Obama krijgt waarschijnlijk zijn tweede termijn, maar met veel liefde zal het niet gaan. In plaats van de enthousiaste meute die in 2008 stond te popelen om de nieuwe belofte in het Witte Huis te krijgen, moet Obama vechten voor iedere stem. Daarna zal hij vier jaar lang in de loopgraven moeten doorbrengen om zijn hervormingen uit zijn eerste termijn veilig te stellen.

Mitt Romney is Obama’s grootste bedreiging. Niet om waar Romney voor staat – dat kan namelijk iedere dag veranderen – maar omdat het enthousiasme voor Obama zelf zó enorm laag is dat steeds meer mensen een keuze tussen Obama en Romney zien als een keuze tussen lood of oud ijzer. Gedesillusioneerde Democraten zullen in een strijd tussen Romney en Obama thuis blijven of uit boosheid misschien zelfs op Romney stemmen. Het is precies dat sentiment dat Team Romney wil voeden door politiek in het midden te blijven en de verschillen tussen hem en Obama te minimaliseren.

Team Romney ondertussen vaart een gevaarlijke koers. Romney mag niet te ver afdrijven van Obama, maar ook weer niet te veel naar links overhellen om onacceptabel te zijn voor de rechtse kiezers in de Republikeinse voorverkiezingen. Maar als hij slaagt in die spagaat en hij wordt de kandidaat, dan wordt Obama gedwongen zelf naar links te gaan bewegen om het broodnodige ideologische contrast met zijn opponent te creëren. Er moet immers wat te kiezen zijn. Het gevaar is duidelijk: schuift Obama te veel op naar links, dan wordt Romney vanzelf aantrekkelijker als de veilige kandidaat van het midden. En daar, in het electorale midden, worden de verkiezingen gewonnen.

Zie hier waarom Obama in de campagne veel liever een rechtse extremist als Rick Perry als opponent heeft. Als het aan Obama ligt worden de verkiezingen van 2012 dus al beslist tijdens de Republikeinse primaries.

Contrast
Het soort opponent dat Obama wil is daarmee duidelijk. Wat hij inhoudelijk tijdens de verkiezingscampagne zal proberen te vermijden is een referendum over vier jaar Obama. Want qua gerealiseerde, populaire hervormingen heeft Obama niet bepaald een sterk CV voor zo’n referendum. Ja, hij heeft voor een Democratische president in zijn eerste termijn veel bereikt, meer dan bijvoorbeeld Bill Clinton. Maar voor iemand die zo geweldig kan communiceren met mensen is het verrassend hoe Obama er de afgelopen 3,5 jaar niet in geslaagd is duidelijk te maken waarom zijn hervormingen goed zijn voor het land en de mensen.

Zijn tegenstanders hebben vervolgens die braakliggende ruimte gepakt om zijn hervormingen negatief te framen. Obama heeft dus qua beleid veel bereikt, maar zijn tegenstanders hebben de veel belangrijkere perceptie gekaapt en ingekleurd. Hierdoor kan het gebeuren dat de door een grote meerderheid van Amerikanen verlangde hervorming van het zorgverzekeringsstelsel nu in peilingen negatief beoordeeld wordt.

Niet dat de Republikeinen een beter voorstel hebben – verre van dat zelfs – maar ze zijn er in ieder geval in geslaagd Obama’s meest belangrijke en in het oog springende hervorming af te kraken. En dat heeft gevolgen, want Obama kan zich nu nauwelijks beroepen op belangrijke – en vooral populaire – successen in de binnenlandse politiek.

Het gevolg: neem peilingen als Obama versus een generieke Republikein. Dus niet één van de bestaande Republikeinse kandidaten, maar gewoon een anonieme Republikeinse kandidaat. Dan komt Obama er al maanden peiling na peiling bijzonder slecht vanaf, zoals ook blijkt uit deze meest recente ‘Obama versus “generic” Republican candidate’ van CBS News. (Zie trouwens ook nog even de cijfers onderaan het hierboven gelinkte bericht om te zien hoe smal de marge tussen Obama en Romney is.)

