Believer: My Forty Years in Politics (65 page)

Even so, over the years, that same preternatural cool has increasingly worked against Obama in public opinion and commentary. Calm has too often been read as detachment; deliberativeness as uncertainty. Americans, sometimes, like it when their presidents want to punch someone in the face—or at least sound as if they do. In politics and diplomacy, the ultimate rational man bent on solving thorny problems is frequently destined to frustration and disappointment in these games where the other players too often measure their moves by much different yardsticks.

This is the way it is with all people, I’ve learned. A person’s strengths almost always have a flip side. Obama’s strengths are prodigious, but he’s not perfect or exempt from blame for some of the disappointments I hear expressed about him ever more frequently these days.

The day after the Affordable Care Act passed, a slightly hungover but very happy president walked into my office to reflect on the momentous events of the night before.

“Not used to martinis on work nights,” he said with a smile, as he flopped down on the couch across from my desk, still bearing the effects of the late-night celebration he hosted for the staff after the law was passed. “I honestly was more excited last night than I was the night I was elected. Elections are like winning the semifinals. They just give you the opportunity to make a difference. What we did last night? That’s what really matters.”

That attitude and approach is what I admire most about Obama, the thing that makes him stand apart. For him, politics and elections are only vehicles, not destinations. They give you the chance to serve. To Obama’s way of thinking, far worse than losing an election is squandering the opportunity to make the biggest possible difference once you get the chance to govern.

That’s what allowed him to say “damn the torpedoes” and dive fearlessly into health care reform, despite the obvious political risks. It is why he was able to make many other tough calls when the prevailing political wisdom would have had him punt and wait for another chance with the ball.

Yet there is the flip side to that courage and commitment.

Obama has limited patience or understanding for officeholders whose concerns are more parochial—which would include most of Congress and many world leaders. “What are they so afraid of?” he asked after addressing the Senate Democrats on health reform, though the answer seemed readily apparent: losing their jobs in the next election! He has aggravated more than one experienced politician by telling them why acting boldly not only was their duty but also served their political needs. Whether it’s John Boehner or Bibi Netanyahu, few practiced politicians appreciate being lectured on where their political self-interest lies. That hint of moral superiority and disdain for politicians who put elections first has hurt Obama as negotiator, and it’s why Biden, a politician’s politician, has often had better luck.

While Obama has been willing—if only grudgingly—to surrender to the demands of a campaign, with its focus on one central issue and its occasional need for theatricality, he refuses to be scripted in the critical arena of governance. Yet the truth is, governing requires some of the same discipline, and the ability to make progress often rests every bit as much on performance as policy.

During the 2012 campaign, we focused relentlessly on economic values and the plight of the middle class, which is one big reason we were able to survive a difficult election. For Obama, the case was entirely genuine. Given who he is and the life he’s led, no one I know believes more strongly in an America where everyone gets a chance, and where anyone who works hard can get ahead. More than once, he’s told me that he sees extreme economic polarization and the decades-long assault on economic mobility as the most pressing challenges of our time.

When the polls closed, however, Obama turned back to his entire punch list of priorities: climate change, immigration reform, a sharper focus on poverty and discrimination. As with health reform, he also sees these as issues of transcendent importance, moral imperatives, and he wasn’t going to leave office without doing as much as he possibly could to meet them—even if they didn’t rise to the top of the polls as immediate public concerns. The steady demands of an uncertain world, rather than the economic challenges of everyday Americans, also claimed a great deal of the president’s time on the public stage after the election. Putin’s aggressive territorial plays, and the convulsive politics of the Middle East, frustrated Obama’s vision of a more peaceful and cooperative world and forced him to reengage on the dusty battlefield of Iraq.

Obama would return to economic issues at times and continue to work on an array of solutions. Yet, without the persistent, passionate, and almost singular focus of the campaign, few Americans would identify the daunting economic issues they face as the president’s driving concern.

