Obama’s Steep Climb Ahead

The bottom line, Democrats say, is that they’re in no hurry to get kicked out of power again. “I think we will have learned the lessons of ’93 and ’94, and we will have been chastened by our dozen years in the minority,” said House Majority Leader Steny H. Hoyer of Maryland. “We don’t want to return to the minority, and the way we will stay in the majority is by doing things that the American people believe are measured and responsible and effective.”

The Art o f Not Overreaching

The key to Obama’s success, then, will be to set realistic priorities while also establishing a good working relationship with congressional leaders who will have their own ideas on what Congress can accomplish.

The second part could be more of a challenge than one might expect for a president whose party controls Capitol Hill. He will start out with tremendous good will from Democratic leaders who are genuinely thrilled at his victory — and at the prospect of no longer butting heads with President Bush. But Obama will take office after having served just four years in the Senate — half of which he spent running for president — which means many lawmakers don’t know him well enough to have a good sense of how he’d work with Capitol Hill.

And his first hire for the new administration seems likely to cause problems down the road. Obama’s White House chief of staff will be Rahm Emanuel , a veteran of the Clinton White House who was elected to the House in 2002 and served as the Democratic Caucus chairman for the last two years. Emanuel, an Illinois colleague who helped engineer the Democrats’ takeover of the House in 2006, has won widespread respect as a congressional strategist and policy expert. But his abrasive manner and intense partisanship could rankle colleagues and undermine Obama’s promises to work cooperatively with both parties.

Still, some Democrats have been encouraged by the way Obama reached out to them during last month’s debate on the financial rescue bill, soliciting their views and assuring them that as president he would push for more relief for struggling homeowners and strong oversight of the bailout. “It was obvious to me that Sen. Obama will work with the Congress. He sees the Congress as not the enemy, but part of the working group that we need to provide solutions,” said Rep. Betty Sutton of Ohio, one of a group of first-term Democrats Obama consulted after he announced his support for the deal.

Obama also picked a respected Hill veteran to head the congressional relations operation for his transition team: Phil Schiliro, a former top aide to House Oversight and Government Reform Committee chairman Henry A. Waxman of California. Schiliro was the congressional liaison for Obama’s campaign as well, and his new role on the transition team makes him a likely candidate to head the congressional lobbying team for the Obama White House.

However, Obama will have to decide how much effort he will make with Republicans. He has said he wants to build a “working majority for change” that would include Republicans, but that could be difficult if enough GOP lawmakers believe they need to rebuild public support by fighting harder for conservative principles, not by handing victories to a Democratic president.

“He’s going to have to make a very fundamental choice in the beginning as to whether he’s going to make a real effort to change the atmosphere in Washington, and really work with Republicans and build bipartisan coalitions on issues, or whether he’s going to have to rely on Democrats to get his agenda passed,” said Leon Panetta, who was White House chief of staff under Clinton.

The prospects for Obama’s agenda also could depend on committee chairmen whose futures are uncertain right now. Sen. Edward M. Kennedy of Massachusetts, the chairman of the Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee and one of Obama’s strongest allies, has been talking with senators and interest groups about how to move quickly on a health care overhaul next year. But he’s still recovering from brain surgery, and it’s not clear how much he’ll be able to participate.

There is one wild card that could increase Obama’s odds of getting his agenda through Congress: the possibility that he will continue the technologically savvy mass mobilization techniques of his campaign, this time using them to lobby Congress to pass his most ambitious initiatives. As a former community organizer, Obama transferred the lessons from those days into his campaign, using blast e-mails, text messages and other techniques to mobilize supporters at key moments.

The Economy First

Meanwhile, the economic crisis has already forced Obama to reorder his agenda. Jump-starting the economy through another stimulus package, Obama and Democratic leaders agree, has to be the top priority before they can make any serious progress on his other initiatives such as expanding health care coverage, promoting energy independence and rewriting the No Child Left Behind education law. “The economy is first and foremost in everyone’s minds, there’s no question about that,” said House Majority Whip James E. Clyburn of South Carolina.

Obama’s Steep Climb Ahead

That could mean Congress would take up a large stimulus package as the first order of business next year, possibly even trying to clear it early enough for Obama to sign it into law as soon as he is sworn in, according to one scenario being discussed by Democrats.

“I want to see a stimulus package sooner rather than later,” Obama said at his first post-election press conference in Chicago Friday. If Congress can’t pass it during the lame-duck session this month, Obama said, “it will be the first thing I get done as president of the United States.”

Pelosi says she wants to talk Bush into supporting a large stimulus package that could be passed during the lame-duck session. But if he declines, she says Congress could simply try to clear a $61 billion measure that has already passed the House but stalled in the Senate — which includes funds to repair infrastructure, unemployment benefits, aid to states for Medicaid and emergency food assistance — and do more in a second package next year. In addition, Obama has ordered his transition team to come up with measures that could help the auto industry survive the financial crisis and begin working on fuel-efficient cars.

