President Obama's recent about-face in embracing the Super PAC created by former advisors in support of his reelection bid, Priorities USA, is the latest in a long line of actions by a man who supposedly transcended traditional politics. While he has always talked the talk of a progressive reformer, he has walked the walk of cut-throat Chicago politics, the world's second oldest profession, and not all that different from the first.
Obama began his career by kicking each of his opponents, the incumbent included, off the ballot. He was a back bencher in the Illinois Senate, dreaming of a run for Chicago mayor, and avoiding votes of controversial bills by conveniently voting "present." Obama was then conveniently crowned as the Democratic nominee for retiring U.S. Senator Peter Fitzgerald's seat, when opposition research sunk his top two opponents. His Republican opponent was forced to fall on his own sword, and the fall election became little more than a joke.
Obama's Senate cakewalk paved the path for a presidential run less than 200 days into his Capitol career. He effectively created a counter-narrative to his murky ties to the Chicago machine and its corrupt underworld. Co-chairing Blago's gubernatorial campaign, sharing lot lines with Tony Rezko, and "paling around" with the remnants of Weather Underground didn't equate with a new kind of politics that transcended the red-blue divide. Hope, change and the color purple replaced the "where's mine?" mentality of Chicago pols. A second memoir titled after the sermon of a pastor he would also later throw under the bus completed the transformation.
Simply stated, Barack Obama now belonged to the ages. But the poetry of the historic 2008 campaign yielded to the prose of governing, a task for which he was utterly ill-prepared. A pledge that the failed stimulus package would keep unemployment below 8% proved a painful lie. The so-called Economic Recovery Act represented pent-up liberal demands dating back to the Great Society, but the "crisis is a terrible thing to waste" mentality only grew our national debt and stalled the recovery. Obama has already borrowed more than the previous 43 presidents combined. His health care legislation was even more unpopular, and the Ponzi scheme it is premised upon lurks in the shadows of his presumptive second term.
This narrative leads us to his recent about-face on campaign finance, consistent with his 2008 flip-flop during the general election where he refused federal matching funds and effectively blew up the public finance system he supposedly championed. He of course scolded the Supreme Court in person during his 2010 State of the Union Address for the Citizens United decision which relaxed limitations on corporate spending during campaigns. This conduct was unbecoming of a president, and the conservative wing of the Court, the Chief Justice aside, now boycotts an important national ritual.
The midterm shellacking delivered to the President and has party proved the power of the new campaign finance regime, and the White House talked out of both sides of its mouth as it backed the Disclosure Act while also creating a Super PAC of its own. Last week we received word that the President's Cabinet would attend fundraisers and further propel a vehicle the President supposedly abhorred. Apparently the Billion Dollar Man needs a little help across the finish line, and isn't afraid to conveniently embrace a strange bedfellow.
The President would hereafter be wise to take note that his White House is made of glass, and the current occupant should be careful not to throw rocks.
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