I deeply admire the president’s determination to defy the small, poll-driven politics of our day to tackle big things. However, the gap between the singular focus of the campaign and his varied and ambitious agenda afterward undoubtedly sapped some of his political strength, leaving Americans wondering if he was truly focused on their concerns. You can’t take politics entirely out of the process.

I don’t speak with the president as much anymore. With the campaigns over, our once-frequent conversations have slowed to a trickle. I miss them. And when I hear the thundering hooves of the Washington pundits and pols on a stampede to run him down, I feel for him. Hell, I bleed for him. The brutal midterm election of 2014 was another painful rebuke. Yet I know this:

There are people who are alive today because of the health coverage he made possible. There are soldiers home with their families instead of halfway across the world. There are hundreds of thousands of autoworkers on the assembly line who would have been idled but for him, and the overall economy is in better shape than it has been in years. There are folks who are getting improved deals from their banks and mortgage lenders thanks to new rules in place and a new cop on the beat. There are gay and lesbian Americans who are, for the first time, free to defend their country without having to lie about who they are. There are women who have greater legal recourse when they’re paid less than the man doing the exact same job alongside them. There are families who can afford to send their kids to college because there is more aid available.

Oh, and yes . . . just as he predicted in my conference room back in those wonderful, heady days when we first considered an audacious run for the presidency, millions of kids in our country today can dream bigger dreams because Barack Obama has blazed the trail for them.

Elections matter. He’s proven that.

Yes, I deeply regret that we couldn’t change the rancid politics of Washington. It’s a bitter irony that the election of a president on a mandate for that change touched off such a ferocious counterreaction that it wound up only exacerbating the problem. Obama couldn’t bridge that divide; now divided government seems to be our fate for the foreseeable future. Will Americans tolerate ever-escalating partisan warfare or will they demand something better?

For it’s not just the politicians who bear responsibility for the current climate, but a passive citizenry that, in its disgust, has walked away from politics altogether. When just 10 or 20 percent of eligible voters turn out for party primaries, leaving them to the most strident forces and self-interested oligarchs who bankroll campaigns, the 80 or 90 percent who stay away share some of the blame for the results.

I spend a lot of time with young people now, bright, public-spirited kids from across the political spectrum who give me hope for the future. They treat each other respectfully, even when they don’t agree. They care deeply about the community, the country, and the world around them. They want to have an impact, but they’re not sure that politics is a viable path on which to do that.

With the benefit of my years and what passes for wisdom, I remind them that whatever they may care about—be it national security, the environment, education, or human rights—government will play a leading role for good or bad. Its receptivity to new ideas and innovation will, to a large extent, be determined by decisions that are made in Washington, state capitols, and city halls.

Congress is going to meet with you or without you, I tell them. Don’t turn away in disgust and leave those decisions to someone else. You don’t like politics today? Grab the wheel of history and steer us to a better place. Run for office. Be a strategist or policy aide. Work for a government agency or a nonprofit. Become a thoughtful, probing journalist. Get in the arena. Help shape the world in which you’re going to live. At a minimum, be the engaged citizen a healthy democracy demands.

A lot has happened to our country and the world since I heard JFK’s call to a New Generation of Leadership. It’s noisier, messier, and thus harder today to make this case to the newest generation, but it has to be made because it has never been more important.

I can say this without reservation because, a half century later, I’m still a believer.

My father, Joseph Axelrod, as a boy in Bessarabia, today a part of Ukraine, circa 1918. A few years later, he and his family fled violent anti-Semitism and set sail for America.

They were all smiles here but there weren’t many laughs between my father and mother, Myril, whose marriage broke up when I was a kid.

Driven from the start, my mother found success, first as a journalist and later as a pioneer in the art of focus groups, plumbing the depths of public attitudes.

Twelve days before the 1960 election, John F. Kennedy spoke to a rally in Stuyvesant Town, the New York City housing development where I grew up. For me, it was a life-shaping event.

Already a political junkie at the age of nine, here I am at the 1965 inauguration of Lyndon B. Johnson with my mom and sister, Joan.