REAL POLITICS is intruding surprisingly fast on Barack Obama’s political honeymoon in the White House after a mere 16 days in power. Admitting to national television channels that he “screwed up” on several senior appointments who withdrew over not paying taxes, he acknowledged mistakes were made.
The loss of Tom Daschle, his nominee as health secretary, is an especially big blow. And Mr Obama promises to correct any impression that the “buy American” clauses inserted by congress in his economic stimulus package represent a protectionist impulse in his administration, following vigorous complaints by the European Union and several other major players in world trade politics.
Rarely has any US president come to power in such turbulent and rapidly changing times. That explains a lot of this early political baptism. Rarely, too, has an incoming president enjoyed such popular approval and goodwill. That makes the decision of the Republicans to vote against the stimulus package a combative act. In his desire to create a bipartisan bonding at the opening of his term Mr Obama has probably underestimated his opponents’ determination to distance themselves from his economic policy and may have undersold it to a confused public. He now shows more readiness to underline how new it is in denouncing huge year-end banking bonuses on Wall Street and ordering a cap of $500,000 on annual incomes of executives subject to public scrutiny. He makes the same point by saying he will change the direction of failed economic theories involving tax cuts and trickle-down economics.
Mr Obama certainly needs to see the stimulus package passed and implemented rapidly if he is to assert control over a rapidly deteriorating US economy. Many who voted for him need to see a difference made soon at their own local level rather than waiting for a medium-term improvement. In the same way, he needs to explain to an anxiously watching world that he does not support a beggar-thy-neighbour approach towards attracting international funding for US budget deficits or a protectionist policy favouring national products in his recovery package. His comments about avoiding a trade war are reassuring, as are several of his economic appointments; but such impressions travel fast, especially when there is undoubted support for just such policies in Congress and among sections of his own supporters.
Health reform is a major domestic priority for the new president and Mr Obama entrusted his policies disproportionately in having Mr Daschle in charge of them. Finding a credible successor now that Mr Daschle has withdrawn because of tax irregularities will be difficult and time-consuming. The setback is all the more damaging because this has become part of a pattern in his nominations, several others of which are also of old Washington hands rather than the cultural shift away from them he promised during the campaign.
Given his immense political capital and communications skills, Mr Obama should be able to find solutions to these problems by turning such opening screw-ups to his own advantage.