Is the Obama Cabinet too Conservative?

by Jonathan Singer, Tue Dec 23, 2008 at 09:20:05 AM EST

Chris Bowers runs the numbers and determines that the Obama cabinet is too conservative, or at the least two heavily skewed towards the centrist Democratic Leadership Council. Matthew Yglesias passes another way of looking at the numbers from within the Obama cabinet that offers a different perspective based on voting in Congress rather than caucus affiliation.

The evidence is pretty strong that the administration lies considerably to the right of the Democrats in the House, but is reasonably representative of Senate Democrats. But only Solis comes from the most liberal wing of the party. The center of the party is well represented in powerful positions by the president, vice-president, secretary of state, and WH chief of staff while the lower cabinet is filled with more moderate Democrats and a Republican.

I don't think there is an argument to be made that this is the most liberal cabinet, or at least the most liberal cabinet that Barack Obama could have selected. That said, it is a cabinet dedicated to getting things done, and as I have written before, President-elect Obama appears to be one who puts policy over process. So, to take one example, while Tom Daschle didn't have the most progressive voting record in the Senate -- his lifetime score, according to the metric cited by Yglesias, is slightly to the right of the Senate Democratic median (though that number is skewed given Daschle's need to shift to the right ahead of reelection bids in South Dakota, as well as some of the procedural votes he took as Majority Leader that appeared to have him voting the conservative position but in reality had him employing a tactic that would enable him to bring up subsequent votes on bills initially lacking sufficient support to move forward) -- he could be the strongest shepherd of universal healthcare legislation, a clearly progressive end. So by and large I am more or less content with the current make up of the Obama cabinet.

Tags: cabinet, Obama Administration (all tags)

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Chris Bowers argument: personnel determines policy

Thus, a self feeding loop that trumps what you just wrote.

I don't agree with him. I think situation is complicated because there is not one standard by which we can judge these people (but multiple as you start to describe). This multi variable criterias requires progressives to act as watch dogs for accountability rather than look for straight foward indicators. But, that's his view in a nutshell as far as I can tell.

by bruh3 2008-12-23 09:27AM | 0 recs

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I agree with this

In fact, my first thought was "too conservative for what?".

Chris has some implied "what" in mind, I'd be interested to know if I agree with it.

by Neef 2008-12-23 09:50AM | 0 recs

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Re: I agree with this

I tried for several weeks to get Chris and others to define what they meant by progressive here. What would be the policy bench marks.

First, I rarely got an answer. If I did it was vague. For example, I asked if Obama's fiscal stimulus package was progressive. Chris tentatively said yes, but then went off on some weird tangent about how the package should not be tax cuts. It was weird because clearly everyone is discussing Kensian strategies not monetary. So, it's response had nothing to do with the discussion.

Second, their response when I did get one was along the lines also of saying that you can have progressive policies, but what will happen to the actual regulations when you have conservatives controlling the departments and agencies implementing these policies.

Third, their response when I did get a response was to push the overton window. I would say is his universal healthcare plan (as it is shaping up to be compared to where he was in the campaign) not moving further left? The response was - well but its not single payer (Paul Rosenberg's response).

I finally just gave up. It's not that they are per se wrong in any of their strategies or criques. Obama's feet (as per the Warren debacle) needs to be held to the fire. But, to me, I think this is more a strategy to push Obama further and further left rather than a real discussion over whether this or that policy is actually a progressive policy. Indeed, Rosenberg over there wrote a diary essentially critiquing Nate Silver's assessement of Obama's plans that agrees with me. Silver's position was that the policies are left leaning on the whole, but many were popular. Rosenberg's critque was that it did not go far enough.

Thus, the frame here is not, in my opinion, generally about left versus conservative, but instead, moderate versus left. I am okay with that. I think its a good thing if progressives push as hard to the left as they can. I just think some of the tactics tend to confuse people.

There are issues, again like equal rights and equal dignity (ie don't call gays pedophille), of which the left is on point. There others- like with universal healthcare- where I am not sure there is an easy solution to the problem.

by bruh3 2008-12-23 10:23AM | 0 recs

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Thx for the summary

very clarifying.

It reminds me of a comment on this blog, where a poster said "My goal is as Progressive an Obama as possible. How does trusting him on anything further my agenda?"

The first problem is the tactic of using constant and subjective criticism to implement that pressure. A critique needs a bar, some standard that says "This is not good enough, because X. If X, then I would be satisfied." Minus that condition of satisfiability, criticism is just white noise.