Wie saai praat, wordt als saai beoordeeld
Het zijn zure druiven voor Obama. Hij is de Democratische president die één van de grootste wensen van de Democraten sinds de Tweede Wereldoorlog voor elkaar gebokst heeft, namelijk een hervorming van het complete Amerikaanse zorgverzekeringsstelsel. Maar omdat deze getalenteerde communicator ervoor gekozen heeft zijn hele eerste termijn de oersaaie professor uit te hangen in plaats van zijn successen te verkopen, wordt het in november een ware fotofinish.

Eentje die hij waarschijnlijk wel wint omdat hij straks de grotere campagnekas heeft waardoor hij de Republikeinen steeds een stapje voor zal zijn. Net als in 2008 zal hij zijn tegenstander dwingen geld uit te geven in meer staten dan die tegenstander wil. Maar een prettige campagne wordt het niet. En dan moet Obama ook nog maar hopen dat zijn partijkornuiten in ieder geval de Senaat behouden. De kans dat hij vier jaar te maken krijgen met een uiterst vijandig Republikeins Congres is heel groot.

Zoals Sisyfus zal Obama vermoedelijk weinig lol beleven aan die komende vier jaar in dat Witte Huis.

Careful, wondering, happy, elated, satisfied, questioning, disappointed, confused, nervous, shocked, angry, furious. Never before has a US President created such a torrent of emotions among his (former) political supporters. But that is exactly what Obama has done. Since his inauguration, Obama has pushed away many of his closest allies in the electoral playing field. And so far, he isn’t showing his people how he intends to get them back into his fold.

“What the @*&%^ is he doing?!” That’s the gist of this, this, this and this article, all written by pundits who are – or used to be – either some of Obama’s most ardent supporters, or experienced political journalists.

They all express either confusion or outright anger with the way Obama has been running the White House ever since he moved in, almost two years ago. True, since his inauguration he has come through on an admirable number of campaign promises, as PolitiFact clearly shows with its ‘Obameter‘. Of the altogether 506 promises made by him during his campaign, he has delivered on 123, compromised on 40, broke 24, 84 are stalled, 232 are ‘in the works’  and 3 are ‘not yet rated’. (This blog has no clue what the last category entails.)

That’s baffling. There are not many presidents who can claim to have pushed through so many policy initiatives, and then I haven’t even touched on the kind of initiatives. Health care and financial regulation reforms stand out as historical achievements.

Yet Obama’s administration has allowed the opposition, the GOP, to frame these reforms in the most negative terms possible. Obama’s popularity has been in a free fall for more than six months as his political opponents succesfully painted his reforms as evil. The Democrats lost the majority in the House of Representatives and several Democrats in the Senate are unsure who to support now that they’re polling at historical lows in their own home states.

A shocking change from two years ago, when the GOP got shellacked and was declared all but dead, while the Democrats surged ahead on a wave of change.

Or did they? Was it really a rollercoaster for radical change? Did all the Democrats campaigning for the House and the Senate prescribe to Obama’s proposals for health care and environmental protection reforms? No. They were divided on the plans; some simply remained silent, others — Blue Dogs –  pandered to the centre-right by refusing to commit themselves. It would therefore have been better to have some big names work Congress, as suggested.

Obama’s first big mistake was that he didn’t mold the Democratic Class of ’08 into a tight coalition that really supported his platform of change. Instead, he left them enough room to walk out on him.

His second mistake wasn’t really a mistake, but the dark side of a choice. Obama knew that some of his reforms, and notably health care, would not sit well with many people. So he decided to ram it through while he still had the votes for it in Congress. He knew it was a risk that could turn against him. Now it turns out that he risked a lot more. By being bipartisan, he wanted to achieve two goals.

First, the political center would appreciate the reforms and support it. For this, he had to ignore both the leftists in his own party, and work the GOP to have it ignore their right wing. That worked, to an extent. But when the dust settled, he appears to have missed one searing truth that the polls didn’t show. Many people wanted better health care insurance laws while lowering their monthly payments. But most of them were never really for widening coverage. That motive was underestimated by Obama and his people. The GOP did notice the dynamic and went straight for that argument in their rhetoric.

Second, he figured that by showing that he was the ‘get things done’ President, respect and support would automatically follow. That, after all, was a major motive behind his message of ‘change’. He said he would do things differently, and he believed people would actually follow him.

