US Politics: Can Obama and the Democrats Retain Control of Congress? (Haddigan)

EA's US Politics correspondent Lee Haddigan writes:

With latest figures suggesting that the American economy is still performing poorly and a continuing restlessness in the progressive Left over health care reform, the prospects for the Democrat Party in November look bleak.

Incumbent administrations almost always suffer badly at the mid-term polls, but President Obama is facing a particularly mammoth struggle to retain control of Congress --- the upper body of the Senate and the lower body of the House of Representatives --- in his election cycle. Faced with a resurgent conservative opposition and a general dissatisfaction with his handling of the economy and health care, the President needs an issue to recapture the enthusiasm of apathetic Democrat voters.

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Failing an astounding change in economic fortunes in the economy, it is a near-certainty that the administration will turn to blaming the Bush years for the current troubles, as well as bringing out the old Democrat bugbear of big-business funding Republican causes. In these Congressional elections, an estimated $153 million will be spent on campaigns, nearly double the $77 million spent in 2006.

Last week the Labor Department announced an unexpected rise of 500,000 in the number of jobless claims, a figurethat that prompted John Boehner, the Minority Leader in the House of Representative, to call for the firing of President Obama’s top two economic aides. This week it was revealed that new home purchases in June were at their lowest level since collection of the data began in 1963. With weak consumer confidence and nervous investors, the state of the economy has led to warnings that the United States may suffer a double-dip recession: Mark Zandi, the economist who helped the administration determine the extent of its stimulus package, recently raised his evaluation of the chances of a renewed recession from 20% to 33%. The long-term odds may still be in President Obama’s favour, but the reality is that he will not be able to point to the success of his economic spending package come November.

Nor will President Obama be able to promote the first two years of his Presidency as a victory for health care reform without alienating the left wing of his party. Despite the historic achievement of passing an act that revolutionises the provision of patient care, progressives are infuriated at the omission of a public option, and some Democrats are rebelling against the administration’s portrayal of the Affordable Care And Patient Protection Act as the best result that could be achieved.

Recently, 128 Democrats co-sponsored a bill to amend the health care law to include a public option (government-run insurance provision) from 2014. Initially confident that the public would hail the economic benefits of reform, including the reduction of the Federal deficit, health care advocacy groups who helped President Obama garner enough votes to pass the act are now stressing that it can be improved with the inclusion of a public option. The bill is highly unlikely to pass, but it sends a clear message to the administration that come January, if the Democrats manage to retain control of Congress, the public option will be back on the agenda.

Two weeks ago Robert Gibbs, Obama’s press secretary, spoke to The Hill, a Washington-based website covering Congressional politics: the “lack of appreciation or recognition for what Obama has accomplished has left Gibbs and others in furious disbelief". Top analyst Larry Berman said Gibbs' outburst “reflects the fact that the conservative opposition has been so effective at undermining the president’s popular approval.”

Meanwhile, the President was unveiling another tactic in the election strategy. At the end of July, he urged passage of the DISCLOSE Act for campaign finance reform. On 9 August, at a Texas fundraising dinner for the Democratic National Committee, he went further, as he claimed that failure to pass the Act was allowing groups like Americans for Prosperity to run attack ads against Democrat candidates, with no indication of who was funding the assault. He warned that “harmless-sounding” organizations like the AFP were able to influence the forthcoming elections because of Republican obstructionism in Congress, asserting, “We’ve got to make sure that we don't have a corporate takeover of our democracy.” The President returned to the theme last Saturday in his Weekly Address, titled unsubtly, "No Corporate Takeover of Our Democracy."

All three of these speeches attacked the pernicious influence of special interest groups on elections, indicating President Obama is going to use campaign reform as an important issue in the run-up to November. Two of the statements refer to Theodore Roosevelt, the "grandaddy" of progressive politics, and his warning 100 years ago of corporations as “one of the principal sources of corruption in our political affairs”. Obama called for a bi-partisan solution in Congress, i.e., the DISCLOSE Act, and a return to “a democracy that works for ordinary Americans --- a government of, by, and for the people”.

There is a long way, in political terms, before the elections, but it is already apparent that it would be suicide for Democrats to stand solely on their record on the economy and health care reform . To retain control of Congress, President Obama will need to give voters a reason to distinguish between the politics he represents and that of the Republicans/Tea Party. He will draw on the residual contempt among Democrats for all that President Bush stood for and the campaign finance issue. Obama’s "politics of hope" of 2008 have become the "politics of fear".

Still, there are reasons for Democrats to be optimistic they can perform better in the elections than current poll indicate: the tendency of grassroots conservative movements like the Tea Party to implode, the ability of President Obama to convince voters to turn out for him, a significant advantage in cash, and the possibility that the unknown variable of state and local concerns may help Democrat candidates.

To make a foolhardy prediction, as the race just begins in earnest, I believe that the Democrats --- in what looksto be an ill-mannered campaign --- will surprise many in November and narrowly retain both the House and the Senate. The present administration, and its supporters, are not yet "tired" enough of their policies to relinquish control of Congress so easily.