posted 8/15/09
 

Five Years and Change


by Congressman Tom Petri
for The Inside Scoop's 5th Anniversary
 

With power comes responsibility and, ultimately, the blame when things go wrong.  By 2004 it was clear that the situation in Iraq was deteriorating and President Bush, fabulously popular only a year before, just barely squeaked back into office for a second term.  In 2006, the Democrats took control of both the House and the Senate.  

All administrations seem to run out of gas well before the end of the second term, but Iraq, Afghanistan, an uncertain economy and a general sense of drift had made swing voters more than ready to punish the President's party.  And then the financial sector collapsed.

Just about any Democrat would have been strongly favored last November, but their Party found a true superstar - intelligent, articulate, charismatic, and sufficiently unknown to allow everyone to believe whatever they wanted to about his qualities and agenda.  President Obama and the Democrats in Congress took office with the conviction that a new era had dawned, and all impediments would be swept away.

But governing turns out to be harder than criticizing.  And much to the surprise of many, just because President Obama is a powerful speaker doesn't mean that he can convince everybody that he is right, or indeed, that he actually knows a lot about economics, foreign policy or a thousand other public policy issues.  And just because House Speaker Nancy Pelosi leads a large majority doesn't mean that she can insist on legislation designed to please her San Francisco constituency.

Our current President continues to blame the economy on his predecessor, but that argument has gotten long in the tooth.  When the North Koreans threaten to turn their opponents into a "sea of fire" and Iran's rulers refuse to see reason, it is no longer Bush's fault.

When the White House and congressional leaders insist on growing the national debt at a rate not seen since World War II, voting to hike the cost of energy despite the recession, and demanding a radical makeover of health care - over one-sixth of our economy - without giving people the time to consider and debate their proposals, the public starts to think that maybe this new crowd isn't so great after all.  The President and congressional leaders still have the advantages of their offices, but they are finding their exuberance draining away as greater political balance reasserts itself.

Much to the Democrats' surprise, last year's elections didn't mean the voters had become more liberal.  Rather, they meant that people wanted to punish the President's party for everything that was going wrong.  Increasingly, having now seen the new president in action, they still feel that way.  So, as of now, 2010 looks like a Republican year.