And they might have, if only that pesky unemployment, the bad economy and real worries about government deficits hadn’t distracted them.

Now it is time for Obama to reassure his supporters and enthuse his base, or what’s left of it. Because if he doesn’t, if he refuses to see that change in policies does not necessarily equate to a change in the way politics is done, he may find himself out of a job in February 2012, with all his reforms being unwound within a year. Then all will have been for naught.

He should lay out his plan for his reelection, and he should do it soon.

(Image: Creative Commons)

Obama’s signature reforms hang in the balance. To preserve them, re-election in 2012 is not merely an option: it is an obligation. If he wins re-election, he will gain the strongest possible ally in his quest to solidify his reforms, and thus his legacy: time.

With Republicans taking back the House of Representatives and Democrats in the Senate divided between liberals and nervous Blue Dogs, Barack Obama suddenly finds himself confronted with a hostile Congress. Republicans are going to focus on Obama with laser-like precision, if only to cover up the deep divisions among their own rank and file. They will not cast themselves as bipartisans. On the contrary, they will be beating the anti-Obama drums right up until the upcoming presidential election. Their idea of ‘seeking compromise’  is a full and unconditional surrender by the other side, meaning helping to roll back all reforms.

Fat chance.

And so the trenches are once again dug. As a result of the unavoibable War of Words that is about to ensue between the two houses, the GOP’s election platform for 2012 will consist of exactly three words: repeal, repeal, repeal!

But that’s not just campaign rhetoric. The GOP actually wants to repeal Obama’s reforms, not merely water them down. As president, Obama can and will veto any proposal to repeal his legislation. But in order for his reforms to become embedded in US society and embraced by voters as their positive effects kick in, he must hold on to that right of veto right up until 2016. At that point, rolling back the changes will be very difficult and likely very unpopular. Time is not on the GOP’s side.

That will make the battle for the White House more important than ever for Obama. Not only will he be fighting for his personal legacy, he will also be leading the Democratic troops in their campaign to preserve the reforms they’ve so long yearned for. Obama’s re-election bid will also be the Democrats’ battle to defend their core principles.

So Obama’s first order of business is to mend fences with an infuriated Democratic leadership. Obama’s quest to enact reforms and his demand that Democratic lawmakers support them has cost them dearly. The trade-off Obama brought to the table was simple: if they voted for his proposals, he would throw his full weight behind them during their election campaigns. Unfortunately that didn’t work out too well for many of them. The already endangered Blue Dog Democrats saw the environment in their predominantly Republican states turn toxic fast. Most were ousted; the GOP took back most of the states in the Midwest and the South they had lost in 2006.

Second, Obama must prove once again that he can win elections. This may come across as a bizarre observation. After all, we are talking about a black man who won the presidency with a wide margin. How can one doubt Obama’s skills as a campaigner? Yet Democrats are shocked at how the White House fumbled the mid-term elections campaign.

During mid-term campaigns the White House acts as a bullhorn, basically laying out the grand strategy and aiding in determining the national talking points, all crafted in one, all-encompassing central message. That was sorely missing, as was the progenitor of the reforms himself. Only in the last two months did Obama go out stumping for the reforms he had delivered. Too little, too late. By waiting too long, he lost touch with his base. At the same time, the Republicans were left room to frame the national debates about health care, the economy and the deficit.

So Obama has three pretty tough fights, and one very serious round of praying looming. First he must deal with an angry party and convince them to follow his lead again. Perhaps there’s a high profile special election – a Senator, a Governor – he can stump for. (And it better be one with a decent chance of winning.) Then he must rally his voter base, especially younger voters and independents who voted for him in mass numbers last time. Third, he must confront the GOP – starting now.

Those are the fights. The prayers are of course private, but if Obama is smart, there’s no doubt that they will be about the economy.

(Image: Creative Commons)

“Bailouts, AIG bonuses, stimulus, health care, cap and trade, taxes. All of the above. Bottom line, Obama and the Democrats inherited an anxious America. One that was willing to give the Democrats a shot at fixing things, but was terrified about the next shoes that could drop. And, in the end, what they saw from Congress was, well, more shoes. What they wanted was a vision for how this country was going to get back on track economically. And, despite talk from many top Democrats, including the president, that they just needed better messaging, it was the message itself that was the problem — not the fact that they didn’t sell it well enough.”

