Rebuild the Dream (10 page)

Spanish-language radio proved its capacity to mobilize millions. On May 1, 2006 (May Day), major demonstrations shook the country. On what was called the Day Without Immigrants, organizers called for Latinos to abstain from buying, selling, working, and attending school, to show the effect of Latinos on American society. Protests in Los Angeles drew between 600,000 and 1.5 million participants; New York saw 200,000 take to the streets, while 400,000 people flooded the streets in Chicago. Seas of mostly Latino families, wearing white shirts and waving American flags, announced to the world that a new force was coming of age in America—and that GOP hostility toward the Spanish-speaking population might someday prove to be a pathway to electoral suicide.

The political climate of 2006 was also profoundly impacted by the ongoing military actions in Iraq and antiwar sentiment at home. Three years after the initial invasion and Bush's May 1, 2003, declaration of the “end of major combat operations,” combat operations and casualties continued. Despite exorbitant investments in reconstruction, Iraq's infrastructure was declared to be behind pre-war levels. Vice President Dick Cheney's company, Halliburton, was fired by the U.S. Army for fraud.

By 2006 the revelations that there had never been weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, and concerns that intelligence may have
been fixed by the Bush and Tony Blair administrations, were part of everyday conversation. The scandal of prisoner abuse and torture at Abu Ghraib, which had come to light in 2004, undermined U.S. credibility before the world. Many were calling for Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld's resignation. On American soil, the terrorist threat was used to justify warrantless wiretapping of ordinary citizens. In the eyes and minds of growing numbers of ordinary citizens, the entire situation was getting out of hand. Outrage, shame, and horror at the administration impacted Americans of all stripes.

As all of these factors began to converge, a breakthrough of some kind was inevitable. Shortly after the 2004 presidential election, Bush's chief political strategist Karl Rove had allegedly declared that the Republican Party would be a “permanent majority party” and predicted the GOP would run the country for at least twenty more years. He was wrong. A bottom-up movement fueled by hope and demanding change, ended GOP domination in just twenty-four months.

In the 2006 midterm elections, no House, Senate, or gubernatorial seat held by a Democrat was won by a Republican. Not only did Democrats
not
lose any seats, but they also gained, winding up with a 233–202 advantage in the House of Representatives, and achieving a 49–49 tie in the United States Senate (or 51–49 advantage, if you counted Independents Bernie Sanders and Joe Lieberman). Democratic representative from California Nancy Pelosi became Speaker of the House, and U.S. senator from Nevada Harry Reid became the Senate Majority Leader: victory!

This success was achieved without anyone flying in wearing a bright, red cape. Once again, no messiah showed up to save the day. What triumphed was a massive outpouring of democratic passion, strengthened by innumerable centers of invention and energy. Even
during the worst days of neoconservative rule in Washington, DC, a multicolored multitude refused to surrender—and it never gave up the fight for change.

It is worth restating: by the end of 2006, a rapidly maturing, technologically savvy, determined, and people-powered movement for change was already fired up and ready to go. It had swept statehouses across America. It had thoroughly mainstreamed opposition to Bush's war in Iraq and placed the threat of global warming on the map. It had begun rewriting the political playbook with new technologies. It had humbled Rove. It had given the reins in the U.S. Senate to Reid, and elevated Pelosi to the third-highest seat in the U.S. government. Now it needed a champion to help it take the White House and bury Bush-ism forever.

Fortunately for all of us, providence delivered such a champion in the form of a U.S. senator named Barack Obama. He had entered public consciousness in 2004 with his electrifying keynote address at the Democratic National Convention. At the time, he was still virtually unknown—a state senator from Illinois. Obama called upon the audience to move beyond the divisive rhetoric of red states and blue states and to reaffirm our common allegiance to the United States of America. The sentiment and the passion touched a deep chord.

A few years later he published
The Audacity of Hope: Thoughts on Reclaiming the American Dream
, and he decided to leave Washington and travel the country to promote his book. The moment he left the Beltway bubble, he ran into a tsunami—everyday Americans who were fed up with the status quo. Everywhere he went, he was mobbed by people who wanted to see our country move in a new direction. By all accounts, Obama quickly realized that something rare and beautiful was happening. He understood that this remarkable new phenomenon was operating according to a different set of rules, conforming to a different logic model than anything like “politics as usual.”

He also recognized that U.S. senator Hillary Clinton, the presumptively unassailable frontrunner for the Democratic Party nomination, was poorly positioned as a presidential candidate to appeal to this rising power. He saw that she was playing a game that made sense in Washington, DC, but wouldn't make sense in the context of this gathering force.

Obama recognized that this expanding, inchoate movement already had the potential to transcend the limits of either the Democratic Party or the Republican Party. It could produce something more powerful than the Clinton brand or the McCain brand. And it could help elect someone to the U.S. presidency.

So he decided to run. And thank goodness he did, because he had a vision for the movement that was bigger than the movement's vision for itself. Obama helped it achieve its highest aspirations and potential—redrawing the electoral map, turning climate and peace concerns into electoral issues, and bringing new voices and energy into the voting process.

The movement had grown and matured to the place where it could make good use of such a champion, and a man appeared who
had the courage, integrity, and leadership qualities to make good use of a movement. So the man and the movement met each other—and together, they both met the moment. The resulting supernova was a global phenomenon.