The second problem, personally speaking, is that there are political positions to the left of me. I'm not sure I want the leftmost-possible position - I'd like that articulated, not assumed as a goal.

by Neef 2008-12-23 10:51AM | 0 recs

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Re: Thx for the summary

That's been essentially my critique of their tactic. that without a bar it is not anything that will produce results.

by bruh3 2008-12-23 01:25PM | 0 recs

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Re: I agree with this

The problem with comparing Cabinet picks to the Warren bruhaha is that the Cabinet picks are a cause whereas the Warren thing is an effect.

So Bowers, Stoller, etc. can't say "We don't like Larry Summers because he did X". All they can say is "This person does not have a progressive past and we fear for what they may do."

These Cabinet picks don't even have an email address yet, so they can't exactly be criticized for anything. Then again, if they do make some bad choices early on, it will be entirely natural to say "well, you should have seen the warning signs. This person has always been a centrist."

by the mollusk 2008-12-23 11:15AM | 0 recs

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Re: I agree with this

thats a fair point. I think they would argue you can look to their prior behavior (the cabinet picks) to determine their future behavior like you can with Warren.

this is not particularly accurate since the past behavior in many cases is not recent, but instead over a decade old. But that's what they have argued.

My position is that even larry summers position is not the position he held in 1990s. He is to the left of where he was then.

the problem with Warren is not that these views on gays, women,e etc are prior held views, but instead views he still holds. Even the comparision to Obams sitting down to talk to Iran is not the same because with Iran the assumption is that they would have met him mid way. Warren has done none of this. it's unilateral capitualation on civil rights. We aren't discussing civil unions versus marriage or even DADT repeal and how. It's gays are pedophilles and gays are committing incest. It's gays as not human. There is no polite way to have that kind of inheritly impolite coversation. this is why Obama is engaging in Orwellian language. He says we disagree with out being disagreeable, but Warren is being disagreeable by saying gays are inhuman. Where exactly is there a discussion in that?

Much as described in RIchard Cohen's op ed on the subject.

by bruh3 2008-12-23 01:31PM | 0 recs

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Re: Is the Obama Cabinet too Conservative?

The only change I would of done was put Jack Murtha as Defense Secretary or William Cohen, Tom Daschle as Chief of Staff, and Deval Patrick as Attorney General. Everything else should stay the same.

by olawakandi 2008-12-23 10:04AM | 0 recs

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Re: Is the Obama Cabinet too Conservative?

I am glad Jack Murtha was on my side in bashing the Iraq war(though it was belated on his part).

Having said that, I seriously do not want him as Sec of Defense. More pork for his district?

by Pravin 2008-12-24 05:57AM | 0 recs

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Re: Is the Obama Cabinet too Conservative?

I think you have touched upon the key issue. By many accounts, Gates has actually been excellent at cutting some of the pork out of the defense budget, the high-tech boondoggles that aren't going anywhere but serve to keep the defense contractors' pockets lined. Cutting the defense budget is politically difficult, but the last thing we should want to do is make matters even worse by putting a known porkaholic in that spot.

by Steve M 2008-12-24 07:00AM | 0 recs

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Re: Is the Obama Cabinet too Conservative?

There is no need to quote Chris Bowers or anyone else over at Open Left who are insistent in applying old metrics to new situations. Everything for them is this Progressive vs. Conservative model which is completely absurd when no one even agrees with what Progressive. What is completely faulty in his world view is that people are only one thing - Progressive or Conservative - when we know people are multi-dimensional and can be Progressive at times and Conservative at other times. A Cabinet member is by definition narrow in his scope unlike a Congressman. And then what do you do about people like Chu, Duncan, Donovan, Shinseki, Rice...

And this doesn't even get in to the fact that people change. Obama has articulated a completely clear vision. He mobilized thousands of people to believe we can accomplish things that they didn't use to think they could do. The people in his cabinet are not immune that the Change we can believe in is also the Change within ourselves.

by Piuma 2008-12-23 11:16AM | 0 recs

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Re: Is the Obama Cabinet too Conservative?

I think I agree with the basic crux of your argument, but you're taking it a little too far. Sure, people can change, but it's a lot harder than it looks.

I've been a sometimes critic of Obama's cabinet members, but I feel more comfortable lately mostly because it seems like they understand that the Wallstreet Bailout debacle was a) a debacle and b) not the end of the story. Plus, they really seem to get the whole synergy between green energy, infrastructure projects, repairing our image in the world, and combating some types of pollution.

by the mollusk 2008-12-23 11:43AM | 0 recs

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Re:

To state that Obama's cabinet is too conservative is simply untrue. It is getting a bit tedious arguing about this over at openleft, but the rallying cry and meme simply does not meet the smell test. Going by voting records you have Hillary Clinton and Richardson scoring to the left of Obama for progressive ideology. The same is true for Rahm Emmanuel. Those voting records are generally left-of-center. Then you have to look at the task the cabinet members are assigned for, as in the case of Daschle. Clearly, his focus on and strong support of universal health care promises that we may end up with a health care system actually better than the non-universal approach Obama favored during the primaries and GE. Finally, Gates is an Independent, not a registered Republican, and his appointment is supposedly for one year only.