- Rick Klein in The Note

Nederland kent veel openheid. Juist daarom gebeurt hier zoveel in het geheim. Zoals het inzetten van militairen.

<COLUMN In het NOS Journaal van donderdag 5 februari speculeerde een Amerikaanse oud-militair over de mogelijke inzet van Nederlandse speciale troepen in Irak, tijdens de Amerikaanse invasie van dat land.

“Ik gok maar wat”, zei hij, antwoordend op vragen over de mogelijke inzet van Nederlandse troepen.

De Amerikaan was generaal geweest, lid van de nationale chefs van staven, en het is absoluut niet gek dat hij die gok maakte. Want Nederlandse troepen zijn wel vaker in het geheim ingezet, zonder dat het publiek of zelfs de Tweede Kamer daarvan wisten.

Eén voorbeeld van zo’n geheime inzet was de zending van een groepje commando’s naar de bergen rond Sarajevo tijdens de burgeroorlog in voormalig Joegoslavië, nog vóór er sprake was van het Dayton-akkoord.

Deze commando’s moesten de Bosnisch-Servische troepen observeren die Sarajevo belegerden en dagelijks beschoten, zo meldt een zeer betrouwbare bron.

Voor wie nu zijn schouders ophaalt: die Nederlandse troepen, en hun Britse collega’s, mochten daar toen helemaal niet zijn. Ze zaten middenin een oorlogszone, zonder enig mandaat en omringd door Bosnische Serviërs die gesteund werden door Servië, destijds de favoriete bondgenoot van Rusland.

De commando’s mochten dan ook niet ontdekt worden. Er zou grote stront aan de knikker zijn geweest – als de commando’s een ontdekking al overleefd hadden. De Bosnische Serviërs hadden internationaal flinke stampij kunnen maken met gevangen genomen Westerse commando’s. Of hun geuniformeerde lichamen.

Het is altijd geheim gehouden. Vermoedelijk zijn alleen de toenmalige fractievoorzitters van de partijen in de Tweede Kamer geïnformeerd door het toenmalige kabinet van Wim Kok. Maar ja, lid zijn van de Commissie ‘Stiekem’ betekent automatisch dat je je laat gijzelen door het kabinet. Want je hoort alles, maar je mag er niets mee. Intussen word je wél medeplichtig, en dus medeverantwoordelijk gemaakt.

Het gebeurt vaker dat Nederlandse strijdkrachten ergens worden ingezet, zonder dat Nederland zich op welke wijze dan ook publiekelijk gecommitteerd heeft, of het volk geïnformeerd.

Waarom doet Nederland dit? Simpel: het is in ons belang, want zo we kunnen onszelf op het wereldtoneel groter maken dan we werkelijk zijn. “Er is een reden waarom Nederland grotere vuisten heeft in de internationale diplomatie dan je van zo’n klein land zou verwachten”, zei een buitenlandse ambassadeur hier ooit over tegen mij.

Nederland is altijd haantje de voorste waar het gaat om het plezieren van vooral de Atlantische grote vrienden, de VS en Groot-Brittannië. Nederland onderhoudt sterke banden met die landen vanwege een vorm van tweestromen-diplomatie richting de Europese partners.

Door de sterke band met de VS en het VK, heeft Nederland een sterkere positie binnen de Europese Unie. Het is een beetje als een pispaaltje van de klas, die door snoep en ijsjes te geven vriendjes wordt met de breedstgeschouderde pestkop van de school, teneinde de anderen te imponeren.

Het is ook handig voor de handel; je hebt een streepje vóór op België (Antwerpen) of Duitsland (Hamburg) als je de Rotterdamse haven komt verkopen in Washington voor het één of ander.

Dus zou het niet verbazen als over 10 jaar een dossier openbaar wordt, waaruit blijkt dat in 2003 een Nederlands schip in de Perzische Golf de Iraakse legercommunicatie afluisterde en doorgaf aan de Amerikanen, die toen Irak binnenvielen.

