STANDOFF CYNICISM
No
one can say that President Barack Obama and his
administration weren’t thinking of the American people during the
budget standoff with Republicans. Their inconvenience was very much
on his mind.
According to White House sources, in the weeks leading up
to last week’s push for a budget deal, the President approved plans
that had the White House and federal agencies looking at every
federal government resource that entailed public interaction, and
whether it could be shut down during a closure of the government —
even if under normal government closures those resources would have
or could have remained open.
“The goal was to inflict as much inconvenience and pain on
the American public and lock them into supporting the
Administration’s perspective on the budget fight,” says a White
House source. “It was our nuclear option, but we saw how a
government shutdown under Gingrich just destroyed Republican
standing with the public, and we felt we could achieve that kind of
damage and more, even if we really didn’t have
to.”
For example, a number of websites that provide the public
with information about everything from Social Security options to
veterans services, even public-private educational websites
operated by the Smithsonian, would have been shut down by the Obama
Administration had a government closure taken place Saturday
morning. “Those sites don’t even involve government employees to
operate, but we were going to shut them down anyway just to hit
home the right message with the public,” says the White House
aide.
White House sources say some agencies, like the
Smithsonian, which manages a number of the museums and Washington
attractions tourists prize most during their visits, pushed back on
shutting down the websites, but were overridden by the White
House.
While about 800,000 federal employees might not have gone
to work on Monday, the White House did have options to ensure that
visitors to Washington got at least some of their tax-dollars
worth. For example, the Smithsonian could have been identified as a
federal program requiring “essential personnel,” so that
public-facing employees, such as security guards, docents, and
exhibit managers, would be present to enable tourists to visit the
museums. Also, museum employees covered by private foundation
grants for specific exhibits could have been deployed. But the
Obama Administration shot down all those plans, putting in place a
draconian government shutdown plan.
“Basically, making life easy for the American public was
not something that would have helped us,” says another White House
aide. “We controlled the executive branch and the federal
environment. How could we basically do what would have been great
for tourists, and then have media reports showing business as usual
in Washington for tourists that undercut our arguments and our
fight?”
MEAN TEAM
Mitt Romney’s Washington team is pushing hard
to lock up supporters and potential fundraisers for his 2012 race,
and the pitch his people are presenting is interesting. According
to attendees at such recruitment meetings, Romney continues to
believe his faith has little or no impact in the campaign. “The
only candidate they seem worried about is [Minnesota Governor
Tim] Pawlenty, everyone else is
just second tier to them, and they think they can take Pawlenty out
pretty quickly,” says one attendee.
Another recruiting target reports that at a recruitment
lunch he attended Romney aides were dismissive of a run by Indiana
Gov. Mitch Daniels (“He’s not running; we have
people on the inside telling us everything”), and openly ridiculing
a potential run by Mississippi Haley Barbour (“Can
you imagine what a debate between Haley and Obama would look and
sound like? No independent voter is going to support someone like
that”).
In fact, Daniels continues to deliberate, but is believed
to have informally put in place all of the necessary elements to
launch a presidential nomination bid, most importantly a
fundraising infrastructure. Meanwhile, Barbour is actually having
success recruiting former Romney senior aides who aren’t willing to
go another round with the former Massachusetts governor whom Obama
Administration aides claim “inspired the President’s health care
reform plan.”
Despite the baggage that Romney carries, he remains the
formidable candidate in the race, though, as with 2008, it’s the
candidates who aren’t yet in the field that most conservatives seem
most interested in following. “You’d think the Romney people would
have learned that disparaging the competition and acting like the
bully on the playground just backfires on you,” says one of the
potential recruits. “It’s not anything I want to be a part of.
After this administration, a little humility is something that will
go a long way in winning over people and that’s just not something
in the Romney camp’s DNA, I think.”
