Most readers of this website probably know I have long been a supporter of Barack Obama and even recently spent five days in Ohio working for his reelection.
Also, many of you know that my wife Ellen Miller has worked for years on the issue of money and politics and is currently the Director of The Sunlight Foundation, an organization she co-founded seven years ago to focus, among other things, on the issue of transparency in government.
So with those two acknowledgements, I link to a blog post by the policy director of Sunlight, John Wonderlich, where in he has come to believe President Obama is clearly now part of the problem of money and politics and cannot be taken as someone who can help clean up the system, something Obama promised to do when he ran for the presidency in 2008. If I remember correctly, he promised to have the most transparent administration ever.
Now, John says, “It’s time to stop worrying about how President Obama can help fix the system of campaign finance and instead worry about how we can fix what he has created.”
See the details of why John has come to this conclusion and why he now blames Pres. Obama for contributing to the problem in this short post, Transparency President No More.
Tim Malieckal said:
My impression is that Obama’s naiveté has been taken far too seriously in DC. I voted for him twice, and while he’s certainly disappointed me at times, I do try to ‘do the math’ when grading him on his performance.
For example, my biggest disappointment: the prison at Guantanamo Bay remains open. It’s a thousand times worse than an ‘eyesore’. It makes me ill. But when one read the day to day, blow for blow unfurling of the ‘negotiations’ to have it closed, it’s clear that he had very little choice. Desperate to deny him at every turn, the GOP would not let inmates be tried in court; would not let states hold them in SuperMax prisons, etc. He was stuck. A lesser man, like me, might have lost his temper. Obama moved on. It’s been one of the hallmarks of his presidency.
With respect to money in politics, I can’t bring myself to see past Citizens’ United. To this man’s eyes, it’s difficult NOT to see that the SCOTUS has become politicized to the point where its purity is forever tarnished. No jurist could look at Bush v Gore or Citizens United and think otherwise. Unlimited money in politics as free speech is one thing, but cloaking that in complete anonymity is quite another. The tidbit that the Koch brothers spawned the Tea Party movement in 2002 is telling, after we’ve gone through nearly four years of being told it was a ‘grass-roots movement’.
Facing this SCOTUS-approved attempt to make the wealthiest Americans disproportionately powerful in subverting actual democracy, Obama seems to have shrugged and moved on: away from transparency, away from ‘small donors’ and towards ‘access’. But before we get all huffy and accuse him of renting out the Lincoln bedroom, imagine politics as (blood) sport. The rules were changed by the commish, and even though the coach was touted as a ‘run the ball/ strong D’ guy, he’s had to evolve and throw on every down to win. Yeah, it’s a bummer, but as Herm Edwards once famously said, ‘You play to win the game’.
There is no transparency if you’re out of office. Lest any of us forget, The Eternal Gaffe formerly known as Mitt Romney probably should have won the election. He had the money, he had the media calling it a horserace, he had 8% unemployment, he had an incumbent in recession. It was not quite a squeaker, but it was no sure thing. Having been reelected, Obama has to both reward – yes, reward – those who bankrolled him and continue to play a rigged game.
I feel that Obama is something of a Fabian politician – incremental changes, spiked with a war drawdown here (Iraq) and there (Afghanistan). He is man enough to say, ‘Well, this isn’t gonna work’ and move on: his time in office is limited. We got a huge legislative bonbon in ACA in his first term, and may get something similarly impressive this term (education, hopefully). We’re liberals, we want it all. We see the world through a prism of honor and morality. But politics is a sewer and there’s simply no way to stay clean when you have to kiss tar babies on the campaign trail.
Sarah Palin liked to quip, ‘How’s that hopey-changey thing workin’ out for ya’? We’re smarter than Sarah Palin. Hope and Change was a campaign slogan, no more concrete than ‘compassionate conservative’. While we all have our druthers that our disinfectant be sunlight, we should keep out eye on the ball and remember that to win a rigged game, you need to play the hand you’re dealt well.