Of dat een militair vliegveld werd gebruikt als doorvoerhaven voor ander materiaal dan in de haven van Rotterdam aankwam, waar de camera’s wél mochten filmen.

Het zou ook niet verbazen als over 25 jaar blijkt dat Nederlandse troepen in Afghanistan wél met enige regelmaat offensieve actie ondernamen met Amerikaanse troepen, ook al was dat expliciet verboden door het ISAF-mandaat.

Het is, vermoed ik, allemaal het gevolg van de maximale openheid die wij in Nederland hebben. Want paradoxaal genoeg leidt die grote openheid juist tot grote geheimhouding. En omdat het zo goed verborgen wordt, moet er altijd zo ontzettend veel gebeuren voordat bepaalde zaken eindelijk het daglicht zien.

Bezien zal moeten worden wat de commissie Davids en de onvermijdelijke parlementaire enquete boven water halen.

Hillary Clinton should not become Obama’s
Secretary of State, but should remain in the Senate instead, working to preserve unity among Democrats.

Having her on board, working in the Senate to clear the health care initiative, is of far more importance than having her out of the country all the time — regardless of how politically expedient it would be for Barack Obama to have her out of his way.

When the new Congress convenes, Democrats will have a strong majority in both chambers. Not the filibuster-breaking majority they wanted, but still. However, the mere fact that the Democrats will not have such a majority, means that they will still have to make deals with some Republican members of Congress in order to get proposals passed. In that reality, it would be a smart move to have Reid work the Democrats on the left while Clinton works the Democrat ‘Blue Dogs’ and the moderate Republicans. (Okay, the few moderate Republicans that still remain after ‘Bloody Tuesday’ of last November 4.)

Of course, there will be times when Clinton will want to make a fist and celebrate her own, possibly vengeful victories over the Obama White House. So be it; that’s what you get when you essentially copy the old Roman ways of governance. You get a rowdy Senate, with senior Senators who see themselves as the Saviours of the Nation. Again, so be it. Obama will have to deal with it and he probably can, thanks to people like Rahm Emanuel.

The smart old lion of the Democrats, Ted Kennedy, probably sees things the same way and has therefore undercut the entire Secretary of State-game for Obama by publicly asking Clinton to lead the health insurance initiative.

By doing so publicly, Hillary can’t turn the offer down; thanks to her hard work trying to get her own failed health care initiative through Congress back in 1993, turning down Kennedy’s request would be equivalent to her erasing part of her legacy.

And if there is one thing the Clintons hold dear, it is their legacy.

Republicans are astonished and, in some cases, sickened by the ‘lurch to the left’ that America made by voting for Barack Obama. To them, I say: don’t be silly.

If anything, it is a correction, a very logical reaction to a process started in 2000, when a true ‘lurch to the right’ was rammed down the electorate’s throat. Obama’s election is a belated response to the election of Bush.

Each action begets a reaction. A positive action usually begets a positive response – and a negative action more often than not elicits a negative reaction.

On some network during election night, some analyst at some point voiced his astonishment about “how America seems to be abandoning its history of centrist politics”. I was appalled; here was a guy whose name I had never heard of, but who was a full-time paid analyst, and who somehow missed that in 2000, a man who said that he would unite the country, who promised that he was not a divider, started an ideological divide the likes of which no one had seen since the days of Barry Goldwater.

George W. Bush veered off wildly to the extreme right, on a quest to appease only the ultra-conservative, yes even extreme wing of the Republican religious wingnuts. In 2004, when so many people already had enough of that lurch that came to them like a thief in the night, many were swayed to vote for Bush again out of fear for terrorists. Bush was re-elected by the thinnest of margins.

That should have humbled him, but it didn’t.

Where was Fred Barnes of the Wall Street Journal back in those days, in 2000 and 2004, to accuse America of ‘lurching to the right‘? Robert Novak, on the day after the election of Barack Obama, wrote that Obama has “no mandate”. By the time of this writing, Obama has 349 votes in the electoral college.

What constitutes a “landslide” in Robert Novak’s dimension? Or even a mandate? Where was Novak in 2000 and 2004, to accuse Bush of not having a mandate, even though Bush had barely eeked out a win with 286 seats in 2004 – and even after having to resort to calling in the aid of the Supreme Court in 2000?

