DANIEL GREENFIELD: THE DEMS VS. OBAMA
http://www.frontpagemag.com/2013/dgreenfield/the-democratic-party-vs-barack-obama/print/
When Obama decided to turn his campaign into a permanent Super PAC, he was stabbing the Democratic Party in the back. But he was doing it to them before they did it to him.
Organizing for America gave him an independent source of power and influence at the expense of the Democratic Party. Obama was carelessly draining money and energy out of his own party because whatever common interests he had with a political party, that for all its leftward swing was still too conservative for his taste, were about to be fractured during his second term.
The Democratic Party might have been satisfied if he had retained his 2008 halo in 2015. But that was never going to happen. No matter how much the media slobbers over a politician, the voting public, at least those parts of it that don’t have Hope posters and Obama holograms hanging on their walls, eventually needs a break and someone to blame.
Even vice presidents turn on their own presidents once they begin running for office. Gore tried running as the antithesis of Bill Clinton at a time when everyone had grown sick of him and his scandals. Gore was just a less successful and even more hypocritical version of Bill Clinton; but the Democratic Party tried to build him an image as a stiff and serious fellow who spent a lot of time deep in thought and might be awkward at parties; but wouldn’t cheat on the entire country.
The Democratic Party already has an Anti-Obama in waiting. Hillary claims to be experienced where Obama was inexperienced and savvier about the practical details of getting things done.
The “Ready for Hillary” image is as phony as Gore’s serious ethical look; but it’s also a shot across Obama’s bow telling him that he’s going under the bus before the next election. With OFA, Obama, whose allegiance has always been to the left, not to anything as reactionary as an American political party, decided to throw them under the bus first.
Obama’s biggest asset is still the media, but there’s a reason he never trusted his biggest fans, locked them up in closets, avoided conferences and even set up his own photographers.
He knew that the time would come when the media would turn on him. When the halo photos would make way for pictures that make him look old and tired. When the same columnists who were talking him up as the great hope of the nation would turn to writing pieces about how he failed and why Hillary is the right woman to take his place.
The media won’t step forward to destroy Obama. But they will pile on him once it helps Hillary.
The ObamaCare crisis killed any hope of an enduring truce with the Democratic Party. Obama has been politically weakened now and there’s blood in the water.
ObamaCare has shown that the Prince of Chicago is mortal and that like all politicians he will fall. He will not remain an undying JFK stepping forward into the pages of history. Instead he will be shoved aside to make way for a successor while the men and women who once lionized him shake their heads.
In time he will emerge again, the way that Carter and Clinton have, as an elder statesman. But not in 2016.
The split between the Democratic Party and its leftist hijackers was always bound to happen. The interests that aligned them were nakedly political. The left wanted to push its agenda through and the Democrats would have adopted any tactic to win. The Democratic Party is ready to move on; but the left isn’t done pushing through its agenda.
The collapse of ObamaCare may be a disaster for the Democratic Party in the short term; but it’s also an opportunity in the long term.
There’s not much else that Hillary Clinton can run on in 2016 except health care. Foreign policy interest among Americans is at an all time low which takes her time as Secretary of State off the table. That just leaves the economy; an unpredictable topic to build an election campaign around for a race years into the future.
The rebirth of HillaryCare demands the destruction of ObamaCare. For Hillary to be able to return to her core issue in 2016; she has to take away Obama’s biggest legislative achievement. The problems with ObamaCare may be a nuclear bomb for the Democrats in 2014; but a gift-wrapped package for Hillary in 2016.
If Obama were a team player, he might grit his teeth and take one for the team. But he isn’t. OFA was just the latest demonstration that he owes no allegiance to the Democratic Party and that the awkward marriage of Chicago community organizers, lefty billionaires and the turgid ranks of the Democratic Party swollen with living fossils like Harry Reid was bound to end sometime.
The big dream of Republican campaign professionals is to force the Democrats into the same circular firing squad that its own party keeps collapsing into. That hasn’t happened yet, but there are signs that a stampede may be building.
The Democrats swallowed their losses in 2010 instead of turning on ObamaCare because they still had the Senate and the White House. If they lose the Senate, suddenly having a lame duck in the White House and a program that everyone hates at the top of the news hour won’t seem like such a bargain.
Obama knows all this and doesn’t care. He’s counting on the left to have his back while sacrificing the political fortunes of the Democratic Party for the sake of the progressive agenda. The Democrats might have held on to Congress, but Obama traded their political successes for his own success; weakening the Democratic Party while building his own image and power.
Now the Democratic Party is beginning to bite back. If it’s going to get into shape for 2014 and 2016, it has to claw back donors from OFA and turn the ObamaCare problems into a HillaryCare opportunity. And that is going to mean an ugly political civil war with the left turning on the Democratic Party and the media caught in the middle.
Obama carved up the Democratic Party for political spare parts. Now the Democratic Party is about to return the favor.
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