President Obama arriving before a speech on the economy

President Obama arriving before a speech on the economy Carolyn Kaster/AP

A September to Surrender: Syria and Summers Spell Second-Term Slump

Is Obama's power eroding quicker than before, or is this just typical of this stage in the presidency? By Major Garrett

A commander in chief speaks intimately to America, constitutionally to Congress, and authoritatively to the world when he deploys the bullet, bayonet, B-52, or Tomahawk missile. Presidents don’t do pinpricks, either. Every military maneuver—real or feigned, decisive or disastrous—echoes like a drum. The vibrations change the rhythm of domestic politics.

These truths transcend the Obama presidency. They are resonant enough in the aftermath of Syria, where new and unflattering stock is being taken of President Obama and his application of this vast and consequential power.

But Obama also elevated the choice of the next Federal Reserve Board chairman to a place of exalted power, describing it in a White House news conference as the “most important economic decision of his second term.”

This was after Obama had devoted weeks to retooling his economic message, when he downplayed deficit reduction and emphasized job creation and wage growth. The president concluded and signaled to Senate Democrats that he could only surmount the GOP hurdles of sequester, shutdown, and debt ceiling if he changed the debate from belt-tightening to middle-class security.

Taken together, Syria and Summers therefore represent—by history’s decree in the case of military power, and by Obama’s own grandiose vision of the Fed’s role in the economy—the most important second-term presentations of power.

And Senate Democrats were Obama’s undoing in both cases.

Among the reasons Obama sought an eleventh-hour deal with Russia over Syria’s chemical weapons was the certainty he would lose a vote in the Democratically controlled Senate to authorize military force. Majority Leader Harry Reid was a distant and uncertain trumpet. Sen. Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., gave wide and therefore dismissive berth to Obama. Senate Majority Whip Dick Durbin of Illinois, who has lost clout by degrees to Schumer in the past two years, was deeply reluctant but came around.

Meanwhile, rank-and-file Democrats were either silent on, or sprinting away from, Syria. The weekend before Obama’s address to the nation, at least 16 Senate Democrats were solidly in the “no” or “lean no” column. Some whip counts had the number in the low 20s. Even after Obama pleaded with publicly undecided Democrats to remain silent, Sen. Tammy Baldwin of Wisconsin announced her opposition. The White House was not close in the Senate. Suddenly, all the brave West Wing puffery about winning in the Senate and not waiting for action in the House (the 1999 “Kosovo precedent” became the policy shop’s retro “Blurred Lines” smash hit of the late summer) began to wilt.

By the time Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell announced his opposition on Syria, it was as anticlimactic as the new Crossfire.

Senate Democrats would not follow Obama into battle—no matter how much Syria wasn’t Afghanistan, Iraq, or Libya. (Hell, it wasn’t even Grenada.) Democrats would not follow Obama to uphold human rights, advance nonproliferation, or avenge a sarin massacre hauntingly reminiscent of World War I.

And they would not follow Obama on naming Lawrence Summers the next Federal Reserve chairman. Senate Democrats, led by Sherrod Brown of Ohio, had for months organized against Summers. Brown’s office collected upward of 20 Democratic signatures urging Obama to appoint Summers’s top rival, Federal Reserve Vice Chair Janet Yellen. The letter and incessant yammering from Senate Democrats infuriated Obama and transformed his preference for Summers from a notion to an imperative.

White House aides had been told (and Reid said so publicly) that if Obama nominated Summers, even pro-Yellen Democrats would vote to confirm. But that was on confirmation, not committee consideration. Senate Banking Committee Democrats refused to give up their prerogatives, and when Sen. Jon Tester, D-Mont., announced Friday that he would become the fourth committee Democrats to oppose Summers, the die was cast.

There are no “obstructionist” Republican fingerprints on the conspicuous and power-depleting defeats for Obama. He never sought a vote on Syria and therefore was not humiliated. The same is true for Summers. But Obama lost ground on both fronts and ultimately surrendered to political realities that, for the first time in his presidency, were determined by his own obdurate party.

This does not mean Obama will lose coming fights over the sequester, shutdown, or debt ceiling. But he is visibly weaker, and even his sense of victory in Syria is so unidimensional, it has no lasting sway in either Democratic cloakroom. More important, Democrats are no longer afraid to defy him or to disregard the will of their constituents—broadly defined in the case of Syria; activist and money-driving in the case of Summers. This, of course, indirectly announces the beginning of the 2016 presidential campaign and an intra-party struggle over the post-Obama Democratic matrix.

This shift—a tectonic one—will give Republicans new opportunities on the fiscal issues and in coming debates over immigration and implementation of Obamacare. Republicans have never known a world where Democratic defections were so unyielding and damaging.

This does not mean Republicans will find a way to exploit these fissures. The GOP’s current agony over delaying or defunding Obamacare and the related shambling incoherence around the sequester/shutdown/debt ceiling suggest not.

Republicans could easily surrender this opportunity. But it would be the second such act. We’ve witnessed the first.

NEXT STORY: The Other Half of ‘This Town’

X
This website uses cookies to enhance user experience and to analyze performance and traffic on our website. We also share information about your use of our site with our social media, advertising and analytics partners. Learn More / Do Not Sell My Personal Information
Accept Cookies
X
Cookie Preferences Cookie List

Do Not Sell My Personal Information

When you visit our website, we store cookies on your browser to collect information. The information collected might relate to you, your preferences or your device, and is mostly used to make the site work as you expect it to and to provide a more personalized web experience. However, you can choose not to allow certain types of cookies, which may impact your experience of the site and the services we are able to offer. Click on the different category headings to find out more and change our default settings according to your preference. You cannot opt-out of our First Party Strictly Necessary Cookies as they are deployed in order to ensure the proper functioning of our website (such as prompting the cookie banner and remembering your settings, to log into your account, to redirect you when you log out, etc.). For more information about the First and Third Party Cookies used please follow this link.