Hardly conservative. I agree that overall it is more a mid-center position within the Democratic spectrum.

by devilrays 2008-12-23 11:51AM | 0 recs

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Cabinet members are assigned a specific task

so trying to compare them to members of Congress who vote on everything seems fruitless.

by Lolis 2008-12-23 12:07PM | 0 recs

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Re: Is the Obama Cabinet too Conservative?

It looks like a mainstream Democratic cabinet to me. We can complain about the level of liberal representation, but really, this is not a representative body where there's going to be a collective vote on everything. It's not like Hilda Solis gets to move our foreign policy to the left or Ken Salazar gets to move it to the right. Also, this business of treating the DLC as a scarlet letter was already old four years ago.

The other issue is that not everyone in politics is an ideologue, and it gets really hard to pigeonhole a non-ideological person into a specific spot on the left-right spectrum. You could have the exact same person serve in both the Clinton and Obama administrations, and provided they're not an ideologue, they might champion an entirely different set of solutions because the problems are different and the political climate permits a different response. So I don't go stressing over whether this Cabinet is only 83.6% as progressive as it could be.

by Steve M 2008-12-23 12:40PM | 0 recs

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Re: Is the Obama Cabinet too Conservative?

But, look, if Obama appointed Gale Norton to head the Interior, it wouldn't really matter if the rest of his picks were the front-pagers at Open Left. Gale Norton would still be a rightwing pick and there's a good chance that she would be awful on things like energy development and public lands.

I just make this (admittedly strained) point because I think it is instructive to look at the picks individually to get some idea of where they're coming from. Obama can't be everywhere at once - and we shouldn't want that anyhow - so the people in charge at these agencies will have a lot of latitude on how they do things like interpret rules and who they select for deputies etc.

by the mollusk 2008-12-23 01:42PM | 0 recs

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Re: Is the Obama Cabinet too Conservative?

I agree, but I'm not sure if you think we disagree. I think it makes absolute sense to look at each pick individually and say, hey I like this person, hey I don't like that one. What I don't see any point to is looking at the picks collectively and saying hey, as a group their average is not where I want it to be. It's meaningless.

And as you say, if Obama appointed 15 awesome progressives plus Gale Norton, the salient point would be that Gale Norton is an awful pick. Talking about where the Cabinet "averages out to" would miss the point.

by Steve M 2008-12-23 02:42PM | 0 recs

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Re: Is the Obama Cabinet too Conservative?

Couple of things:

1) That said, it is a cabinet dedicated to getting things done,...

Pure conjecture and projection. There is no available evidence that this is a true statement.

2) [Daschle] could be the strongest shepherd of universal healthcare legislation

Same as one, all conjecture and wishful thinking. Daschle's record is one of not getting things done and kowtowing to republicans.

by gak 2008-12-24 05:35AM | 0 recs

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Re: Is the Obama Cabinet too Conservative?

I am liberal thought I have quite a few libertarian tendencies. I disagree strongly with liberals on tax policy, education. I find common ground with libertarians on some issues.

Let's face it. The liberals has been proven right on some issues, it is only fair that they get adequate representation in the issues they have been on the right side of. That is a meritocracy. You do the right thing, you should get the rewards. If they can't get adequate representation now, when will they ever get fair treatment? Did you see the glee some senators aide seemed to take in bashing the left whenever a defeat to the "left" occurs? And these are democrats in DC who take joy in bashing the left.

I actually think the middle has been just as guilty of the Bush disaster by doing the worst thing - they just stood by . They have to be rewarded for this? At least some people on the right actually believed in whatever cockamamie fight they were fighting.

There is no magic formula. I would be opposed to a leftist oriented cabinet. I would remove the the term "left" out of the equation as that would imply a "counterpunch" crowd. Let us just say this cabinet is needs more progressives. When I mean progressives, I mean those who not only espouse liberal ideology, but those whose actions also looked for something other than the status quo which a lot of so called liberal politicans were guilty of in the last 8 years. I would like to see more of the "Feingold types" get more representation in the defense related positions.
Otherwise, you are not holding the culprits of the past 8 years accountable for their failure to act as checks on the Bushies and other incompetent governement officials.

Still this does not change the fact that Obama has done a better job than any other President in recent history in the transition period.

However, there are some great things Obama has done. HOW ABOUT THAT RESPECT FOR SCIENCE BY OBAMA.
Obama has brought back the respect for accomplished scientists with a bang.

by Pravin 2008-12-24 06:19AM | 0 recs