The answer is, of course, that Barnes and Novak felt pretty much at ease with whatever Bush was doing. But in 2008, a vast majority of the US electorate felt that they had to change course. The ship had veered off too much to starboard.

So the voters voted for a correction, and bringing the country back on course. If anything, the change Obama is seeking doesn’t seem too radical. Yes, universal health care is, in light of US history, a historical and possibly even ‘radical’ departure from the (supposedly) centrist course. But as for the rest of his platform, I’m convinced that not the slogan ‘change we can believe in’ but rather ‘a return to the way we were’ would have been more to the point.

What is so terrible about that? I wish Barnes and Novak would read this, and answer that question.

But they won’t. It’s probably a good thing that Obama’s quest for ‘new, uniting politics’ can do without the likes of Barnes and Novak. I wish them well while they lower themselves into the dustbin of history, where ‘old politics’ has been languishing for a good 24 hours already.

Let there be no doubt that on November 4, 2008, America changed. Let there be no doubt that the long march, started a woman on a bus, finally reached the finish line.

Let there be no doubt that apathy because of the colour of your skin, or because of where you’re from, is no longer an option. Let there be no doubt: all that has changed with Barack Obama’s election.
Let there also be no doubt that, when Obama said that “a new dawn of American leadership is at hand” in his victory speech, the world has changed in the past 8 years. The United States of America is no longer the one superpower that remained after the fall of the Soviet Union. If the current crisis has shown Americans one thing, it should be the realization that Ameríca’s economy is intertwined with the rest of the world, that it is no longer the undisputed leader that stands alone on a mountain top. And let there be no doubt that, indeed, political power no longer grows out of the barrel of a gun.

But let there also be no doubt: the world will never be the same again. Other players have entered the top of the game, thanks to – ironically – the lack of leadership displayed by the US during the past 8 years. To assume that America can regain its position of world leadership of yore, is a fantasy. Instead, America must work together with other nations, the other leaders that rose when America turned its back on the world for eight long years.

Let there be no doubt that America must again learn what responsibility is, and that America must show that responsibility. Barack Obama said he wants to “turn the page”. That is a welcome goal. But he mustn’t only turn the page on 8 years of George W. Bush, he must also turn the page on Bill Clinton, and all presidents before him.

Let America show that it is willing to change. Ratify the follow-up to the Kyoto Treaty, which neither George W. Bush nor Bill Clinton wanted. Sign and ratify the moratorium on land mines, on chemical weapons, on biological weapons, on the development of new nuclear weapons.

Let there be no doubt that America must walk the talk.

Lecture other countries about their ethical behaviour by improving America’s own ethical behaviour. Lecture by action, heal the damage done. When America demands of nations that they agree to stop producing chemical weapons and must allow international inspections for verification, America must allow those same inspectors to check American factories. When America demands of European countries that they abolish farm subsidies, let America abolish its own.

Support the International Crimes Tribunal. Repeal the ‘The Hague invasion act’. Become a nation among nations. Understand that there is not just one country on this planet, but that there is only one planet. And make other countries understand this, too. Again, by actions, not by lecturing.

“The true strength of our nation comes not from the might of our arms or the scale of our wealth, but from our ideals”, Obama said. How I wish that were true.

The true strength of nations comes from their willingness to work together, by carefully appropriating the might of their arms and the scales of their wealth, not as goals unto themselves, but as tools with which to promote shared ideals.

Yes, the pic to the left indeed shows a bed. I dream of crashing on it and sleeping for days, if not weeks. I’m SO tired of this US election campaign – and I’m very glad that it’ll be over in a little over 36 hours. That’s also the reason why the site hasn’t been updated as often as you were probably used to by now. Sorry for that, but I simply cannot stand the election coverage anymore. However…

Wednesday will see the start of the post-election coverage. Some pundits, including me, have already been ‘previewing’ an Obama presidency. There will be a LOT more coverage on that once the horse race is over, and journalists and pundits like me will have the time on their hands to take a second – no, third – forget that, fourth – awww shucks, n-th look at president-elect Barack Obama.

