In print | Published April 23, 2009

Many have noted that President Obama’s campaign rhetoric about remaking America through vast quantities of Change has been tempered by the realities of office. No one could exactly blame the first black presidential nominee for waxing grandiose while breaking down racial barriers or addressing a crowd of eighty thousand, but the juxtaposition of candidate Obama and President Obama is at times a rather stark one.

Now, not only leftist blogs, but even the news sections of the New York Times, have noted the frugality with which he is spending his political capital.

Obama balked at trying to renew the assault weapons ban, an issue he once spoke passionately about, and succumbed to rural Democrats’ pressure to maintain bloated federal farm subsidies.

While loyalists envision the compromises as calculated moves that will ultimately deliver the crucial votes on health care reform bills or rewritten tax codes, even some Obama fans have viewed the gap between words and deeds less charitably. To this group, the new president has become somewhat disoriented in his desire to please, and will soon find that he cannot be both President of the United States and everyone’s darling.

Somewhere between these two views arises a third possibility that I think better reflects today’s curious political climate. With little to no real opposition from Republicans — he seems to skirmish more with legislators in his own party — Obama has filled the vacuum of political discourse with his own vacillation and moderation.

The thought sounds silly until one realizes the impact that vigorous opposition can have in provoking firm policy positions: in a fight, you know where you stand. When the opposition party offers resounding critiques and counter proposals to the administration’s agenda, both sides are forced to sharpen their plans and push harder for them. The Obama narrative needs its antagonist, a foil against which the president can define himself.

There is no question that Republicans face a dearth of creativity. The tax-day tea parties were the stalest of protests, and the fact that they constitute the most visible opposition must shame Newt Gingrich and would make William F. Buckley roll over in his grave (although he must be getting right dizzy from that by now). Cowering under Obama’s golden approval ratings, Republicans have simply not found traction with any line of attack, much less proposed serious alternatives.

And yet they retain the quiet ability to derail Democratic proposals when they want to. Although Republicans contribute relatively little to the national discussion, they can still vote nay, and the Democrats’ tantalizing fifty-nine Senatorial majority of course leaves them susceptible to filibusters. By contrast, Republican majorities of the first three Bush era Congresses were able to do much more with fewer seats.

So Obama, as if by ideological diffusion, has moderated himself. Part of his reticence comes from his political personality, the modest and measured politician who rejects strict ideology and loves building bridges, but it seems only logical that the lameness of the opposition has compounded this trait. The question, then, is when will the Republicans break out into vociferous opposition and allow Obama to exert equal and opposite pressure?

There are a few present conditions that may fall away sooner or later to yield a climate friendlier to Republicans.

The first is that honeymoons do not last forever. The novelty of the Obama presidency, the primacy and pomp of first foreign visits and the sheer exultation of not having Bush in office have all buoyed approval ratings at artificially high levels. The inevitable complications — minor scandals, foreign unrest, the limited efficacy of bailouts — will most likely drag Obama’s popularity down to a point where Republicans will at least feel comfortable enough to carry out significant offensives.

Second, the present focus on the economy forces Republicans to traverse unfriendly terrain. People don’t particularly trust them to handle recessions, and Obama did a good job of linking Reaganomics-style deregulation to our current problems. But either way is up for Republicans: if things don’t begin to improve over the course of the year, their critiques of Democratic solutions will gain legitimacy, and if Obama prevails on the economy, they will still get to shift the discussion to other topics that are politically more favorable to them.

If either of these conditions changes, Republicans will find more of a voice and a more receptive national audience. Then we will see whether Obama reacts more strongly to the opposition or if he in fact plans to govern from a centrist-liberal position throughout his first term.

Will is a first-year. You can reach him at wglovin1@swarthmore.edu.