Who Sang It?

Come Senators, congressmen

Please heed the call

Don’t stand in the doorway

Don’t block up the hall

For he that gets hurt

Will be he who has stalled.

My Opinion:

Well, the highly anticipated speech has been delivered.  President Obama addressed Congress and interested parties around the world on the State Of The Union.  The speech was delivered with the usual Obama eloquence, however something was missing.  Something was missing that will ultimately claim this President’s ability to govern going forward.

This Administration has chosen a path that has divided the country like no President before. Yes, it is divided on party lines, but more importantly, this level of division has never been recorded in the past one hundred years.  I base this on the percent of Republican voters that say he is doing a good job versus the percent of Democratic voters that say he is doing a good job.  The spread is now over 60 points.

The challenge that President Obama now has is closing the gap enough to allow his agenda to move forward.  Last night he attempted to address all sides of the isle.   His speech seemed to portion out goodies to the far left, the far right and the pragmatic middle.  He tried to appease everyone while holding to his core positions.  In so doing he appeased no one.  The divisiveness that has been created helped win votes during the campaign, but now he must govern.  Those same groups and people that he attacked are needed to move his agenda forward.  The problem is it will now be almost impossible to heal some of these wounds in a timely fashion.

Zinger’s last article talked about why the Administration has failed to gain traction on all of its initiatives.  I spoke about the need to manage change, not mandate it.  You must engage the people that will be affected and bring them along.  This is not a monarchy, so people have a choice to follow you.  No one is so important that the people would not rise up against you if you attack them, assail them or impugned their integrity.  This Administration has been legislating behind closed doors and has verbally attacked the rich, the bankers, and corporations, et. al.

Now, the filibuster proof majority is gone and his legislative agenda is in peril.  The President has come out appearing to courting support.  Unfortunately he is trying to appeal to everyone, which means he appeals to no one.  When there are clear choices to be made, you have to take a side and if you try to court both sides you end up looking phony.  Of course if you take sides you had better chose the side that is large enough to help you get your agenda moving.  Choosing a political position that only appeals to 25% of the electorate may alienate the majority, and that's where the President finds himself today.

I am sure that there is a feeling in Washington that the Republicans can now be put on the hook to deliver.  After all, one of the keys to successful change management is engaging those that will ultimately need to be a part of the change.  The Republicans, with the 41^st vote in the Senate, ensured that their voice would be counted.  President Obama and the Congressional Leadership will try to show the Republicans for who they are.

But will the Republicans get on board with the President’s agenda if they are allowed to be a more active part of formulating legislation?  I doubt it.  But they do it at great risk.  Surely the Democrats will call them out for being obstructionists.  The Republicans will look at the situation and take a play from the Democrats playbook of 2006 and 2008 elections.  Don’t forget that the Democrats were called “the party of no” during those elections.  They sat on the sidelines and lobbed political bombs. They voted in block against all legislation brought forward by the Republicans.  This all sounds too familiar.

So the question is, when will the people say NO more!  This tit-for-tat political retribution must stop.  We as a nation have real problems that must be solved.  With each coming election, the minority party (whoever it is at the time) gets lockjaw and nothing gets done. Their hope is that they will soon be the majority and they will shape the direction of future legislation.  Their feeling is just lock things up for a few months (11 months) and we will be large and in charge.  But to get large means they cannot allow the other side to have anything that resembles a win.  That win may be enough to campaign on and allow the other side continued success.

There is an answer to this constant political paralysis.  A total change of elected officials to send the message that the people are back in charge and if you don’t start legislating for the people we will replace you.

I am sure that by late summer we will see bitter political battles waged across party lines.  In my opinion, President Obama will become a negative force in this process.   He will try to straddle the political lines, he will appeal to the American people for support of his bi-partisan approach, but nothing he does will bridge the gulf that he helped to create.  Republicans will provide their alternative and invite the President to their party.  He can’t move in that direction if he hopes to keep the support of those that elected him.  He can’t win.   We can’t win.

Who Sang It?

Come Senators, congressmen

Please heed the call

Don’t stand in the doorway

Don’t block up the hall

For he that gets hurt

Will be he who has stalled.

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