The Democratic Party is starting to turn decisively away from President Obama as the end of his presidency draws closer.
The shift of power away from the incumbent in the White House was put on full display Monday as Senate Democrats openly defied the commander in chief and erstwhile leader.
Despite his repeated entreaties, they refused to pass legislation that would have enabled Obama to secure him a legacy trade deal with Asia.
The party, veering more sharply to the populist left, blew past the president’s hopes and blocked him on a procedural motion.
Eight pro-trade Democrats met with six other more skeptical colleagues Tuesday afternoon and emerged unified in preventing the start of debate on giving Obama Trade Promotion Authority.
The Senate fell just eight votes shy of moving to a straight up or down vote. And while Obama huddled with other Democratic proponents of the bill Tuesday evening and Democratic leaders were busy floating a compromise proposal to Republicans, the caucus had already delivered its message of dissent to the president: only one Democrat – Sen. Tom Carper of Delaware – voted to support the president Tuesday.
Democrats largely avoided blaming the president for failing to negotiate a better deal with Republicans.
Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., who has remained undecided on the new trade measures for weeks, rejected the notion that procedural bill’s 52-45 defeat amounted to an Obama failure on one of his major priorities.
“No, this is a recognition by certainly 14 of us that met this morning that what was passed out [of committee] was four pieces of legislation, and we want them to go together because the enforcement parts of this are critical,” she said.
Other Democratic comments were sharply and unusually harsh in their criticism of Obama, and vividly demonstrated that the more liberal wing of the party is now in control.
Several senators were displeased by Obama’s willingness to engage in a pointed and intensifying battle with Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., over the merits of free trade, creating headlines over the weekend.
Sen. Sherrod Brown, D-Ohio, said Obama’s comments about Warren were “disrespectful,” and suggested they contained an element of sexism.
“I think by calling her ‘another politician’,” Brown told reporters Tuesday when asked exactly how the president was mistreating Warren. “I’m not going to get into more details. I think referring to her as a first name, when he might not have done that for a male senator, perhaps? I’ve said enough.”
The Democrats offered a deal on trade late Monday evening, but their divergence from Obama remained clear. Over the past few months, the trade debate has broken down the traditional partisan alliances that have ruled Washington during Obama’s presidency, although it’s true that congressional Democrats have occasionally been outspoken in their criticism of the president, especially on immigration during his first term in office.
Obama’s open and sharply-worded spat with Warren has attracted headlines and highlighted the divisions, which Republican 2016 hopefuls can readily exploit.
“While Democrat on Democrat violence is an interesting phenomenon and it may be something we see more of in the coming 20 months,” said Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, one of many Republicans running for president, “what I think the American people are interested in, is not partisan bickering but commonsense policies that will bring back jobs and economic growth and opportunity — policies like the free trade that the Democrats are right now filibustering.”
The White House cast Tuesday’s intra-party rebuke as a “procedural snafu” and a temporary setback that can be worked through.
“It is not unprecedented for the U.S. Senate to encounter procedural snafus,” White House press secretary Josh Earnest said ahead of the vote.
The administration, he said, remains hopeful that Senate Democrats and Republicans can forge a bipartisan compromise to break through this “procedural knot.”
The comments came the same day the Obama Foundation announced the official choice of the University of Chicago and the city’s South Side as the location for Obama’s presidential library, and Earnest was forced to field questions about the president’s legacy in between responses about the Democratic revolt on trade.
Earnest grew prickly after one reporter suggested that the president was spending a lot of time lately thinking about his legacy with his focus on the war on poverty and a new My Brother’s Keeper non-profit organization.
“I guess my point is that the president is focused on his responsibility as the president of the United States,” he said. “And I think that he’s been very clear with all of you that he’s determined to used every single day that he has remaining in office to advance the agenda that he’s put forth for the American people.”
Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., said he was “shocked” by the Democrats’ willingness to hand their own president such a stinging defeat but also promised Democrats the chance to amend the legislation to attract enough votes to pass it.
Other Republicans said it’s up to the president to find a way out of the legislative quagmire.
“Ultimately, it’s up to the president,” Sen. John Cornyn of Texas said in speech on the Senate floor. “Does the president of the United States have enough clout with members of his own political party?”
Rep. Rob Portman, R-Ohio, suggested that the president may have waited too late in his presidency to take up the pro-trade mantra.
The president chose to focus on the Affordable Care Act, banking reforms, and climate change early in his term, he said.
“He had his priorities and this wasn’t one of them,” Portman told the Washington Examiner.
Still, Portman, who served as U.S. Trade Representative under President George W. Bush and worked in the elder Bush’s White House as the top White House liaison to Congress, said even in his last two years in office Obama is still having trouble making the personal connections it takes to swing reluctant votes his way.
“It’s not so much his approval ratings, as it is even now his willingness to really roll up his sleeves and make the personal request to members who are on the bubble,” Portman said. “He’s doing some, but that’s what it takes … it requires personal involvement and sometimes personal meetings — one on one.”
“He needs to be willing to make the ask,” he added.
