The presidential balancing act

This post originally appeared on Slate.

President Obama made two phone calls to Republicans in Congress this week. One was phony and one was real. The difference between the two calls underscores the challenge for his second term: How do you work with Republicans while you are simultaneously making yourself more loathsome to them? The preliminary answer seems to be by modulating your aggression. The president is betting part of his presidency on picking budget fights with Republicans, while resting most of his legacy on avoiding confrontation when it comes to passing immigration reform. Will it work? Getting this balance right will determine whether the president's second term will be a success or a smoldering coda. It might also tell us something about leadership in a time of political sclerosis.

Let's start with the phony call. On Thursday, President Obama called House Speaker John Boehner and Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell. The subject was the sequester, the across-the-board spending cuts set to kick in March 1. Administration aides privately concede that the calls were largely for show. The president wanted it to appear as though he was making an effort to avoid the cuts. If the cuts happen and the public looks to blame someone, the president can say he tried to reach out. This strategy achieved a rare level of bipartisan agreement in Washington. According to GOP aides, their bosses received the calls in the spirit in which they were dialed--as empty public relations moves that did nothing to avert the cuts.

The president and his aides think they have the upper hand politically. They point to the numbers. In a recent PEW poll, even a majority of Republicans support the president's call for a mix of spending reductions and tax increases. In the Bloomberg poll, the president's approval rating (55 percent) was 20 points higher than that of the Republican Party (35 percent). With the public on his side, the president will continue to use his office to highlight that Republicans are opposing a popular way forward. And why not, it's worked twice already. The president's new, less compromising approach led to agreement with Republicans over the fiscal cliff and the debt limit.

Congressional Republicans have a number of reasons to resist the pressure. The latest, explained to me last night by one GOP aide, is that their poll numbers won't get any better with an agreement. The public won't suddenly start loving Republicans because they agreed to a deal to fund the government, a task most people think is part of their job anyway. The president learned this lesson last summer after he cemented an agreement with Republicans to keep the government open. No one gives you credit for deciding not to slam your hand in the door.

The clash is driven by principle: Republicans think Washington has a spending problem and any solution based on higher taxes is misplaced. They can elide this point to scrape together a short-term agreement, as they did during the debt limit struggle, but the fundamental philosophical disagreement remains. So, many Republicans believe they might as well have the fight now. Plus, the base would lose it if Republicans caved to the president. Conservatives already think congressional Republicans were defeated on the fights over the fiscal cliff and the debt limit. This would be a third surrender.

• Sequester blame game continues days before deadline
• Obama on budget cuts: "Hope springs eternal"

Is the president's hard line a failure of leadership? Republicans say yes. John Boehner's aides have been sending reporters copies of stories chronicling president Obama's lack of congressional outreach. If outreach is a sign of leadership and the president isn't doing that, then it follows that he's the one to blame for this sequester mess. Of course, the White House says it doesn't have a willing partner, so they think the old model of "reasoning together" is less effective than simply making Republicans cry uncle. But they understand the importance of appearances. That is what inspired the president's speed dialing. The president has to look like he's trying so he can't be tagged for not leading.

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[stamicrach]

Whoever put the word "ACT" in this post hit the nail right on the head.

Obama and Congress have been doing nothing but 'ACTING" like they really care about the American people.

What they have really been doing is "acting", posturing. stalling and playing games with all our lives.

Anytime you are "thinking" about a decision; you don't have to make one.

Maybe this should be posted on CBS news and broadcast on all the new networks; and finally give the people of the US the real truth about what is going on in Washington.!

[jukal]

Leading America down the path of FEAR. Old political trick used for decades. None of the faces showing on common media TV have the desire or need to face down the "Sequester" misnomer, including Obama. It is an act in a sordid play of treachery and treason in the USA.
An insane game of power with no egalitarian ethics.

Listen for new voices of change, visit the common TV stations (CBS, ABC, NBC) but also RT, Current, LINK, FREESPEECHTV, etc. They often have info you cannot get on the common TV stations.

[GOP-R--Con-Men]

Republicans hate govenment to the point they sabotage it whenever possible. They intentionally run up deficits spending on things not productive for America. They do this to justify saying there are no funds for social programs. They hate social programs. They do not believe the government should help individuals and they do not want government to work for individuals. This is another reason they sabotage it every chance they get.

The US post office is a prime example of republicans sabotaging government. They passed a law requiring the USPS to pre-fund employees retirement 75 years in advance in a 10 year window. No other entity in the entire country is required to do this except the USPS. This is what's causing the USPS to be cash strapped. Absent that the USPS would be fine. The bogus fiscal cliff crisis to the current sequester. There are more examples of republican sabotage, you get the picture

[GOP-R--Con-Men]

On December 20, 2006, the Postal Accountability and Enhancement Act (PAEA, P.L. 109-435) was enacted into law and was the first broad revision of the 1970 statute that replaced the U.S. Post Office with the U.S. Postal Service (USPS), a self-supporting, independent agency of the Executive Branch.1 Among other things, PAEA required the USPS to pre-fund their future retiree health benefits (provided through the Federal Employees Health Benefits Program) by establishing the Postal Service Retiree
Health Benefits Fund (PSRHBF). The law established set payments to the fund from 2007 to 2016 of between $5.4 billion to $5.7 billion annually.

[marcr7]

Obvious at this point is that the GOP is totally owned by the biggest money interests and that another quick recession is much to their advantage in speculation strategies and then laying all the blame on Obama. Smart.

[rdm1046]

Your President has been operating on the "Peter Principle" ever since he took office in 2009. In terms of incompetentcy he ranks right up there with both Nancy and Harry. I love it when the democrats and the press kneel down to kiss his ....., just like this article is doing. You guys are delusional.

[whaas2]

The President promised to solve the immigration problem during hsi first term so today it must not be a problem. The administration came up with the sequester to get the debt limit raised and the President said that he would veto any attempt to undo it. It is the President's "plan" for the federal government to start running surpluses by 2015. The President needs to provide a detailed financial plan so that we can all understand how any proposed action will serve to stop the federal governmetn from accumulating more debt. With more than 16 trillion dollars in debt I estimate that the money that the federal government is borrowing to day will end up costing the tax payers more than 10 times the amount borrowed to repay over a period of 170 years. As the debt increases this multiplication factor increases exponentially.

[535Clownsplusone]

RLR - Oops, you neglected to include your usual LMAO and moron in this cut and paste. You are correct however that it is the House and Senate responsibility for which they have been developing a track record of failing to complete each Oct. 1st. Probably a Bush legacy though.

[highlndr55]

It is a failure in leadership. Obama couldn't balance his own checkbook much less balance the Federal Government's Budget. He does not have a clue. He interfers with the Immigration plan being worked on by a BIPARTISAN Committee. He blames the Republicans for the Sequester, when it was his IDEA to start with. He is the LIAR-n-Chief.

[marcr7]

When it comes to the topic of leadership, just look at the last GOP leadership in 2000-08 when they forced a triple-whammy of economic disasters on the middle-class: the Iraq War, the unfunded prescription drug plan and colossal tax cuts for the rich, all of which gutted the $800 billion dollar surplus left them by Clinton and the Democrats and sent the economy into a nosedive.

[jgg000010]

so why doesn't obama just put a freeze on government spending?

[whaas2]

The federal government must spend to stay alive. At the very least they need to not increase spending this year over last. Congress needs to pass a budget and the federal government needs to abide by this budget.

[marcr7]

Well, because that would explode into instant deep recession as millions of workers in popular programs are fired and the elderly are dumped onto the streets from loss of Social Security and Medicare.