Obama says he may push for the stimulus package to include his middle-class tax cut proposal to reduce taxes for everyone earning less than $200,000 a year while raising them for those earning more than $250,000 a year. Such a move could provoke early opposition from Republicans, who depicted a similar tax increase on wealthy Americans in 1993 as a broad-based tax increase on everyone. But Republicans would have to decide how hard to fight it, given that McCain’s attacks on Obama for proposing to “spread the wealth” didn’t work with the voters.

After the stimulus and taxes, Obama has said his next priorities are, in order, his energy proposal, a health care overhaul, a broader rewrite of the tax code and education initiatives. He has also cited an overhaul of the financial regulatory system as a high priority, and Barney Frank of Massachusetts, chairman of the House Financial Services Committee, already plans to put that at the top of his agenda next year.

But all of those are major initiatives, and it’s not at all clear that Democrats can wait to produce results on those — especially with the constraints of the economic crisis and a fiscal 2009 deficit that could be as high as $1 trillion. Congress will also have to spend much of its time early next year finishing the nine appropriations bills undone this year, a calculated risk for Democrats who hoped for a president who would share their priorities.

Democrats are looking for smaller measures they can pass quickly at the beginning of the year, focusing on legislation that stalled last year because of Bush vetoes or Republican filibusters in the Senate. Reid has asked Democratic staff directors to submit lists of bills that could be taken up during the first half of next year, including reauthorizations of expiring programs and measures that came close to the 60 votes needed to overcome filibusters.

One likely candidate is a revival of the Democrats’ effort to expand the State Children’s Health Insurance Program to cover 10 million children. Bush vetoed the bill twice, and Democrats are optimistic that the legislation now has prospects for easy passage, along with the pressure that the program is scheduled to expire in March 2009.

Although it would be easier to simply expand the program than to tackle a full-blown health care overhaul early on, some House Democrats see it as a starting point that could lead to a broader overhaul when the economy becomes more stable. “I don’t think we should do this in isolation,” said Clyburn. “It should be the first step in getting to universal access to health care.”

Pelosi also cited a bill to expand federal funding of embryonic stem cell research, also vetoed by Bush, as a candidate for early action in the House. Other possibilities cited by Democrats include legislation to ease union organizing rules and to make it easier for women to sue over wage discrimination, two measures that stalled in this Congress.

Taking up measures such as the children’s health bill early on would allow Obama to “go for some of the low-hanging fruit” that’s popular with both parties, Panetta said. “For a new president, it’s very important to establish a record early on that you can get things done.” It’s no guarantee of long-term success, though. Clinton also started his presidency by signing long-stalled measures into law, such as the Family and Medical Leave Act. But his fortunes, and those of congressional Democrats, quickly unraveled once the easy victories were out of the way.

High Expectations

Moreover, liberal Democratic lawmakers aren’t likely to be satisfied if Obama and the leadership scale back their ambitions too far because of the economic crisis — particularly on universal health care, a longtime goal of the party, and rebuilding crumbling roads and bridges.

Obama’s Steep Climb Ahead

“I think people are hungry for change, and not just little change, but big change,” said Rep. Jim McGovern of Massachusetts, a member of the Congressional Progressive Caucus, a group of more than 70 liberal House Democrats. “The goal of universal health care needs to come sooner rather than later.”

Some liberal Democrats also believe Obama’s stated goal of ending the Iraq War will free enough federal funds to make their domestic goals achievable — a notion Obama encouraged on the campaign trail. “We’ve got to get back that $10 billion a month,” said Rep. Barbara Lee of California, who co-chairs the Progressive Caucus. “Once you switch the priorities, then health care is doable.”

But centrist Democrats, including those in the House Blue Dog Coalition, which will have at least 50 members next year, will try to put the brakes on too many new spending initiatives — and will expect Obama to side with them.

“One, I think he can show discipline, and two, I don’t think he’ll have any choice,” said Rep. Mike Ross of Arkansas, one of the leaders of the Blue Dogs. “We will have the votes to pass or stop legislation.”

From all signs, Obama has been reaching out more actively to the Democratic centrists than to the liberals. Progressive leaders such as Lee and Rep. Lynn Woolsey of California, the other Progressive Caucus co-chairwoman, said they haven’t had specific conversations with Obama yet about their priorities. But Ross and other Blue Dog leaders have, and Ross said Obama promised to meet with them during the transition and again after his inauguration. Obama also added language to his Senate floor speech last month, in which he urged support for the bailout package, that was specifically intended to win Blue Dog support, by signaling that he’d crack down on deficit spending once the financial crisis has passed.

