Punditry and political analysis are contests among narratives. The winner since last Tuesday is that Republicans, victors of a congressional majority, must use their new status to prove they can govern. They have a responsibility, you see. Here are examples one, two, three, four, five and six, taken from one page of a Google search result. It is all on them. Even some Republicans say so.
Noticeably absent from the conversation have been headlines to the opposite effect. What of the Democrats? What of their responsibilities? What of their obligation to work with Republicans? What share of the burden do they shoulder?
Serendipitously, I awakened in an alternate universe this morning in which The New York Times editorial board comprised conservative partisans. I am reprinting today’s editorial with its permission.
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Republicans will have total control of Congress during a Democratic presidential administration for the first time since the 1990s come January. Given the Clinton-era precedent of the occasion, the pure division of power between the legislative and executive branches, and the clear message voters sent to the nation’s capital last Tuesday, President Obama and his fellow Democrats have to show they can govern.
The president must engage productively with Congress to address the issues that weigh heaviest on the minds of Americans: jobs and the economy, the budget deficit and the federal debt, dissatisfaction with the way government functions, and immigration reform. Mr. Obama already looks set to disappoint with respect to the latter two: Instead of working with the House and the Senate, he reportedly will soon enact a 10-point immigration proposal by executive fiat. If actions truly speak louder than words, this is an admission of failed leadership — an inability to forge coalitions and bring opposing forces together, responsibilities that are incumbent of the presidency.
The White House must flip the switch off of campaign mode. Americans predominately spent two days electing Mr. Obama president for eight years. His attitude has made it seem that every day is Election Day. There are no more elections to win. There is no further need for barnstorming tours, election-style stump speeches, belittling political opponents, and painting America as “us versus them,” belying the purple-dominant portrait that this administration once envisioned. It would be inappropriate to make substance and results subordinate to visuals and rhetoric.
Soon-to-be Minority Leader Harry Reid must make good on his pledge to “strike compromise” with Republicans, not obstruct the legislative process. “I am ready, Mr. President, to work with (Republican Leader Mitch McConnell) in good faith to make this institution function again for the American people,” he said Wednesday. We shall see.
Congressional Democrats, the lot of them, must propose legislation that is clothed in good policy, not exposed as naked partisanship. Sen. Elizabeth Warren, a budding progressive star, was promoted to Democratic leadership this week. It would be far more useful of her to use her platform for outside-the-box ideas than staid politics on such critical issues as student debt. Hiking taxes to pay for an interest rate tweak on outstanding student loans is banal, uninspiring, partisan, and D.O.A. in the legislature. Warren is clearly an articulate and promising leader inside her ideological clique. She can do better.
Above all, the Democrats must show that they are competent enough to be rewarded with power again in the next election. The president will have had eight years to make his mark by the time his term is completed in 2017. Six of those years he had a Democratic Senate. Two of those years he had a fully Democratic Congress. If all Democrats have to show for it are an unpopular health care law and a stimulus package succeeded by years of political turbulence and the failed supervision of a terribly untrustworthy government, there is little chance the Democrats will retain the White House on merit. The fading fame of a surname would seem to be their only hope.
