Reform health care? Check. Pass the Recovery Act? Check. End the Iraq War? Check (kinda). Resuscitate the United States economy? Pending…
“Of the promises I made during the campaign…we’ve probably accomplished 70 percent of the things we said we were going to do,” said President Barack Obama in the pages of Rolling Stone recently. Despite his confidence, progressives and the public are still searching for more.
Speaking to The Daily Caller, congressional Democrats said that Obama’s initiatives have been successful but the American people are having a tough time connecting the dots.
“I feel that a large majority of the major points he talked about have been accomplished,” said Michigan Democratic Sen. Carl Levin. “More importantly, I think he’s been a huge accomplishment in this Congress; that doesn’t mean that you can persuade the public of that.”
According to Levin, the list of Obama’s accomplishments is long and overall the administration is succeeding.
“My main point is there’s been a lot of big accomplishments in this Congress,” said Levin, “but that doesn’t mean people should be satisfied because we’re still in a deep recession.”
California Democratic Rep. Lynn Woolsey said Obama has accomplished much of what he set out to do, at least “intellectually,” but still needed to communicate those accomplishments to the public better.
“Intellectually, absolutely,” said California representative Lynn Woolsey, “but emotionally, I don’t think that the people in this country get it.”
But while Democrats on the Hill may think Obama has accomplished the bulk of what he promised, many Republicans and liberals outside the Beltway beg to differ.
Progressive blogger Jane Hampsher called the 70 percent assertion “far-fetched” and said that the Obama administration was deflecting blame toward the American public and liberals for not praising the policies passed during the past two years.
“All of this ‘hippie punching’ isn’t about turning out voters,” said Hampsher on her blog Firedoglake. “To do that, as Obama well knows, you have to inspire them. Notice that nobody actually running for office is wagging their finger at voters and scolding them like a bunch of children.”
“I don’t think this lecturing is working very well,” said Texas Republican Sen. John Cornyn. “The American people are not clueless. They’re actually quite engaged.”
Progressives view many of the administration’s policies, especially the health care bill, as not progressive enough.
“The evidence was overwhelming from the start that the White House was not only indifferent, but opposed, to the provisions most important to progressives,” said political columnist Glenn Greenwald about the health care bill, in an article for Salon.com.
The president acknowledged in the Rolling Stone interview that “it’s not surprising that a lot of folks out there don’t feel like these victories have had an impact,” and asked progressives to “take pride” in what they have accomplished. Nonetheless, the Obama administration continues to be pressured from both progressives and conservatives. Many of those on the left want more progressive legislation passed and for the president to do things like repeal “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell,” while Republicans are upset about the government’s increasingly large role in the economy.
“When you have both ends fighting the middle you’ve got problems,” said Dr. Larry Sabato, University of Virginia professor of politics and director of the University of Virginia Center for Politics.
“He was elected for many reasons but mainly he was elected to fix the economy and the economy is not fixed,” he continued. “If the number one item for which you were elected is undone, that’s what matters to most people.”