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Obama's Strategy: Play Nice With Congress

By Kevin Spak, Newser Staff

Posted Jun 6, 2009 12:03 PM CDT

(Newser) – Barack Obama believes he has a big advantage when it comes to passing health care reform. Though he ran as an outsider, he’s “quietly but methodically assembled the most Congress-centric administration in modern history,” writes Matt Bai in the New York Times Magazine. Unlike Clinton, who rode in as an outsider and presented his plan as a fully-formed fait accompli, Obama’s team is trying to listen to, and corral, the dueling personalities on the Hill.

“The only nonnegotiable principle here is success. Everything else is negotiable,” says Rahm Emanuel. He, Obama, and Joe Biden, the administration’s most powerful members, all hail from Congress, and they've assembled a staff full of Hill insiders with useful friendships. “I’m a Senate guy,” Biden says. In his long career, he’s seen many presidents leave congressional backers in the lurch. “Not this guy,” he says, gesturing toward the Oval Office.

[Images (3)]

[Quotes (5)]

Sen. Arlen Specter of Pennsylvania, right, walks with his former Senate colleague and good friend, Vice President Joe Biden, April 29, 2009. (AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite)

Barack Obama, with, from left, Harry Reid of Nev., Rahm Emanuel and Joe Biden, walk on Capitol Hill, Monday, Jan. 5, 2009. (AP Photo/Gerald Herbert)

President Barack Obama stands with Vice President Joe Biden, left, as he speaks in the Rose Garden, May 12,2009. (AP Photo/Charles Dharapak)

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I’ve had presidents who say to me, ‘Hey, Joe, get out on that limb for me,’ And you look back, and the limb’s being sawed off. - Joe Biden

Baucus remarked to me offhandedly that Obama “didn’t really serve in the Senate,” which seems to be the prevailing sentiment among senators who saw him for only a brief time before he took off to run for president. - Matt Bai

How do I say this delicately? President Bush, he liked being president. You know, there are be-ers, and there are doers. And I think he liked being president, as opposed to doing. - Max Baucus, on the difference between Bush and Obama

Rahm is family to all of us. - Nancy Pelosi

That was a strategy. We didn’t kind of parallel-park into it. - Rahm Emanuel, on why the White House hired many aides with friends on the Hill

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COMMENTS

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Showing 3 of 3 comments

kokuaguy

Jun 7, 2009 5:52 AM CDT

The President was told by some advisors to let health care wait till the economy was fixed, but he refused and now has announced that he will wade into the process with town hall meetings and the full power of his "bully pulpit." Stay tuned.

freethemall

Jun 6, 2009 6:31 AM CDT

One can only hope that what may emerge from the process requiring all this compromising and effort to please, will be any where near as good as the "fiat accompli" that was presented by the Clinton administration, and rejected by the same interests that the Obama administration is attempting to placate.

JonmarkP

Jun 6, 2009 5:06 AM CDT

Screw Congress, the predatory insurance companies and the rapacious pharmaceutical industry. How about doing something for the American PEOPLE for a change, Mr. Obama?

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