There was a quality of the 2007–2008 Obama for America campaign that felt more like a religious revival than a normal political campaign effort. The big, super rallies turned out tens of thousands of people. The enthusiasm wasn't about any particular policy detail or legislative proposal. It expressed a hunger for a kind of national rebirth. Something in the human spirit—and certainly in the spirit of America—had been depleted, or degraded, during the Bush years. The campaign helped to reignite something precious in the soul of America.

By giving voice to millions, by enduring all of the trials of public life, candidate Barack Obama moved the entire country—indeed, the whole world. The history books will seldom again have the opportunity to record anything like his history-making, David-and-Goliath victory over the status quo in both political parties.

People who voted for Obama love to wax nostalgic about those thrilling days. Almost universally, they say, “I was so inspired!” It is true that Obama's example and oratory lifted the nation's spirits at a key time.

But we should never forget one thing: as much as Obama inspired the people, “We, the People” inspired Obama first.

The original act of boldness and daring came from ordinary people who challenged Bush and Bush-ism in the streets and at the ballot box; their audacity opened the door for Obama to challenge Hillary Clinton and then John McCain.

The grit and determination of ordinary folks kept alive the hope and fed the hunger for real change. Obama added his own momentum and magic to the growing wave, and then he rode it, with courage and skill, into the halls of power.

Today, in early 2012, hope is in short supply. The president must share some of the blame for this outcome (as I will discuss later), but so should the rest of us. In other words, if there exists a “hope gap” in America, we can't merely point the finger at President Obama. We can't blame the White House, because the movement for hope and change didn't come out of the White House. The movement was not created by a single individual. It was cocreated by the hard work of millions of Americans, before Obama ever ran for president. It took mass participation and creativity to move the country onto safer ground. That spirit of engagement and commitment is needed now, more than ever, to resume the forward motion.

The campaign's galvanizing slogan was never, “Yes, HE Can.”

It was always, “Yes, WE Can.”

And working together, we still can.

It goes without saying that the Obama administration has disappointed many, if not most, of its original supporters and enthusiasts.

I will devote a good portion of this book to analyzing the demoralizing missteps and mistakes that the administration and the progressive movement, as a whole, have made since 2008. I will share my appraisal of each one. In trying to surface truths and extract the right lessons, I will take no prisoners. Some of my conclusions are harsh.

But, first, I want to remind the reader of President Obama's more remarkable accomplishments, some of which are historic.

It is important to bear in mind that the following list of achievements came to pass in the most partisan and hostile environment in recent political memory, with the opposition party using the filibuster with unmatched abandon. These achievements also occurred amid a global economic crisis—worldwide environmental crisis—and during an era of global terrorism and instability. They were won in an America hollowed out by eight years of George W. Bush.

It is easy to forget how perilous America's situation was at the end of 2008. I often say that Obama volunteered to be the captain of the
Titanic, after
it hit the iceberg. Three years later, we are still floating. We may not be going at one hundred miles an hour just yet, but we are still above water. Obama and his team deserve credit for that.

No one can deny that Obama was dealt an awful hand. That is one of the reasons he retains a deep reservoir of affection and support among so many Americans, despite the disappointments. The actor George Clooney summed up the view of many passionate Obama backers in late 2011. On
ABC News Now!'s
“Popcorn with Peter Travers,” Clooney said,

I'm disillusioned by the people who are disillusioned by Obama, quite honestly, I am. . . . Democrats eat their own.
Democrats find singular issues and go, “Well, I didn't get everything I wanted.” I'm a firm believer in sticking by and sticking up for the people whom you've elected. . . . If he was a Republican running, because Republicans are better at this, they'd be selling him as the guy who stopped 400,000 jobs a month from leaving the country. They'd be selling him as the guy who saved the auto industry. If they had the beliefs, they'd be selling him as the guy who got rid of “Don't Ask, Don't Tell,” who got Osama bin Laden. You could be selling this as a very successful three years.

Before we look at the ways in which Obama and the movement that elected him have come up short, let us take the time to chronicle some of the most important successes.

The American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA), more commonly known as the stimulus bill, strategically allotted $787 billion to rescue a collapsing economy. Among many things, it cut payroll taxes for small businesses, and it invested money into environmentally friendly programs to stimulate the “clean” economy. The aggregate effect of the bill was much greater than the sum of its parts. It saved the American economy from entering a full-scale depression. While the stimulus bill could have been larger, Obama's approach provided a stark contrast to what has been happening in Europe and the European Central Bank (ECB). Leaders there pursued steep austerity cuts without an infusion of cash; as this book goes to press in early 2012, it remains unclear whether the euro can survive the crisis.

To ensure that Wall Street is better regulated and the American people will never have to bail it out again, Obama created an entire new agency of government (as mandated by the Dodd-Frank financial reform bill), the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB). This bureau is designed to protect Americans from predatory practices by mortgage lenders and credit card companies. The administration failed to appoint the most suitable candidate—Elizabeth Warren—to head it. Still, the White House took extraordinary measures to bulldoze through GOP opposition and appoint Richard Cordray as the agency's first director. We can only hope that the agency will prove meaningful in the future.

When the auto industry, hit hard by the economic downturn, seemed on the verge of a collapse, President Obama made the tough call to bail it out. Though unpopular at the time, the decision saved 1.4 million jobs, and the industry has since paid back all of the money and is hiring back a number of laid-off workers.