Handwriting on the wall.

The era of big government is over.

--President Clinton,
State of the Union, 1.23.96


Bill Clinton’s political future looked bleak in the aftermath of the Newt Gingrich-led sweeping take-over of Congress—Republican for the first time since 1952—in the 1994 midterm elections. Clinton recognized how the country’s mood had changed, hired Dick Morris from Republican Senator Trent Lott’s campaign team, moved his policies to the center, and going into his 1996 re-election campaign, pronounced “big government” dead.

After 1994, Clinton “got it.”

Bush 43 accepted Donald Rumsfeld’s resignation one day after Republicans lost the 2006 midterm elections. Recall, Bush had won in 2000, enlarged his congressional majorities in 2002, and won re-election in 2004. 2006 was his first loss. Bush correctly read the Republican defeat as a rejection of the Bush-Rumsfeld effort to prevail in Iraq with an undersized force (there were other failings, but Iraq was the biggest).

Bush removed Rumsfeld, removed Rumsfeld’s Iraq commander, brought in Robert Gates as Defense Secretary and Gen. David Petraeus as Iraq commander, and adopted Petraeus’ ultimately-successful Iraq surge strategy. To Bush, the goal was to prevail in Iraq, the 2006 elections told him he had to do better, and Bush responded positively.

After 2006, Bush “got it.”

What will Obama now do, now that elections in Virginia, New Jersey, and Massachusetts—three states he carried a little over a year ago—have voted against candidates pledged to his agenda, candidates for whom Obama personally campaigned? He has less time to change course than either Clinton or Bush had after their defeats. The 2010 midterms are 9 months away; voters opinions will jell before that.

As ex-Clinton aide Lanny Davis said this morning to Obama and fellow Democrats:

liberals need to [be] willing to meet half-way with conservatives and Republicans even if that means only step-by-step reforms. . .will we listen? . . will we stop listening to the strident, purist base of our party who seem to prefer defeat to winning elections[?]

Does Obama “get it”?