And I’m getting a little worried, because Obama continues to make some of the same mistakes Clinton made. Like pissing off the press mightily by sealing himself off. Sure, he’s available for soft, controlled question sessions, but the last time he held a big press conference was on September 12.

Whenever a reporter asks a question, Obama reacts with an arrogant demeanor. He needs to stop that.

Journalists are never your friends, that’s true – but you also don’t want to make them your enemies. Ask Bill Clinton, and how he felt the press treated him for almost his entire first term.

Barack Obama looks set to become the 44th president of the United States. With national and state polls being what they are, McCain can’t win. So it’s time to take a look at what an Obama presidency would be like — and more interestingly, whether such a presidency would truly be very different from Bill Clinton’s presidency. One thing Obama should watch out for, is not making the same mistakes Clinton made.

When Bill Clinton beat contender George H.W. Bush in 1992 and entered the White House, he had everything going for him. He won many ‘Red States’, giving him a solid mandate and a lot of political capital, and he had a Democratic Congress and Senate to boot. Nothing could stop him from rolling out a true Democratic political programme.

Boy, was he wrong.

Guess who stopped him? That’s right: his friends, the Democrats in Congress. When Hillary Clinton went straight for the Holy Grail of Democratism, namely the establishment of Universal Health Care, she behaved like a wild elephant in a porcelain cabinet, crashing and thrashing everything inside. The Republicans managed to sell her plans as being ‘Socialist’ or even ‘Communist’, in the states where incumbent Democratic Senators and Representatives had to defend their seats.

So when majorities of voters in those states came out against Clinton’s health care plans, incumbent Democrats made an about-turn. They wanted changes to the plans. When Hillary Clinton refused, those Democrats – fearful of losing their well-paid daytime job in Washington, D.C. – voted down the plans.

By then, the midterm elections of 1994 were upon them, and the health care debacle was used by the Republicans as paint to colour the Democrats as closet Socialists. That, combined with scandals surrounding some Democrats and a highly effective Republican propaganda campaign, resulted in a ‘Republican Revolution’ that swept away Democratic rule from Capitol Hill for 20 years.

Faced with a hostile Congress, Bill Clinton had to abandon his strategic plans and focus on tactical gains instead. He could no longer win the war for Democratic causes, but could at least try to win some public battles, in order to be re-elected and save his presidency, and thus his legacy. He succeeded for a while — until Monica Lewinsky showed her appetite for cigars, of course.

Fast-forward to 2009. Barack Obama will enter the White House as a Democratic president, very likely backed up by a strong Democratic majority in Congress. Like Clinton, Obama also wants to finally establish Universal Health Care and he will need Congress to sign off on it, too.

The question is: will it?

So far, the similarities between now and 1992 are striking. Just like in those days, there already are so-called ‘Blue Dog Democrats’ in Congress, Democrats hailing from solid Republican ‘Red States’ who will have a hard time convincing their constituencies that a collective public, government programme is not ‘Socialist cockamamie’.

And those are just the incumbent ones. Many more, from even more ‘Red States’, are set to join their ranks on November 4, when Republicans seem set to be ousted in large numbers, in favour of conservative Democrats.

In 1992, when Bill Clinton made introduction of Universal Health Care one of his priorities in his campaign, he failed to get many Representatives and Senators to publicly back that cause before his election. So when he was inaugurated, few members of Congress felt obliged to sign up for his health care plans.

Barack Obama has so far held several meetings with incumbent members of Congress on matters like national security, social security and the economy, but he has thus far failed to get a public commitment from them on his health care plans. He also hasn’t asked first-time contenders in the Red States, who seem to be sailing to victory, to sign up.

That could spell trouble. It would be very wise for Obama to get those public commitments now, also from House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Senate majority leader Harry Reid, before the election is held. It is very important that at least those plans finally get turned into law, because the financial crisis, the deep recession and the enormous damage done by the criminal Republican administation, will already put a strain on Obama’s treasury.

He will have to make some tough choices, ditching some plans to save others. But it could very well be that ditching his universal health care plans – one way or the other – will force him to make the same decision Clinton made: abandoning the war in favour of winning some battles.

Napoleon Bonaparte made that decision during the difficult years of 1813 and 1814, and he lost the war. Just like Bill Clinton did. Let’s hope that Obama is the smarter one.