I liked Mark Schmitt’s comparison of Barack Obama’s electoral brilliance to the often less-than-brilliant strategery we’ve seen from the man as president, but this is a pretty odd thing to say:

But we should also use this opportunity to recognize that being good at campaigns and elections and being good at politics in office are, however unfortunately, very different things. That’s not a surprising insight—spend a little time around Congress, especially the Democratic caucus, and you’ll see dozens of people who have mastered the art of winning elections even in a hostile constituency, but can’t figure out how to do much more when they’re in office than avoid losing reelection. (Consider Senator Max Baucus, for example, who has won six statewide elections in conservative Montana, by an average of 25 points, and yet lives in such constant panic that he’ll lose the next that he’s accomplished almost nothing of significance.)

Oh, but he has. Sadly. Baucus helped shepherd the Bush Tax Cuts through Congress, which is bad enough. More than anyone else, he was responsible for the failed strategy of endless outreach to Republicans long after it was clear it wouldn’t work. Baucus’s career really exemplifies the post-rational embrace of bipartisanship, and the fact that he lent Obama his former Chief of Staff to be White House Deputy Chief of Staff ought to be at least mentioned in a discussion of Obama’s obsessiveness over getting broad bipartisan support when it wasn’t at the time even necessary.

The other thing I think needs to be mentioned here is just how poorly the Administration handled issues related to the financial crisis. I mean, in one sense, sure. The world’s economy hasn’t collapsed, so it was successful. But there was no consideration of social justice, no consideration of the fallout, no straightforward look at the politics of the thing, which would have been helpful. After all, without that albatross, perhaps later stimuli would have been politically possible? But on the TARP and financial reform, the President listened almost exclusively to Sec. Geithner, who not only didn’t understand the political ramifications of just giving money to the banks with no strings attached, but almost thought it was obscene to consider them in light of a possible global collapse. Ultimately passing a financial regulatory reform bill that does little to reform the financial sector, but does a lot to enhance the power of the Treasury Secretary, didn’t fix the political problems associated with the bailouts. By shutting out anyone not trusted by the financial establishment, Obama’s priorities reflected almost entirely what a combination of rich people and centrist policy wonks wanted to see (bailouts and then deficit politics for the former, modest stimulus and healthcare cost-cutting for the latter), and people who had different ideas were not listened to. It’s interesting to think of what the political situation would look like if the Administration had made housing a top priority, but that’s the point (and yeah, I know, the stimulus did help normal people, but not really in any way they’d be able to see themselves, in such a way that Democrats could use to connect with their policies). Not much else to say about this, but I do recommend reading the full article. He talks about a lot of the same things I do, only because it’s Mark Schmitt, it’s even better.