Today a diary on the rec list featured a video featuring Arianna Huffington (who has suddenly is a trusted "health care expert" as opposed to a ratings/traffic grabber). Ms. Huffington said, from the perch of her pundit chair, that Barack Obama has to change Senate votes to his liking using this magical technique:
"He needs to make them do it."
That's a statement that we've seen a lot of around these parts. "He needs to twist arms and make them do it!" And yet this is rarely followed-up by a realistic analysis of the complex realities of how this works - what are the levels that can be pulled and what really matters in terms of putting pressure on an elected official.
As Matthew Yglesias explains, saying "Obama should make them do it" is just fantastical thinking that is disconnected to reality, and he does so by featuring the example of Arlen Specter and contrasting it with Ben Nelson:
One passionate endorsement of the bill came from Sen. Arlen Specter (D-Pa.), who switched parties earlier this year. Specter urged his Democratic colleagues, "Don't let those obstructionists win," one participant recalled.
The room erupted in applause when Specter reminded the group, "I came to this caucus to be your 60th vote." But soon after the speech, Sen. Ben Nelson (D-Neb.) left the session early, telling reporters he remained undecided.
Arlen Specter - who until this year was a Republican for decades - is suddenly an enthusiastic support of health care reform. The answer is obvious, of course: he's in a center-to-left-leaning state and is being pressured from a fairly liberal primary opponent. He's not supporting health care reform because "Obama made him do it," but because his very career depends on proving his Democratic credentials - so he is likely to respond to almost anything the White House asks him to do.
Nelson, however, left that meeting still professing some skepticism and uncertainty.
Yglesias spells out the contrast:
Compare Nelson’s behavior to Arlen Specter’s remarks. Specter is from a state that went for Democratic presidential candidates in 1992, 1996, 2000, 2004, and 2008. To stay viable, he’d drifted toward the center, which rendered him unviable as a Republican. So he became a Democrat. But his Democratic credentials are suspect, and there’s a credible primary challenger in the field. Specter is very vulnerable to pressure from the White House. Lieberman [EDIT: by which I mean Nelson] is in almost the reverse situation. Objective political reality matters. (emphasis mine)
I would throw Lieberman into this mix. What motivates Joe Lieberman and what makes him likely to respond to pressure from the White House? Very little. He's not a Democrat. If he runs again in CT his base will be Republicans, some Independents, and a tiny proportion of Democrats - maybe enough to just cross 50%. But it's debatable whether he'd even run again. He hates liberals and given that he literally campaigned against the Democratic presidential nominee, it's not really surprising to see him stand against some legislation.
On the other hand he's emerged as a point person on upcoming climate change legislation as well as the effort to repeal Don't Ask Don't Tell - both things the White House wants and needs. Therefore he has more leverage than just being another Senator - even though the system wouldn't really discriminate and all Senators hold disproportionate power in an era of needing 60 votes.
These are complex, systemic, political realities. Lots of factors matter including how the Senate votes, where a Senator comes from, and most importantly what the electoral scenario is for that Senator. Putting these factors together paints a more difficult and tricky picture than the "Obama can make them do it" crowd would like. As Yglesias says:
I know a lot of people out there on the Internet seem to feel that the White House could have saved the public option if only they’d put more "pressure" on Joe Lieberman, Blanche Lincoln, etc. or done some more "arm-twisting" as seen in colorful LBJ anecdotes. Do people think the administration forgot to use its magic pressure button to get Senator Nelson to endorse the deal? Or is it possible that a minority of legislators are relatively immune to pressure and blandishment from the White House?
This is by no means a defense of the dysfunctional Senate system, and it certainly adds imperatives for primary-ing vulnerable Senators (when it's realistic that the Democrat would end up winning the general election race).
But what it is is a call for Daily Kos to live up to its self-proclaimed title of the "reality-based" community. Saying things like, "Obama can make them do it!" or "all he has to do is twist arms!" feel good, but they are simplistic and don't take into account more complex objective political realities.
Explain HOW someone can be made to do something, taking all these factors into account. Base analysis in political reality. Otherwise it's just sloganeering.