Why Democrats are the greatest danger to Obama’s agenda

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President Obama’s deadliest enemy is not Sarah Palin, GOP congressional obstructionists, the Republican National Committee, Fox News, tea party activists, and the pack of shrill right-wing radio talk jocks. Obama expects their relentless political mugging, and maybe even welcomes it. They are the perfect foil to keep public focus, heat and laughter on the GOP as politically inept, bankrupt, and impotent. Obama’s deadliest enemy is the enemy within, and they are other Democrats.

The warning signs were there during the health care reform bill wars. Obama had to waste more time, effort, and political currency cajoling, prodding, and arm twisting Senate and House Democrats to hold ranks on nearly every part of his reform plan. The Herculean effort eventually paid off, but just barely. Looking back, that was child’s play compared to the events of recent days. Senate Democrat hopeful Joe Sestak in Pennsylvania and Andrew Romanoff in Colorado claimed that the White House put the arm lock on them to bail out of their senate races for an administration favored and friendlier Democrat. The White House quickly denied Romanoff’s claim, but not Sestak’s.

Next, Alabama Congressman Arthur Davis fell flat in his bid to be the first black Democratic gubernatorial nominee in that state. Davis was not an Obama favorite. He opposed the health care reform bill, and put distance between his campaign and the administration. This was not a case of personal or political pique on either Davis or Obama’s part. Davis cast himself as a blue dog Democrat to have any chance of grabbing the governorship in Alabama. It didn’t work. But it was another sign that a Democrat, even a black Democrat, was willing to distance himself from Obama if deemed politically expedient.

Then there’s the BP spill. Not one top Democrat, and that includes the Congressional Black Caucus, has vigorously defended Obama against the withering criticism that he has not said and done enough to stop the spill, let alone, publicly applaud the massive effort the administration has made. No Democrat has rushed to the airwaves to tell the number one Obama BP spill basher, James Carville, to knock off his round the clock drumbeat attack on Obama for allegedly not taking charge in the Gulf.

Democrats read the polls and poll numbers show a majority of the public disapprove of Obama’s handling of the spill. But that’s only part of the White House’s sudden reversal of political fortunes. The hint that the president could face a political nightmare; a crucial mid-term election with a fractured party came during the brutal 2008 presidential primary war between Obama and Hillary Clinton.

The always thorny issue of race, gender, political scores, vendettas and hurts, tattered and frayed political alliances, at times ebbed to the surface. A lot of Democrats didn’t like Obama. The fear was that Democrats could self-destruct if not at or before the convention, then at or before the November final count. It took every ounce of political tact, diplomacy, and concessions to overcome the personal and party differences.

That might not have been enough if the September financial crumble, McCain’s disastrous and laughing-stock Palin VP pick, the public’s absolute disgust with GOP corruption, and the Bush administration bumbles had not intruded to turn what might have been a close general election race into a McCain rout. That now seems like light years ago. The symbolism of Obama standing alone at a portable podium on a Gulf Coast beach shoreline explaining to the press what the administration has done to try to fix the spill was stark. Not one top Democrat official stood there with him to back up and support the president’s actions.

Since Franklin Roosevelt, the strength of the Democratic Party has been that it’s a coalition of diverse and often wildly competing minorities, blue collar workers, women, gays, labor unions, environmentalists, farmers, and small to mid size business owners. The times the coalition cracked, and there have been wholesale desertions of one or more interest groups from it, the party has bombed in national elections.

A major test for Obama is to shore up the Democrat’s ranks. That means convincing them that administration backing for a candidate is still an asset and not a political liability, and that the administration is on point in its handling the BP spill, financial reform, and the economy. The White House must continue to hammer away that the GOP is just as politically vapid, contentious and divisive as ever. In the end, though, Democrats carping, or silent, at Obama’s policies and actions, are far worse than Republicans carping at them. When a president gets into real or perceived trouble he needs all the political friends he can get, and those friends better be in his party.