President Barack Obama admitted on Wednesday he had neglected his direct connection to the American people, after a stunning Republican election win shifted the balance of power in Washington.
Obama’s aides, meanwhile, insisted his historic health reform drive was not dead, after Massachusetts voters handed late liberal icon Edward Kennedy’s former Senate seat to Republicans, in a stunning rebuke of Democrats.
There were also suggestions that Obama may be contemplating a stripped-down version of the mammoth health Bill, to salvage his bid for an historic achievement that has defied a string of previous presidents.
As he absorbed the stinging blow from voters, which sent shockwaves through the Democratic Party in a key election year, Obama admitted that his need to tackle a flurry of crises had weakened his bond with US voters.
“If there’s one thing that I regret this year is that we were so busy just getting stuff done and dealing with the immediate crises that were in front of us that I think we lost some of that sense of speaking directly to the American people,” Obama told ABC News.
The president said that he had assumed that if he concentrated on making good policy decisions, voters would understand them, but instead they had become consumed by a “feeling of remoteness and detachment” from Washington.
“That, I do think, is a mistake of mine,” Obama said, diagnosing a mood of anger and frustration in the US over the grinding and lingering impact of the worst recession for decades.
Obama’s admission was a far cry from the euphoria of his inauguration one year ago, which drew a crowd of several million people, and the nationwide feeling of hope and change sparked by his 2008 election victory.
The special election upset in liberal Massachusetts on Tuesday was seen by some observers, and Republicans, as a referendum on Obama’s first year and his embattled bid to completely overhaul the US health system.
That task became suddenly much harder when the Republicans snatched away the Democrats 60th Senate seat, allowing them to mount delaying tactics to slow and thwart White House Bills.
In his interview, Obama cautioned that Democrats should not try to “jam” the legislation through in the short period before Republican senator-elect Scott Brown can get to Washington.
“I would advise that we try to move quickly to coalesce around those elements of the package that people agree on,” Obama said.
The White House later said Obama was not advocating “narrow” reform but his remarks raised a flurry of speculation in Congress about the future shape of the Bill.
The president cited two crucial principles — a brake of fast-rising healthcare costs and restrictions on the power of insurance firms to dump people when they get sick or to refuse new patients who are already ill.
Dismaying first anniversary
Republicans, however, styled their triumph as a clear sign that Americans wanted Obama to ditch his reform drive completely. The result also heated up the political temperature ahead of crucial congressional polls in November.
“This was in many ways a national referendum principally on the major issue we’re wrestling with here in the Congress,” said Senate Republican minority leader Mitch McConnell.
McConnell also saw the election as vindication for his party’s strategy of branding Obama as a traditional big-spending liberal who wants to expand the size of government.
“The American people have made it abundantly clear that they’re more interested in shrinking unemployment than expanding government.
“They’re tired of bailouts. They’re tired of the government spending more than ever at a time when most people are spending less. And they don’t want the government taking over healthcare.”
Several leading Democrats, including Pennsylvania Senator Bob Casey, said it was time for a “breath” to consider options on healthcare.
The Massachusetts result made for a dismaying first anniversary of Obama’s first year in office.
It followed two stinging Democratic defeats in gubernatorial races in New Jersey and Virginia where Obama won big in 2008, and comes as his personal approval ratings dip below 50%.
The shifting congressional mathematics cast doubt over whether Obama will be able to enact big-ticket items like global-warming legislation, financial regulatory reform and immigration reform this year. — AFP