President Obama’s contemplated nomination of Solicitor General Elena Kagan to the Supreme Court would be the latest in a series of safe moves by the White House.
While the president could still shock the Beltway with a different nominee, the administration’s protracted Kagan trial balloon reads like a political inoculation, aimed at neutralizing controversy ahead of a nomination fight.
“A big question is whether the Republicans in the Senate are going to stick with their [usual practice] these days of digging in and blocking whatever they can,” said Keir Murray, a Democratic strategist. “I guess when all the opposition research gets done by the right-wing judicial groups, we’ll see what they find.”
Still, the prominence of Kagan’s name in the lineup along with other relatively safe prospects floated by the White House underscores Obama’s interest in minimizing election year controversies.
After running for office as a transformational candidate and starting his administration with bold moves like the stimulus plan and automakers’ bailout, Obama has more recently retreated to a safer footing.
The biggest election year issues are jobs and the economy — and Obama in recent speeches on the subject has stuck to familiar talking points, playing up modest successes but offering no new ideas.
The administration also is holding its fire on immigration reform, with Obama now saying he wants the process started this year but making no promises on a time frame for completion.
Health care reform and still-pending financial regulatory reform featured significant concessions from the White House — not unusual in politics, but Democrats still control both chambers in Congress.
Obama’s Afghanistan strategy also represented a compromise, combining a troop surge with an eventual pullout. Since taking office, cutting a middle distance on thornier issues has become an Obama trademark.
“Traditionally he has played it safer than people realize or expected,” said Alex Conant, a Republican strategist. “Now that he is president, the more controversial elements are on the back burner — gays in the military. He has just not pushed. Same thing with climate change, or immigration.”
Conant added, “it’s a very poll-tested agenda.”
Still, when Obama has come out boldly on an issue, as he did in March by proposing an expansion of offshore oil drilling, luck didn’t go his way. The BP disaster in Louisiana is forcing a retreat on the issue, which was originally aimed at clearing a path for climate legislation.
Clark Ervin, a political scholar at the Aspen Institute, said he believes Obama doesn’t get enough credit for bold initiatives — noting that immigration reform, a highly controversial prospect, is still on the administration agenda.
“I think that generally speaking, it does make sense to play it safe in an election year,” Ervin said. “Their calculation is that the base of the party is generally happy with the way things are going, it’s not critical to make a leftward turn, and that allows Obama to do more centrist things.”
