Evan Thomas lowers expectations of an Obama presidency:
But I am sure that if you took a poll and asked them whether Obama could really change Washington-could really close loopholes on energy companies and raise taxes on the rich, reform the health-care system and significantly scale back the ill effects of global warming, substantially improve public schools or get us out of Iraq anytime soon–the answer would have been no, probably not. These “realists” might even want such changes, or most of them. But they know how Washington works. They might argue that Obama will need insiders if he really wants to change Washington (think of FDR hiring stock speculator Joseph Kennedy to be the first head of the Securities and Exchange Commission). But at the same time they have a strong appreciation for congressional gridlock and the countervailing powers of influence peddlers. They know that money–perfectly legal money–can trump idealistic campaign promises in a city thick with more than 30,000 lobbyists.
As I see it the only way that real change could come to Washington is if a brand spanking new Congress were to accompany the new president and by that I mean neither the Democratic nor the Republican incumbents. And they’d have to arrive with a commitment to restrict lobbyist access—no mean feat. By the time any of them would have served a term they’d already be a part of the same corrupt system.
When the bright, idealistic, optimist, new Obama voters vote for the candidate they idolize I have no doubt they’ll also vote for the same old incumbent who’s been holding the seat in Congress for the last twenty years. In many districts the incumbent runs unopposed or unopposed for practical purposes. Some vote for change.
However, rising to the defense of the city in which I make my home here’s Mr. Thomas’s driveby at Chicago:
would it really be an improvement if Obama brought in a bunch of political fixers from Chicago?
Well, yes, it would be if the fixers provided the same level of constituent service that is commonplace here in Chicago. Corrupt as it is Chicago remains the city that works. That’s more than can be said for Washington, DC.
