Matt Yglesias

Long and Deep

I’ve seen a certain number of news accounts trying to gin up basically fake tale of deep left-wing disgruntlement with the shape of the Obama transition. Other, more intellectually honest journalists, have written of their own personal frustration at the lack of awesome disgruntlement stories to write. To put that kind of thing in context, you just need to remember that ordinary people care more about policies than about politics and then read stuff like this:

Mr. Emanuel promised that a major economic stimulus would be “the first order of business” for Mr. Obama when he takes office Jan. 20. The focus of spending will be on infrastructure, specifically “green infrastructure,” which he said would include mass transit, upgraded electricity transmission lines, “smart” electrical meters that allow consumers to save money by using electricity at off-peak hours, and universal broadband Internet access, which he said would encourage telecommuting.

He stressed that the new administration would “throw long and deep,” taking advantage of the economic crisis to push wholesale changes in health care, taxes, financial re-regulation and energy. “The American people in two successive elections have voted for change, and change cannot be allowed to die on the doorsteps of Washington,” Mr. Emanuel said.

I think everyone understands that Emanuel isn’t the most liberal Democrat in the universe. And it’s inevitable that any Democratic administration will include some folks who are to Emanuel’s left. And here’s Emanuel talking about the need to “throw long and deep,” provide major economic stimulus, and to overhaul the energy system. And that was during a talk whose subject was the fact that incremental health care reform isn’t good enough! That’s a lot of bold, ambitious policymaking and as long as we keep seeing progress toward these kind of bold progressive measures of course liberals will be mostly happy with Obama.

Snot and Centrists

Megan McArdle says:

I’ve heard two superficially plausible and, I think, completely contradictory narratives of what the Rahm Emmanuel appointment means. One: that Barack Obama is taking his administration in a more pragmatic, less ideological direction. Two: that Barack Obama is looking for a hatchet man to beat the snot out of the Republicans. Which is true? I’m not enough of an insider to even hazard a guess. But it’s interesting how the same piece of information can plausibly tell two utterly different stories.

I don’t think these are really contradictory ideas. The idea that hard-core partisanship and being a hard-core ideologue go together is a mistake. Big liberals are often relatively un-partisan because they have all kinds of gripes with various Democrats along with their gripes with Republicans. By contrast, someone dedicated to partisanship uber alles is going, by definition, to need a lot of ideological flexibility.

Meanwhile, from where I sit it’s hard to read these tea leaves. Emanuel has extensive high-level experience as a White House staffer and as a congressional leader and has a personal relationship with Obama. Those are, generically, good qualifications for a chief of staff. If there were three people with that kind of background all with different ideological leanings, then the choice of person could be seen as having great ideological significance. But that’s not the situation.

Walk the Line

I’m not going to try to pretend to have detailed opinions about all the Democratic heavyweights who’ll be getting jobs in an Obama administration. But now that it’s official, I do think the Rahm Emanuel selection illustrates the kind of line Obama needs to talk to assemble a successful team. On the one hand, he’s promised change and campaigned — at some points very explicitly — on an agenda of offering something more than a third term of the Clinton administration. On the other hand, he’s wisely taken from the missteps of the early Carter and Clinton years the idea that he needs a team that’s not just smart and well-meaning, but that actually knows what it’s doing. And since Carter left office 28 years ago that means, in practice, a heavy reliance on people who served in senior-level posts in the Clinton administration.

But one thing Emanuel has going for him is that though he certainly was a high-level Clinton aid, he hasn’t just been cooling his heels in the private sector or in some sinecure somewhere since leaving. He ran for congress and won. Then he secured a leadership position at the DCCC and helped guide the Democrats to wins in 2006. Then he moved up in the House leadership while keeping a toe in the DCCC side of things. He’s built an independent identity and reputation and achieved success that transcends the fact that Clinton liked him enough to give him an important job. I think that’s similar to what you see if you consider the record of CAP/CAPAF bossman and now transition bigwig John Podesta — he followed his act as chief of staff by building a new important institution from scratch. Along with people like that, Obama seems inclined to avail himself of the expertise of veteran non-Clintonite legislators like Ted Kennedy and Tom Daschle to help with congressional relations.

And I think that’s the right lens through which to look at many of these choices — we’re seeing a search for people who are experienced and accomplished, not just graybeard time-servers. People like to pay a lot of attention to left-right ideological tensions, but the reality is that these gaps aren’t especially big and any realistic configuration of the Obama administration is going to leave it to the left of the views of pivotal legislators like the Blue Dog caucus, Max Baucus, Olympia Snowe, etc. The interesting issue is whether the team will be smart and capable enough to get stuff done, not how much hypothetical stuff would they do were they able to operate without constraint.