Instead, the White House is planning to focus on narrower efforts to pump up the economy, rewrite financial regulation, amend campaign finance laws to limit corporate donations and impose new fees on banks to repay federal bailout funds.

The White House is careful to say that it remains strongly committed to overhauling immigration and limiting greenhouse gases. But so far, the Obama administration has shown little appetite to engage aggressively in crafting legislation and rounding up votes on Capitol Hill for what would probably be deeply partisan fights over those issues as congressional elections near.

Significantly, regardless of the specific issue, Obama so far is following the same playbook he used in the early phase of the healthcare fight: deferring to Congress and giving lawmakers wide latitude in writing legislation and plotting strategy.

“Our approach is to lay out the parameters and to challenge the Congress” to pass bills, said White House senior advisor David Axelrod, adding: “There’s this myth that if the president arrives on the steps of the Capitol with stone tablets, people will bow and vote accordingly. I think that’s a naive view of how laws are made.”

The prospect that the administration will not go all in this year on its signature initiatives alarms several Democratic interest groups. They say a firmer White House hand is needed for the bills to have any chance of passing before November’s midterm elections.

Frank Sharry, executive director of America’s Voice, which advocates for a new immigration system, said that with healthcare, “the mistake [the White House] made was to wait too long and leave Congress in charge of the process for too long. And quite frankly, they’re on the verge of making a similar mistake with immigration reform.”

Similarly, environmentalists want to see action in the Senate on the energy bill that would establish a controversial emissions cap-and-trade system to reduce greenhouse gases.

Stanley Greenberg, a Democratic pollster, said the White House and Democratic congressional leadership “should not . . . move anything that shows gridlock or Democratic division.”

Nevertheless, he said, “I would move on energy. If it’s a bipartisan bill and you bring in nuclear and offshore [drilling], the Republicans are not going to be able to vote against an energy bill that has that.”

The president “has implemented a lot of Republican ideas and goals into broad energy policy,” said Joshua Freed, clean-energy policy director for the centrist Democratic think tank Third Way. “It’s even bigger than saying, ‘I want this in the bill.’ It’s acting.”

With the midterm elections approaching, however, Obama’s hope may be to demonstrate a level of support just high enough to placate immigration and environmental activists. That way, he need not make the all-out commitment that might further erode his approval ratings just when reelection-minded Democrats in Congress need him to be popular.

“Either one of these two items would evoke a long, divisive debate in the Congress,” said William Galston, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution and a former Clinton administration domestic policy aide. “There’s also the question of how much more division and bitter argument the American people are in the mood for right now.

“My own judgment is that people have had about as much partisanship as they can bear and would not welcome a plunge into a new, emotionally charged issue.”

The downside to such an approach is the likely disappointment among blocs of strong Democratic voters.

“At the end of the day, he’ll be judged by whether he delivers change and fights to deliver change,” Sharry said. Blaming the lack of bipartisan cooperation “won’t work well with Latino immigrants. They’ll think Obama promised them and didn’t do enough.”

jtankersley@latimes.com

peter.nicholas@latimes.com

Copyright © 2010, The Los Angeles Times

Technorati Tags: another, battle, Obama, partisan, soon

I think both Republicans and Democrats are doing themselves a disservice. The Republicans have the wrong idea, and many of the Democrats have an agenda.

We’re probably going to become a dictatorship soon. I’m sick of all the garbage that goes on in politics, and I’m sure I’m not the only one. I think the vast majority of the general public are ignoramuses that have no business commenting on politics.

What I’m hearing from Republicans that support Rush is pure lunacy and not beneficial to America. Some Democrats are just crazy too, and totally anti-business. I don’t think either party supports my largely centrist views.

I don’t like what I’m seeing. I’m wondering if we’re currently observing the end of a democracy, probably not much different from how it ended the first time.

I think a lot of people have these impressions of what a dictatorship and socialist state are like, but have the wrong idea. What I’m trying to say is, they’re dismissing aspects of those political systems, imagining them at their most extreme, and yet embracing another system at its most extreme too! None of it, ironically, is productive!

This is when I think you will start to see the elites of this country start to wonder whether or not the masses should have any voice in the political process.

Do the political experiment, and I’m sure this is the result that will occur every time. It’s why democracy has been relatively rare throughout world history; when it exists, it’s a question of how long it can be tolerated before it’s eliminated, its demise is simply inevitable every time.

Technorati Tags: AMERICA, become, Bold, dictatorship, Question, soon

One view says that it’s obvious that a majority of Americans are rejecting the “progressive” agenda and that Democrats should work more towards the middle so as not to lose independent voters in 2010. (A CRITICAL component in Obama’s win)

The other view says that not pushing for as much legislation as possible would anger the “base” and hurt Democrats significantly in 2010. (Similar to 1994 when the base didn’t show up)

What do you think?? (Obama seems to be favoring the 2nd)

http://www.politico.com/news/stories/1209/31053_Page2.html

William Daley, commerce secretary in the Clinton administration, brother of the Chicago mayor and long an influential voice for moderation in the party, went public last week with what is on the minds of other centrist Democrats in an opinion piece in the Washington Post.

Sounding the alarm after the party-switch of Rep. Parker Griffith of Alabama, Daley laid out a stark choice. “Either we plot a more moderate, centrist course or risk electoral disaster not just in the upcoming midterms but in many elections to come.”