Allow All Cookies

Manage Consent Preferences

Strictly Necessary Cookies - Always Active

We do not allow you to opt-out of our certain cookies, as they are necessary to ensure the proper functioning of our website (such as prompting our cookie banner and remembering your privacy choices) and/or to monitor site performance. These cookies are not used in a way that constitutes a “sale” of your data under the CCPA. You can set your browser to block or alert you about these cookies, but some parts of the site will not work as intended if you do so. You can usually find these settings in the Options or Preferences menu of your browser. Visit www.allaboutcookies.org to learn more.

Sale of Personal Data, Targeting & Social Media Cookies

Under the California Consumer Privacy Act, you have the right to opt-out of the sale of your personal information to third parties. These cookies collect information for analytics and to personalize your experience with targeted ads. You may exercise your right to opt out of the sale of personal information by using this toggle switch. If you opt out we will not be able to offer you personalised ads and will not hand over your personal information to any third parties. Additionally, you may contact our legal department for further clarification about your rights as a California consumer by using this Exercise My Rights link

If you have enabled privacy controls on your browser (such as a plugin), we have to take that as a valid request to opt-out. Therefore we would not be able to track your activity through the web. This may affect our ability to personalize ads according to your preferences.

Targeting cookies may be set through our site by our advertising partners. They may be used by those companies to build a profile of your interests and show you relevant adverts on other sites. They do not store directly personal information, but are based on uniquely identifying your browser and internet device. If you do not allow these cookies, you will experience less targeted advertising.

Social media cookies are set by a range of social media services that we have added to the site to enable you to share our content with your friends and networks. They are capable of tracking your browser across other sites and building up a profile of your interests. This may impact the content and messages you see on other websites you visit. If you do not allow these cookies you may not be able to use or see these sharing tools.

If you want to opt out of all of our lead reports and lists, please submit a privacy request at our Do Not Sell page.

Save Settings
Cookie Preferences Cookie List

Cookie List

A cookie is a small piece of data (text file) that a website – when visited by a user – asks your browser to store on your device in order to remember information about you, such as your language preference or login information. Those cookies are set by us and called first-party cookies. We also use third-party cookies – which are cookies from a domain different than the domain of the website you are visiting – for our advertising and marketing efforts. More specifically, we use cookies and other tracking technologies for the following purposes:

Strictly Necessary Cookies

We do not allow you to opt-out of our certain cookies, as they are necessary to ensure the proper functioning of our website (such as prompting our cookie banner and remembering your privacy choices) and/or to monitor site performance. These cookies are not used in a way that constitutes a “sale” of your data under the CCPA. You can set your browser to block or alert you about these cookies, but some parts of the site will not work as intended if you do so. You can usually find these settings in the Options or Preferences menu of your browser. Visit www.allaboutcookies.org to learn more.

Functional Cookies

We do not allow you to opt-out of our certain cookies, as they are necessary to ensure the proper functioning of our website (such as prompting our cookie banner and remembering your privacy choices) and/or to monitor site performance. These cookies are not used in a way that constitutes a “sale” of your data under the CCPA. You can set your browser to block or alert you about these cookies, but some parts of the site will not work as intended if you do so. You can usually find these settings in the Options or Preferences menu of your browser. Visit www.allaboutcookies.org to learn more.

Performance Cookies

We do not allow you to opt-out of our certain cookies, as they are necessary to ensure the proper functioning of our website (such as prompting our cookie banner and remembering your privacy choices) and/or to monitor site performance. These cookies are not used in a way that constitutes a “sale” of your data under the CCPA. You can set your browser to block or alert you about these cookies, but some parts of the site will not work as intended if you do so. You can usually find these settings in the Options or Preferences menu of your browser. Visit www.allaboutcookies.org to learn more.

Sale of Personal Data

We also use cookies to personalize your experience on our websites, including by determining the most relevant content and advertisements to show you, and to monitor site traffic and performance, so that we may improve our websites and your experience. You may opt out of our use of such cookies (and the associated “sale” of your Personal Information) by using this toggle switch. You will still see some advertising, regardless of your selection. Because we do not track you across different devices, browsers and GEMG properties, your selection will take effect only on this browser, this device and this website.

Social Media Cookies

We also use cookies to personalize your experience on our websites, including by determining the most relevant content and advertisements to show you, and to monitor site traffic and performance, so that we may improve our websites and your experience. You may opt out of our use of such cookies (and the associated “sale” of your Personal Information) by using this toggle switch. You will still see some advertising, regardless of your selection. Because we do not track you across different devices, browsers and GEMG properties, your selection will take effect only on this browser, this device and this website.

Targeting Cookies

We also use cookies to personalize your experience on our websites, including by determining the most relevant content and advertisements to show you, and to monitor site traffic and performance, so that we may improve our websites and your experience. You may opt out of our use of such cookies (and the associated “sale” of your Personal Information) by using this toggle switch. You will still see some advertising, regardless of your selection. Because we do not track you across different devices, browsers and GEMG properties, your selection will take effect only on this browser, this device and this website.