed out to them
The Prez is working 18 out of 24 hours already and now the K-Street mob and socializers want him and his family to join the phony fray of Washingtonians that want to schmooze for perks? Why should he join the gossip gang that will pick at his every move? President and Mrs. Obama figured this out a long time ago...
The Prez should attend a joint session of congress with some organic brownies and some 'Floyd" and hope for the best.
I assume "joint" is the operative word here.
Hit them where it hurts, their paycheck. However, long it takes, we have all the time in the World to disenfranchise ourselves with Teaparty Republicans. There is still a whole slew of corruption and bribery, and unfaithfullness to be exposed. One by one they will go even lower than the low moral standards that they adhere to. The Democrats have won the prize of the Party with the highest moral standards, they just need to grow together in that truth. They have lost the true meaning of the word conservative, they only link it to the national debt. As far as their character, which is extremely ugly, The show the Westwing is over. Either you do the job you were hired for ,by the people, all people or we hire Trump to fire you, one of your own. How's that for reality T.V. He was looking to get into politics for his own selfish gain. We could play a tape of him doing the actual firing of every single Republican. They have failed us, they need to find a new job, maybe dishwashers.
Does no one else recall the welcome barbecue Obama offered to all congress after his election and not a single Republican showed up? Give me a break.
In their defense, Obama barbeques do tend to have to many rappers. /sarcasm
They were on MEET THE PRESS basically saying Obama needs to learn how to compromise yesterday , they said the same thing about the gop , but they repeated it several times about obama
Obama has cut spending and helped pass a record number of tax cuts since he has been in office , compared to what the gop had to compromise with to get these tax cuts and spending cuts , they gave up a big fat zero in return , and the press still refuse to hold the gop accountable for not being reasonable
Example of what obama has to try and schmooz with , Speaker Boehner says OBAMACARE is the law of the land , a week later he says he will not work with obama unless ending obama care is part of the bargain , how is obama suppose to work with that? The press will not hold boehner accountable for his flip flop , just like they never held romney accountable for his , but they will blame the dems and obama for it any way
This is where dems need to stand up and hold the gop and the msm accountable , there is no one else that will do it
You got the same advice on yesterday's 'Face the Nation': Golf, Golf, Golf!
http://www.cbsnews.com/video/watch/?id=50135800n
I think the President should invite all of the House and Senate republicans to play golf and, while they're doing that, the Democrats can get something done.
He could always take them out in the rough on the back nine and put a six-iron to good use. :-)
My thoughts exactly. Get the R's out on the green and then level the playing field, with nukes.
/snark/ almost...
I saw Meachan selling his book, and I made a bet with myself with just how long it would take before Meachen would mention that the president has to behave like Jefferson did. Just like we heard the same thing about President Obama should act like Lincoln or FDR and a whole host of other presidents.
It's getting tiring.
And the Lion shall lie down with the Lamb.
Soon thereafter Hannibal Lechter gave a dinner party for the GOP.
Oops.
You know what I hear when I hear conservatives complaining about this?
"Obama hasn't kissed our asses enough." Period. That's what it's all about.
All I've heard is bitching about Obama playing too much golf. Am I now supposed to believe that playing MORE golf will lead to Republicans acting like adults and stop bitching about how much golf is played?
I get why Obama doesn't want to hang out with people. I'm only fond of them in small doses ;-)
Does memory serve me right? Did President Obama try cocktail hours shortly after he was first elected? Did the Republican invitees turn down the invitation?
Why not try bipartisan breakfasts at the White House. They could be buffet style so everyone would be standing up and milling around, literally bumping into each other. There could be several TV sets playing each of the morning talk shows. It would be great sport to have bipartisan critique of colleagues who were talking on those shows. Seems like this would be a winner -- but do Republicans eat breakfast?
I think many of these old guys still drink their breakfast and the other ones have a morning talk with God.
Indeed they do. They eat good legislation for breakfast.
Pundits are beating another dead horse. There is a communications dissonance being worked out in our entire society. The recent election proves that fact. The Republican party is really, really old; or they are so far right in injecting to their fundamentalist religious views into public policy that they rival Taliban rule. Current Republican political views make the Whig party look like liberals.
The President should have all these guys over to play basketball and imbibe a little homemade beer. After dinner they could learn to use twitter and facebook and create "face time" in place of telephone calls. Then retire for a slumber party in the Lincoln bedroom to play virtual golf online.
I hope ya'll understand my snark here. Some of this change will happen fast and some will take many years before they can communicate on common ground. It may even take a total disintegration of the GOP.
Putting the time into "off-the-clock" personal relationships w/ the opposition party members makes sense, and has been shown to work, but only if all parties are reasonable to begin with.
Go back to Ronald Reagan and Speaker of the House Tip O'Neil, as an example of two partisans who socialized at times, but more importantly, were able to reach across the aisle and work together to conduct the people's business.
President Obama is in a much tougher spot than Reagan ever was, as the gridlock he faces in nearly intractable, and the majority of Congressional Republicans have already been on record as saying their only goal of the past four years to deny this president a second term.
The responsibility for fulfilling their duties, of course, lies with each elected representative -- regardless of party affiliation or amount of personal hand-holding from the president.
Perhaps the newest crop of representatives can be reached on a personal level, before the old "warhorses" get to them, and I would think that would be a worthy expense of President Obama's capital.
Congressional Republicans might note that American workers in the private sector don't have the luxury of holding up production, or loafing on the job, just because the boss hasn't asked them to lunch, or played golf with them.
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Many of those elected officials were elected to do exactly what they are doing. Hold the line on the spending and not raising taxes. They are not elected to go to Washington to do what is easy and just go with the flow. They are elected to make those hard decisions that hopefully will get our country back on track of creating jobs, reducing the deficit, paying down our debt (which is of upmost importance) and protecting our nation with a strong defense. Until the dems are willing to address bankrupt entitlement programs, the republicans should hold firm on taxes which the dems so fervently want to raise. If the republicans cave on the tax issue without insisting on entitlement reform, they are cowards and aren't worth their salt. Social Security and Medicare have been on a downward spiral since their inception. They will not survive without serious reform. Since raising taxes is the only thing dems want to do to act like they want to reduce the deficit (they don't even talk about the debt), that is the only spade the republicans have to get some spending cuts. They most hold the line until the dems give up some things that they want.