No matter who is sworn as president next year, Congress will not simply bend to his wishes. Ending our current deadlock requires a president who can articulate a broad consensus and build a bi-partisan coalition behind it.
Last summer there was a brief moment when Pres. Obama could have done precisely that. In failing to endorse the Bowles-Simpson Deficit Commission’s recommendations for reducing the deficit, simplifying the tax system, and reforming Social Security and Medicare, the moment disappeared. Had Obama taken such a step he might have calmed the markets, avoided the messy debt ceiling fight, and lowered the temperature of our politics. This is not Obama’s style. In 2009 he shunned compromise and his two major legislative accomplishments – the $800 billion stimulus package and the heath care bill – were passed with few Republican votes.

Past presidents were careful that such large scale domestic reforms received considerable bi-partisan support. In 1935, a majority of Republicans in Congress supported Franklin Roosevelt’s Social Security legislation; in 1965 close to half the Republicans voted for Lyndon Johnson’s Medicare bill and even more for his Voting Rights Bill; Bill Clinton, who did not have a legislative record to compare with Roosevelt and Johnson, passed the Welfare Reform Act in 1996 with considerable Republican support; and George W. Bush had strong bi-partisan support for his No Child Left Behind Act. Roosevelt, Johnson, Clinton and Bush were partisan figures; yet they understood the need for compromise, cooperation and consensus. Franklin Roosevelt and Lyndon Johnson had overwhelming Democratic majorities in Congress. They could have passed their New Deal and Great Society reforms without Republican votes. In order to make their reforms a permanent part of the American political fabric, they knew such legislation needed bi-partisan support. These leaders were looking toward history, not just the next election. Consequently, Social Security, the GI Bill of Rights, the Civil Rights bills, and Medicare became part of that fabric.

Politics, as Bismarck once said, is the art of the possible. When it is practiced by the most skillful, it is finding agreement when none seems possible. Obama neglected not only FDR and LBJ’s examples, but Jefferson’s advice that great innovations should be not forced upon slender majorities. The health care law has been dubbed Obamacare, symbolically placing sole ownership on the President. Consequently, the law remains unpopular; all Republican presidential candidates have pledged to repeal it; and its eventual fate before the Supreme Court remains in question. Obama may have gained a temporary legislative accomplishment; but will it take place with the reforms of Roosevelt and Johnson?

After the 2010 Republican sweep, Obama has no chance of pushing through another reform on the scale of Obamacare or the 2009 stimulus package. Consequently, he is following Truman’s example in 1948 of running against the “do-nothing” Republican 80th Congress. What he may not recall is that this so-called “do-nothing” Congress passed Truman’s most historic accomplishment – the Marshall Plan. Truman’s success in the 1948 election was based not on such partisan flimflam but upon a strong economy that was shaking off the jolts of peacetime reconversion, a foreign policy that was giving the Soviets pause in Europe and an overconfident and smug opponent – Thomas Dewey.

In November, Obama is unlikely to have a strong economy or an overconfident and smug opponent. Berating a do-nothing Republican Congress will not be the ticket to re-election or gaining a large Democratic majority in Congress. Effective governance is the best ticket to re-election. Obama is navigating in difficult of economic waters. Voters will not expect him to restore the prosperity we enjoyed prior to the financial meltdown. They will expect progress. This will require a genuine effort to work with the Congress to secure a form of job relief and long term debt and deficit reduction. Obama should spend the next several months working with the Congress, building relations with its leaders, and seeking to find the best bi-partisan solution available. Such an approach would do him and the country far more good than his excessive campaigning and continual berating.