Obama Reclaims Some Independence

Gerald Seib writes in The Wall Street Journal:

In the second year of Ronald Reagan's presidency, the magazine Conservative Digest devoted an entire edition to portraying him as a man who had turned his back on conservative principles.

In his private diary, Mr. Reagan noted that the magazine labeled him a "turncoat" and said conservative activist Richard Viguerie sent him a copy of the magazine along with a letter. "He tried to write in sorrow, not anger about my betrayal of the conservative cause," the president noted with a tinge of sarcasm. "He used crocodile tears for ink."

To put it mildly, President Reagan—now considered a hero on the right—survived that criticism from his own supporters. That lesson might hearten President Barack Obama today as he is lacerated by liberals of his own party even as he enjoys his first real set of bipartisan legislative successes during Congress's current lame-duck session.

President Reagan's apostasy then, as is Mr. Obama's now, was to compromise with the opposition party on taxes, among the most ideologically charged of subjects. Mr. Reagan saw little choice but to do a tax deal to win concessions on other important items. He conceded not so much to Democrats as to political reality—which is pretty much what Mr. Obama did in his deal with Republicans to extend tax cuts in return for more unemployment benefits and a new economic-stimulus bill by another name.

As those experiences show, it's nice for a president to have a dedicated base of ideological followers—and it's also troublesome for a president to have a dedicated base of ideological followers. Those followers often expect the president to be the leader of them, not of the country.

In that sense, the most important movement Mr. Obama has made since the midterm election hasn't been toward the ideological center, or toward Republicans. It has been to move toward his own independence—or, more precisely, back toward his own independence.

The Barack Obama elected in 2008 presented himself as a kind of singular force, neither party man nor ideological figure but—in the campaign cliche—a postpartisan leader. Yes, he was probably more instinctively liberal than, say, Bill Clinton, but ideology wasn't the point. Making Washington work was the point.

David Axelrod, the president's political counselor, says the Obama candidacy actually was predicated on this pledge to "get past hyperpartisanship," adding: "It was that more than any particular issue that animated public support."

The problem with the president's first two years in office was that he often came to be seen as a traditional, off-the rack Democrat, at once more liberal and more partisan than many voters assumed. He appeared less focused on finding common ground than in keeping his House Democratic caucus together and in winning that elusive 60th Senate vote always needed to break a filibuster.

Along the way, the least popular of national Democratic figures, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, frequently was seen as the driver of Democratic strategy, rather than the postpartisan president who so appealed to independent voters not so very long ago.

In some cases, Mr. Obama had little choice in this approach. A president with a congressional majority is expected to use it, and an opposition party with no political control in Congress has no responsibility and therefore little incentive to give ground.

Which is why losing control of the House in November may not have been the worst thing for Mr. Obama. Even before the new Congress was seated, the Capitol's dynamics changed in this month's lame-duck session. Unable to count on a House majority, Mr. Obama was no longer obliged to defer to that majority. Republicans, no longer able to avoid it, accepted responsibility for a deal on taxes.

It's particularly instructive how Mr. Obama's tactics in the recent tax debate differed so conspicuously from those he pursued in the long and politically troublesome health-care discussion. In the health debate, Mr. Obama never actually presented his own health plan, but, rather, waited for congressional Democrats to settle on one. Even as Republicans excoriated "Obama's health bill," there was no Obama health bill, only variations drawn by congressional Democrats. This time, there was an Obama tax bill.

Mr. Obama now will be accused of being more concerned with his own re-election than with the fate of his party. There also are questions about why, having given ground on taxes, he didn't get more assurances of Republican support on ratification of the new strategic arms agreement with Russia, which hangs by a thread in the Senate.

And Mr. Obama will need his liberal friends in the battles of the next two years, as they will need him. But for now he's won some victories and reclaimed a measure of his own independence.