New York Times:
By Ashley Parker
March 31, 2014
COLUMBUS,
Ga. — Republicans, poised for strong gains in the midterm elections,
are offering starkly conflicting messages about President Obama to rally
their voters. In
one moment, they say the president is feckless and weak. But in the
next, they say Mr. Obama is presiding over an “imperial presidency” that
is exercising power that verges on dictatorial.
So far, they are succeeding in having it both ways.
Representative
Paul Broun, Republican of Georgia, who has accused Mr. Obama of
“leading from behind” on foreign policy, stood before a gathering of
Republican women here
recently, his voice loud and deliberate, as he raced through a long
list of areas where he said the Obama administration has veered “totally
out of control” — the health care law, Internal Revenue Service
treatment of conservative groups, and the National
Security Agency’s surveillance program, to name a few.
As
the crowd murmured its assent, Mr. Broun, who is running for his
party’s Senate nomination, reached into his black blazer and pulled out
the pocket-size Constitution
he always carries.
“They’re
a symptom of a government that has just totally left the bounds of our
U.S. Constitution,” he said, “and the solution is putting this
government back on the course
that our founding fathers gave us in the U.S. Constitution.”
If
Republicans have a rallying cry heading into the 2014 midterm
elections, it is their unified anthem against Mr. Obama’s “imperial
presidency” — a two-word, bumper sticker-ready
slogan that encapsulates their criticisms about government overreach
through Mr. Obama’s prolific use of executive actions.
The
phrase is part of an effort by Republicans to nationalize a series of
concerns about the Obama White House, and the role of government, into a
pithy, compelling expression.
The “imperial presidency” mantra not only captures existing voter
frustration over the Affordable Care Act and turns it, Republicans
believe, into a broader referendum on the president’s entire
administration, but also reflects an underlying conservative philosophy
about the appropriate role of government.
“This
is a real concern for a lot of people,” said Michael Steel, a spokesman
for Speaker John A. Boehner. “It’s important to be able to show that
we’re doing everything
possible to hold the president accountable for those people who believe
the president is overstepping his constitutional authority.”
Or
as Barry Loudermilk, a former state senator who is running for the
Republican nomination in Georgia’s 11th Congressional District,
explained before a campaign event
in Powder Springs, Ga., “I think that the term ‘imperial’ is kind of
descriptive enough that it resonates.”
“They’ve
been seeing this migration toward — a dictatorship is too strong a
word, because we’re not to that point — but an administrative state
where the government is
being run through policy making instead of laws,” Mr. Loudermilk said.
The
message is one that motivates the conservative base, whose energy is
vital in midterm elections when overall turnout is lower. In early
March, House Republicans devoted
a legislative week to Mr. Obama’s “imperial presidency,” introducing
several bills intended to curb what they view as his administrative
overreach. And the phrase has been popping up in conservative blogs, as
well as in emails from top Republicans, especially
after the president used his State of the Union address to promise to
use his “pen and phone” to circumvent Congress through executive actions
whenever possible.
Republicans
have largely pounced on Mr. Obama’s decision to delay certain parts of
his signature health care law as evidence that he views himself as above
the law. But
they also point to an array of other areas in which they believe the
president is acting outside his governing mandate — his 2012 decision to
stop enforcing some of the existing immigration laws pertaining to
young unauthorized immigrants, and his directive
to the Environmental Protection Agency to devise and issue rigorous
carbon regulations on an aggressive timetable, among others.
Jonathan
Turley, a law professor at George Washington University who has
testified before Congress on the issue of executive power, said that
while the phrase “imperial
presidency” dates back to President Nixon, the Obama and second Bush
administrations “have really challenged the assumptions of the framers”
of the Constitution.
“President
Obama has aggregated power in the executive branch to a degree most
thought would have been practically impossible,” he said.
Concerns
about Mr. Obama’s big government agenda and “imperial presidency” are a
common refrain at town meetings in Republican districts, Republican
lawmakers and aides
said.
“This
is what we hear about all the time when we’re back in our districts,”
said Representative Raúl R. Labrador, Republican of Idaho. “They’re
concerned that you have
a president who has decided to violate the law, who has decided to not
comply with certain laws, that he decides which laws he will execute and
which laws he will not execute.”
The
White House says Republicans are walking contradictions, accusing Mr.
Obama of behaving imperialistically while simultaneously criticizing him
for being a weak leader,
especially on foreign policy. In a statement on the current crisis with
Russia, Mr. Broun said, “The president has portrayed himself as weak,
and that’s part of the reason we are facing this current situation in
Ukraine.”
But
the administration also argues that the president has little choice but
to use executive authority in such a polarized political climate.
“Our
view is there are things we want to pursue with Congress and there’s
progress we want to make on our own, and the president is going to use
whatever levers he can
within government to do that,” said Jennifer Palmieri, the White House
communications director. “We don’t see a political downside to it.”
In
a conservative state like Georgia, however, the rhetoric that helped
give rise to the original Tea Party movement in 2010 — an emphasis on
the Constitution and returning
the country to the original intentions of the founding fathers — is
making a resurgence.
“I
think the biggest danger our government is facing right now is they’re
undermining the Constitution,” said Melanie Adams, 51, a Loudermilk
supporter. The president,
she added, “is assuming powers not granted to him and without a system
of checks and balances, we will fall into anarchy and despotism.”
Representative
Eric Cantor, the majority leader, recently released an addendum to a
33-page report his office had already put out on the “imperial
presidency.” And both
Mr. Broun and Mr. Loudermilk used similar phrases when talking about
the role they believe government should play.
“Our
founding fathers truly believed that government should be a government
of the people, by the people and for the people — not a government over
the people,” Mr. Broun
told a gathering of supporters recently.
The
day before, Mr. Loudermilk offered a nearly identical refrain: “This is
a government that is of the people, not a government over the people,”
he told supporters.
“That’s the mentality that a lot of Washington has.”
The
“imperial presidency” message has also been good for fund-raising. A
recent email by the National Republican Congressional Committee warned,
“Barack Obama thinks he’s
above the law and can do anything he wants with the help of his
friends, Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid.”
Then
the email moved in for the kill: “Contribute $100, $50, $25 or what you
can so that we can continue to defend Americans from Obama’s power
grabs and massive government
overreach.”
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