The words flying around Washington last week were full-blown zingers, ugly, ear-searing missiles that seemed to torch what was left of civil debate: “sanctimonious,” “sellout,” “hostage takers,” “betrayal.”
They were aimed in all directions by President Barack Obama, and by those for and against his efforts to get tax and unemployment insurance legislation passed through a lame duck Congress.
So what do Obama’s Georgia supporters think of his performance under siege? Had he caved? Has the man once all about hope turned hopelessly against the party he heads and the ideology it embraces?
In a non-scientific survey last week of a handful of Georgia Obama supporters, Atlanta Journal-Constitution reporters heard mixed reviews -- but not many minced words.
“Bipartisan my foot,” said Juanita Abernathy, widow of late civil rights leader Ralph David Abernathy, when asked about Obama’s efforts to strike deals with Republicans over the past year and last week.
Abernathy literally jumped for joy the night Obama was elected, and she said she still supports him straight down the line. But she’s had enough of his efforts to make alliances and cut deals with Republicans to get legislation passed.
“I know you have to compromise a little here and give a little there,” said Abernathy. “But the Republicans have dug in their heels to try to make him a one-term president. Over the last two years he’s seen all the bipartisanship he’s going to see.”
Obama met a wall of frustration among Democrats as he unveiled a proposed deal with congressional Republicans that would require him to renege on a campaign promise to let tax breaks for top earners, enacted under President George W. Bush, expire as scheduled at the end of the year. The proposed deal would instead extend for two years the cuts for earners at all levels.
Many members of Obama’s party in Washington were depending on the additional revenue to help pay for expanded health care and other measures. They denounced the deal as a betrayal, even though it would also fulfill their goal of extending unemployment benefits for the long-term jobless and would temporarily cut payroll taxes — a measure economists said would provide additional economic stimulus.
Obama contended that the deal was the best Democrats could expect to get, staving off the prospect of a tax increase for all U.S. wage earners. But influential Democrats and other liberals denounced Obama’s efforts at bipartisanship, saying he has failed repeatedly to stand up to the GOP minority in Congress.
If supporters are concerned by Obama’s deal making, then they’ll only be more troubled in the months to come said Dorothy Yancy, president emeritus of Shaw University in Raleigh, N.C., and former political science professor at Georgia Tech.
“The needle is not moving in the direction he wants it to and he promised us he was going to move it,” said Yancy, of Atlanta. “That’s what people are holding his feet to the fire for — jobs. I like him but this business of unemployment his hanging over his head like a big cloud. It’s like a thunderstorm up there.”
For better of worse, Yancy said, compromise is Obama’s only way forward if he wants a presidential legacy of accomplishment.
“We have to face it, ‘the party of no’ has come to power,” Yancy said. “What he gets passed won’t be what he wanted, but it will have some of what he promised in it.”
Outgoing Georgia Democratic Labor Commissioner Michael Thurmond campaigned for Obama in 2008 when he carried 47 percent of the vote in Georgia, second to Republican candidate John McCain.
Thurmond watched every twist and turn of the week’s events in Washington. Despite it all, Thurmond said he’s still a big Obama backer, maybe more now than ever.
“We needed to pivot from government sector stimulation of the economy to private sector stimulation,” Thurmond said. “I would have preferred he do that sooner rather than later. But he’s doing the right thing. He’s not abandoning the Democratic Party. He’s repositioning it.”
Obama supporter and attorney Mike Williams is exasperated with Democratic Party politics that have boiled over since the mid-term elections but says Obama is responsible for some of his own trouble.
“It is an incredible statement about America — and presumably the candidate — for an African-American Democrat to win the Iowa caucus and then go on to win the presidency, gaining the support of moderates, independents and the young,” Williams said. “I hoped he would have used that type of victory to transcend traditional party politics. He has not done that. He is has been too partisan to the detriment of the country and his presidency, and I say that as a democrat.”
That sentiment echoed in Sandy Springs where unemployed Obama supporter Anne Melanson said the shining hope Obama once represented has lost considerable luminescence over the last couple of years.
“When I voted for Obama, I was enthusiastic for change,” said Melanson. “I would say I am not as enthusiastic as I was, but not completely disappointed. I guess his star has dimmed a little, but I think we’ll have to wait and see.”
State Rep. Margaret Kaiser, D-Atlanta, who served on Obama’s platform committee, still supports him, and can relate to what’s he’s having to deal with in a Washington where, come January, his party will be outnumbered in the House.
Democrats in Washington, soon will have to know when and where to pick a fight, said Kaiser. Last week was the right time for Obama to pick a fight, she said — it just happened to be with his own party.
“I don’t think he has had any other choice but to do what he did,” said Kaiser. “This is absolutely not about abandoning faith. This is about being realistic, about being bipartisan, to help your district, your state, your country.”
Democratic 4th District Congressman Hank Johnson said Friday he supports the president and believes Obama is under pressure to get some of his agenda passed during the lame duck session that is expected to end next week. “This is the time to get something done,” said Johnson. “It ain’t going to happen otherwise.”
Staff Writer Helena Oliviero contributed to this article.
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