Democrats ought to “acknowledge that the agenda of the party’s most liberal supporters has not won the support of a majority of Americans — and, based on that recognition, to steer a more moderate course on the key issues of the day, from health care to the economy to the environment to Afghanistan,” Daley argued………….What lifted Democrats last year among their base, independents and those previously disengaged from politics, Rosenthal argued, were Obama’s promises: expanding health care, a new approach to energy, spending more on education and especially a promise to revive the economy that would help those of modest means.

“He gave a worried and anxious America hope and a plan that called for restoring America’s middle class,” wrote Rosenthal.

Obama coalition voters still want “change,” according to Rosenthal, who writes that the way to boost Democratic fortunes is to deliver — not to follow the path of moderation that the party so often trod in the ’90s.

“They don’t want their elected officials to go back to the days of legislating ‘small things’ (school uniforms come to mind),” Rosenthal argued. “To win them back — to engage them at all in 2010 — Democrats need to pass real health care reform, then move aggressively on a jobs, jobs, jobs (it cannot be said enough) program with strong workers’ rights.”

Technorati Tags: better, current, Democratic, environment, part, Party, political, understanding

Suggestions –

Responsibilitarian — Do the right thing

Legalitarian — If you pass good laws, we will obey them

Equalitarian or Egalitarian — I am as good as you are

Capitalist — Money rules

Centrist — Walk the narrow line

Triangulate –

Hedonist –

Dog-eat-dogmatarian –

Me-ism –

Deism –

Populist — Of the people, by the people and for the people

Isolationist — Leave me alone and get out of my way

Discussionist — Let’s talk it over

Technorati Tags: American, created, name, Party, political, shared, slogan, views

Technorati Tags: leftliberal, meaning, rightconservative, What's

My example:
Liberal/Centrist. (non radical liberal)
Things I don’t agree with most liberal on:
Even though I think there should be qualifications and certain limits to gun ownership, I still believe that Americans should have the right to bear arms. The few restrictions i believe in are very loose, only limiting guns to people who aren’t violent ex-cons, people under the age of 18, and the severely mentally retarded.

I’m not a big advocate of the welfare system. I feel far too many people take advantage of it and use it merely as a reimbursment for their laziness — which is curable.

Not a big fan of Affirmative action. Most liberals see it as a counter to social racism, whereas I see it AS racism. Nobody should be hired or turned down according to their skin color… only according to whether or not they are qualified for the job.

Socialism (not what right-wingers think it is, but what it actually is). I believe in a mixed economy. Socialization only works for very few programs. I think as far as medical coverage, it should be an option for the individual to decide. Mixed. This way people who oppose can pay for premium private insurance, and those who opt in, get socialized goverment coverage at a low cost. This opinion of mine is very unpopular because conservatives disagree with it as well, despite it splitting the issue right down the middle. lol

Technorati Tags: Disagree, Party, political

What say you?

Technorati Tags: American, broken, political, system

Do you think this has an impact on how people form their political beliefs?

For example, left brained people may tend to be more conservative, while right brained people might be more liberal, and people that use both sides of the brain equally may be more centrist.

I took an online quiz to tell me which side is dominant for me, and I came out as “whole brained” no particualr dominant side. And my political beliefs would be considered right leaning centrist. Anyway, your thoughts?
The link is on my other PC, which died last night.
I couldn’t find the site that I originally took the test, but I found a few others for you to check out.

http://www.blogthings.com/areyourightorleftbrainedquiz/

http://www.intelliscript.net/test_area/questionnaire/questionnaire.cgi?q=right_brain_left_brain_2

http://homeworktips.about.com/library/brainquiz/bl_leftrightbrain_quiz.htm

Technorati Tags: About, brain, dominant, political, Question, side, views

The public message is that a public option would be good, but not essential; however, the historical rhetoric of Barack Obama and the behind the scene manueverings give a very different picture. That’s why it’s called politics. And, it doesn’t matter which party is in power, it’s the same game for all politicians: they want what they want and they want to be reelected. 

Despite months of seeming ambivalence about creating a government health insurance plan, the Obama White House has launched an intensifying behind-the-scenes campaign to get divided Senate Democrats to take up some version of the idea in the weeks just ahead. And INTENSE is the operational word.

Political arm-bending can be torture!

Obama has long advocated a so-called public option, while at the same time repeatedly expressing openness to other ways to offer consumers a potentially more affordable alternative to health plans sold by private insurers. Senior administration officials are holding private meetings almost daily at the Capitol with senior Democratic staff to discuss ways to include a version of the public plan in the health care bill that Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., plans to bring to the Senate floor later this month, according to senior Democratic congressional aides.

The Finance Committee is expected to approve its bill this week, after receiving cost estimates from the Congressional Budget Office. And while the panel made numerous changes over seven days of public debate, the core components of its more centrist proposal, developed in months of bipartisan talks, are still intact.

The White House initiative, unfolding largely out of public view, follows months in which the president appeared to defer to senior lawmakers on Capitol Hill as they labored to put together gargantuan health care bills. It also marks a critical test of Obama’s command of the inside game in Washington in which deals are struck behind closed doors and wavering lawmakers are cajoled and pressured into supporting major legislation.

The pressure is on- Chicago style!

Technorati Tags: Care, Health, Obama, Option, Public

Technorati Tags: both, built, conservative, ideology, liberal, Party, political, rejection, solely