EJ Dionne has a nice column today arguing that the worries about the ideological trends in Obama's appointments are overblown "because reality has moved left." In other words, the ideological distinctions are blurrier than most will admit.That's true. But I'd argue further: They're also less relevant than most will admit. There's been a lot of focus on the ideology of Obama's choices, but these aren't unidimensional decisions. Politics is not the simple application of ideology. The model many seem to have of Obama's decision-making process holds that he examines the pool of possible applicants, chooses the individual whose ideas conform most closely to his own, and names them to the position. As such, beliefs are the relevant qualification. But that doesn't seem to be the case. Rather, experience has come first in most of Obama's choices. What unites Daschle, Gates, Emanuel, Jones, Clinton, Summers, Geithner, Orszag, Rice, Volcker, Schiliro, and Biden is not ideology. It's relevant experience. That means that most of the choices come from either the Clinton administration or the upper echelons of the legislative leadership, as that's where the relevant experience lies. Thus the ideology of the choices reflects the beliefs of those establishments, and neither was notably liberal. This has led to a lot of talk about Obama's embrace of Clinton's people and policies, but the more relevant interpretation is that it's evidence of a rejection of Clinton's main mistakes. The traditional liberal critique of the Clinton administration is ideological: It was too centrist, too quick to compromise, too eager to triangulate. Obama's critique seems slightly different: It was too inexperienced, too ineffective. Before Clinton, the last successful Democratic administration had been Lyndon Johnson's, and fairly few of his staffers were still in the game (though it certainly would've been interesting if Clinton had tried making Jack Valenti chief of staff!). The team Clinton brought to the White House was almost singularly inexperienced. Clinton's chief of staff, Mack McLarty was a kindergarten buddy. He entrusted health care reform to his wife and a management consultant friend from Rhode Island. If Clinton had passed his health care plan, he wouldn't be remembered as a defensive incrementalist. Along with Johnson and FDR, He'd be one of the three great progressive presidents of the 20th Century. But Clinton entrusted health care to an inexperienced team, and their mistakes were entirely predictable. And it wasn't just health care. The early years of the administration were beset by failure, and in 1994, the Democrats lost 54 seats in the House of Representatives and eight in the Senate. The remaining years were defensive and full of compromise because you can't play offense when you don't have the votes.Put another way, imagine Obama's policies are 75% as liberal as some would want, but his administration is 100% effective at passing this agenda. Would that be better or worse than an administration that's fully liberal but has only a 40% success rate? Obama's assumption seems to be that that would be better -- an assumption that's probably yet truer now, in a period when divisions on the left are uncommonly slim. And so he's assembled the left-of-center team that's maximally experienced at "getting stuff done" rather than maximally liberal. That's not to say ideological distinctions are meaningless, or that Obama's choices don't reflect, at least in a general sense, his beliefs. But it is to say that the common thread of Obama's team is relevant experience, not beliefs, and that's fair evidence that Obama is more interested in efficacy than ideology.Related: The health care angle. EXPERIENCE FIRST.
EJ Dionne has a nice column today arguing that the worries about the ideological trends in Obama's appointments are overblown "because reality has moved left." In other words, the ideological distinctions are blurrier than most will admit.That's true. But I'd argue further: They're also less relevant than most will admit. There's been a lot of focus on the ideology of Obama's choices, but these aren't unidimensional decisions. Politics is not the simple application of ideology. The model many seem to have of Obama's decision-making process holds that he examines the pool of possible applicants, chooses the individual whose ideas conform most closely to his own, and names them to the position. As such, beliefs are the relevant qualification. But that doesn't seem to be the case. Rather, experience has come first in most of Obama's choices. What unites Daschle, Gates, Emanuel, Jones, Clinton, Summers, Geithner, Orszag, Rice, Volcker, Schiliro, and Biden is not ideology. It's relevant experience. That means that most of the choices come from either the Clinton administration or the upper echelons of the legislative leadership, as that's where the relevant experience lies. Thus the ideology of the choices reflects the beliefs of those establishments, and neither was notably liberal. This has led to a lot of talk about Obama's embrace of Clinton's people and policies, but the more relevant interpretation is that it's evidence of a rejection of Clinton's main mistakes. The traditional liberal critique of the Clinton administration is ideological: It was too centrist, too quick to compromise, too eager to triangulate. Obama's critique seems slightly different: It was too inexperienced, too ineffective. Before Clinton, the last successful Democratic administration had been Lyndon Johnson's, and fairly few of his staffers were still in the game (though it certainly would've been interesting if Clinton had tried making Jack Valenti chief of staff!). The team Clinton brought to the White House was almost singularly inexperienced. Clinton's chief of staff, Mack McLarty was a kindergarten buddy. He entrusted health care reform to his wife and a management consultant friend from Rhode Island. If Clinton had passed his health care plan, he wouldn't be remembered as a defensive incrementalist. Along with Johnson and FDR, He'd be one of the three great progressive presidents of the 20th Century. But Clinton entrusted health care to an inexperienced team, and their mistakes were entirely predictable. And it wasn't just health care. The early years of the administration were beset by failure, and in 1994, the Democrats lost 54 seats in the House of Representatives and eight in the Senate. The remaining years were defensive and full of compromise because you can't play offense when you don't have the votes.Put another way, imagine Obama's policies are 75% as liberal as some would want, but his administration is 100% effective at passing this agenda. Would that be better or worse than an administration that's fully liberal but has only a 40% success rate? Obama's assumption seems to be that that would be better -- an assumption that's probably yet truer now, in a period when divisions on the left are uncommonly slim. And so he's assembled the left-of-center team that's maximally experienced at "getting stuff done" rather than maximally liberal. That's not to say ideological distinctions are meaningless, or that Obama's choices don't reflect, at least in a general sense, his beliefs. But it is to say that the common thread of Obama's team is relevant experience, not beliefs, and that's fair evidence that Obama is more interested in efficacy than ideology.Related: The health care angle. 
