Obama’s Big Bang explodes on Democrats
By GLENN THRUSH, Politico
Moderate Democrats, coping with the electoral fallout of President Barack Obama’s grand and ground-down legislative ambitions, have a message for their leaders: Stop supersizing us.
If the first year of Obama’s term was dominated by the so-called Big Bang push for enormous, politically risky initiatives — the stimulus, cap and trade and health care — Year Two is fast shaping up to be year of small ball, retrenchment and backlash.
“I’ve always maintained that I thought that they were doing too much, too fast,” said Rep. Mike McMahon (D-N.Y.), an endangered freshman who represents a Staten Island district long occupied by Republicans.
“Without question, the biggest complaint I’m hearing from constituents is that there were too many things being tackled all at once, and they didn’t have time to understand and digest all of them,” he added.
The Big Bang, made famous by Obama’s chief of staff, Rahm Emanuel, is giving way to a wary brand of incrementalism. It’s not the small-bore, Clintonian agenda of V-chips and school uniforms but an admission that expectations are diminished — not dashed — and a determination to attack the same huge problems in smaller, smarter ways.
