I criticize Obama's failure to seize the center ground of U.S. politics. This was partly a choice, in my view -- reflecting the fact that (unlike Bill Clinton) he's a progressive and not a centrist by instinct. But it was partly also a reaction to the determination of the GOP in Congress to defeat his every initiative. Ezra Klein says the Republicans' give-no-quarter strategy worked; similarly, E.J. Dionne says Democrats were more willing to compromise than the GOP. I agree with both points: When I criticize Obama, it's not because I think the GOP is blameless, but rather for the reverse: Obama failed to exploit the opportunity that the Republicans' intransigence afforded him.
Yes, his opponents were reckless and unreasonable. Yes, they were moving abruptly to the right. Tactically speaking, that was Obama's chance. But to make the most of it, he had to plant his flag in the center the GOP was vacating. Instead, after Scott Brown, even after the midterms, he let Democrats in Congress get on with it and tacked left -- repeatedly casting his disagreement with the Republicans as a contest between his own (not especially popular) progressive vision and their militantly conservative vision, rather than between the commonsense pragmatism the country longs for and the other side's unreasoning extremism. That was the contrast he could and should have underscored. When I say he blew it, that's what I mean.
