The Party is Officially Over

The party is over for President Obama.

The only light moment of his entire primetime press conference Tuesday night was when Ann Compton asked him about race affecting his first 64 days. In his answer he told her it hasn’t, that he is being judged on his performance, on how Americans think he is helping to turn the economy around and keep us safe. He smiled once, when he said that the pride felt on Inauguration Day — that we had broken a barrier and elected our first African-American president — lasted “about a day.”

For the rest of the night, Obama was pretty serious and often seemed somber. He was, of course, trying to move on from the AIG anger and look to the future, when he hopes his new toxic-asset plan will help produce lending and stabilize the economy. He was trying to sell his budget and make a case for how fixing our seemingly intractable problems — energy and healthcare — were worth the cost because they would help move us away from the cycles of a bubble-and-burst economy. He was trying to talk about it in a sober way, since laughing on “60 Minutes” and making jokes about the Special Olympics wasn’t exactly working the week before.

Obama also pleaded for patience and touted his persistence. As I wrote in my column this week, Obama’s
infinite patience might be difficult for some to swallow in an emergency, but his persistence is required.

With nearly 65 Democrats in the House and Senate lined up in opposition to many of his plans, Obama has begun the brutal work of governing with another branch of government. On the campaign trail, it was all about his plans, but in the White House, it’s all about Congress’s plans. Conservative Democrats are stripping tax cuts and bailouts from the budget and working hard to put off energy reform. There is no hope in sight of any future Republican cooperation, so these centrist Democrats hold the key to any legislative agenda of Obama’s.

Obama is desperately trying to slow down the breathless, 24-hour cable culture of criticism he faces. He is doing an Internet chat today, doling out the best access to niche media where he can reach his supporters without the filter of political handicappers watching his every move on television and on the front page of The New York Times. He and his allies are urging volunteers to petition Congress and use grassroots pressure to pass his budget.

Team Obama is doing all it can to circumvent the ways of Washington, even though the Democrats have strong majorities in both chambers of Congress. The AIG mess finally sent George W. Bush’s name off the radar — Democrats own bailouts now. The economy belongs to Obama, and soon he will be judged on it.

You can see all of this in his face. He knows the party is over.

CAN THE DEMOCRATIC PARTY UNITE ON HEALTHCARE OR ENERGY REFORM? Ask A.B. returns Tuesday, March 31. Please join my weekly video Q & A by sending your questions and comments to askab@digital-staging.thehill.com. Thank you.