Democratic Leadership

http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0109/17714.html

I completely agree with this account.  In the long run, I think that Obama has a great strategy and vision of what he wants to do with the country and the way he plans to implement that vision.  However, this agenda was formulated completely independently of the current crisis.  How well he can cope with the problem at hand is worthy of skepticism.

Furthermore, the article's point about consensus and accountability are even more important.  I worked on the campaign because I agreed with Obama's political philosophy and because I was impressed by his temperament.  As much as that drove me in the campaign, it is cause for skepticism of the Democrats at large.  Much of the Democratic establishment have temperaments of Clinton-era Democrats, when the government was temporarily shut down because politicians had a collective temper tantrum, and our politicians were sidetracked by scandals driven by personal vendettas.  The examples are endless, but figures such as Aunty Diane and Henry Waxman come to mind.  

On a political philosophy front, Obama has endlessly been accused of empty rhetoric, mostly because he spent the time to outline his political philosophy.  The fact that this was considered such a vice illustrates how novel the idea of a debate on political philosophy is within our current establishment.  Democrats have long been the party with the right answers and no reasons for defending those answers.  Obama broke from this trend, but there is little reason to doubt that the rest of the party still aimlessly supports a disparate platform under the title "liberal."

Remember, congress has their own leadership, and they ultimately write the laws.  More dangerous than the fact that Obama won't have a Republican congress to contend with is the fact that the Democratic congress won't have a Republican president threatening veto.  Combine this with the analysis of Obama's weak record of confronting his party and we have a Democratic congress run amok.

Taken together, Politico's reasons for caution are greater than the sum of their parts.  Obama's populist vision has been sidetracked by a crisis, which he must rely on others to navigate.  However, Politico's skepticism itemizes the reasons why this trust in party veterans is cause for concern.  As the refreshing visionary of the party, Obama may be Lassie when we need a sheep dog.