“Runaway spending and record deficits are not how families run their budgets. It can’t be how Washington handles people’s tax dollars. So we’re going to have to return to the fiscal responsibility we had in the 1990s,” Obama said. “And the next White House and the next Congress is going to have to work together to make sure that we go through our budget, we get rid of programs that don’t work, that we make the ones that do work better and cost less.”

Obama also warned that as revenues dry in the economic turmoil, “some useful programs or policies might need to be delayed” and that “some might need to be stretched out over a longer period of time.”

Some lawmakers predict the clashes will start when Obama submits his first budget to Congress early next year. “I think that will be the first early test of how assertive Congress will be in asserting its own prerogatives,” said Democratic Rep. Artur Davis of Alabama, an Obama ally who has been mentioned as a possible candidate for attorney general.

“There certainly is a lot of pent-up demand, particularly on the House side, for increased spending on a variety of domestic initiatives,” Davis said. On the other hand, he said, many new House Democrats come from GOP-leaning districts, and “will be under a lot of pressure to prove their constituents that they won’t tolerate a deficit of a trillion dollars.”

As much as liberals want to pull troops out of Iraq sooner rather than later, however, Woolsey said she would cut Obama some slack if he decides to proceed slowly to ensure the safety of the troops. “We will give Sen.Obama some wiggle room there, because I think he will be a really good negotiator,” she said.

Learning From Clinton

In general, Democratic leaders and Clinton administration veterans boil down the lessons of 1993-94 to a few simple rules: Set a few priorities, and choose them wisely. Don’t waste time with needless controversies early on. Do the most ambitious things before members of Congress are actively running for re-election. Work in Republican ideas when they might genuinely help a bill’s chances for success.

The key to success is “making sure you’re really working on your priorities, knowing when to go incremental and knowing when you may have to go over Congress’ head” and take the case to the public, said Patrick J. Griffin, a former congressional lobbyist for the Clinton White House.

Obama’s Steep Climb Ahead

The story of why the Democrats lost control of Congress in 1994 is usually condensed to a few turning points, such as the defeat of the Clinton health care plan, the tax increase in the 1993 budget reconciliation package, and the assault weapons ban in the 1994 crime bill — all of which fall under the category of overreaching.

Those were all major factors, but veterans of that era also point to other mistakes, such as early distraction over a controversial proposal to allow gay people to serve in the military and poor White House legislative strategy, such as making the House take a tough vote on an energy tax and then allowing the Senate to duck the issue. They also cite the decision to wait until the second year to advance the health care overhaul, at a time when members already were running for re-election, and Democrats’ refusal to consider a more incremental health care strategy to accommodate Republican concerns.

“We should have been more collaborative; we probably should have gone earlier; and we should have been ready to go incremental,” Griffin said of the health care effort.

A good communications strategy would also help Obama and the Democrats do better this time, some Democratic leaders believe, arguing that the 1994 Democrats didn’t explain their goals well and thus let Republicans define their work for them.

“The health care plan was not sold very well,” said Hoyer, “and the American people got an education — a bad one, as it turned out — from Harry and Louise.” This was the middle-aged couple in TV ads funded by the health insurance industry, that attacked the plan as too complex and bureaucratic and helped seal its defeat in Congress. At the same time, Hoyer said, Democrats also let Republicans define the 1993 budget reconciliation act as a broad-based tax increase on all Americans, even though it only affected the wealthiest taxpayers and ultimately set the stage for years of balanced budgets.

The question is whether Democrats can easily adapt these lessons to the challenges ahead. Kennedy, for example, believes that “timing and jurisdictional lines” were crucial to the defeat of the 1994 health care effort, according to spokesman Anthony Coley. So he’s trying to get a new health care bill moving early next year, and he has talked with Senate Finance Committee Chairman Max Baucus of Montana and held a videoconference with members of the Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee to coordinate strategy.

Baucus, though, may have his own ideas. He says he will outline his health care overhaul plans this week and that his staff is already briefing Obama’s transition team on them.

Clearly, the ego clashes and differences of opinion that have plagued Democrats in the past haven’t gone away. And Obama will have to deal with them. But he has one trump card that might give him more persuasive power than most presidents have had on Capitol Hill, at least with his own party: Just by winning the presidency, and proving that the highest office in the land is no longer off limits to African-Americans, he already has captured the imagination of much of the country in a way that might be tough for many Democratic lawmakers to resist.

“The day I’m inaugurated, the country looks at itself differently. And don’t underestimate that power,” Obama said last year when he was still a long-shot presidential candidate.

That has already happened, starting on election night. It might not be enough to help Obama confront the challenges he’s sure to face in Congress or to guarantee that congressional Democrats will always get their act together. But it’s not a bad way to start.