obama works the hill as hard as he works the voters

There's a wealth of fascinating detail in Matt Bai's portrait of Obama's relationship with Congress. The most striking impression overall is the amount of care and attention this president takes to create and nurture an effective working relationship with the legislative branch. Past presidents (including Clinton and Bush Jnr.) have come a cropper after attempting to impose their will on lawmakers who take their responsibilities - and themselves - far too seriously to be bullied into supporting the White House's programme. A stubborn Congress can very quickly remind the president how little direct power the founding fathers awarded that office.

Rather than try to remake Washington anew, Obama has set out to create a relationship with Congress based on a level of mutual trust and respect. First and foremost, he's put together a White House team soaked in congressional experience. Biden - thirty years in the Senate - and Emanuel - a veteran of the House as well as the Clinton White House - play crucial roles in directing the charm offensive (or in Emanuel's case, just the offensive) with lawmakers. There's a great bit from Bai's interview with the latter in which Emanuel describes how the White House's doling out of goodies (trips to the White House cinema, seats at presidential dinners) is painstakingly planned and accounted for to ensure that it's used to maximum effect. Most importantly, Obama works his personal relationships with legislators, spending time with them individually, often meeting them with no aides present to establish a one-to-one intimacy.

It's quite an operation. And it's hard work. Here's Max Baucus, a senior Democratic senator who worked with George Bush to pass his tax cuts in 2001:

“How do I say this delicately?” he asked. “President Bush, he liked being president. You know, there are be-ers, and there are doers. And I think he liked being president, as opposed to doing.” Obama, on the other hand, strikes Baucus as a doer. “You’ve really got to work at it, rather than just enjoying the job,” he said.

During the election campaign Clinton and her team frequently threw out the charge that Obama was all words and no substance. But as I record in my book, the irony was that the Clintons found themselves comprehensively outplanned, out-thought and out-organised at every level. It's this ferocious attention to the detail of getting things done - combined with his more obvious charms - that makes Obama such a terrifyingly formidable politician.

As Bai concludes, the key question is whether Obama can deliver the big change he promised whilst working with the grain of these essentially conservative (with a small 'c') institutions. Healthcare reform is the first big test.

(Photo: Pete Souza/White House)

Comments

[peter]

Reminiscent of that other great Presidential achiever (and great socialist), LBJ, who got a large amount of legislation through Congress not only because his term followed JFK's assassination, but because he worked the phones to Congress.

[Marbury]

Ha. Yes, Obama is constantly compared to certain predecessors, usually Kennedy, FDR, Reagan...but LBJ, not so much. However that is exactly who springs to mind, as you say Peter, when you read Bai's account of how he works the Hill.

[Tom Grey]

Thanks for a great post about getting things done, like the huge Porkulus bill, and like much of his economic / big gov't first policies. I think Obama's economic strategy is fundamentally terrible, so it's frightening to seem him work so hard and successfully at getting it implemented -- 'a terrifying formidable politician'

The successful Bush Tax Cuts will be compared to the far less successful Obama Spending Orgy.