Bipartisan Agreement: Obama Isn’t Schmoozing
Published: December 28, 2011 - New York Times
WASHINGTON — Air
Force One had just landed in Manchester, N.H., on a brisk Tuesday morning
last month when President
Obama made an admission to Valerie B. Jarrett, his close friend and senior
adviser.
“I just called Reggie,” Mr. Obama said. It was his first domestic trip
without Reggie Love, the former Duke University basketball player who had
been his constant companion and presidential “body man” until he left in November to study for his M.B.A. full time. “I miss him,”
the president confessed.
More noteworthy than Mr. Obama’s spending the short flight calling his
longtime aide is what he did not do: schmooze with Washington politicians. No
one from the New Hampshire Congressional delegation traveled with Mr. Obama on
the plane, a perk that presidents often offer to lawmakers to foster good will.
Mr. Obama, in general, does not go out of his way to play the glad-handing,
ego-stroking presidential role. While he does sometimes offer a ride on Air
Force One to a senator or member of Congress, more often than not, he keeps
Congress and official Washington at arm’s length, spending his down time with a
small — and shrinking — inner circle of aides and old friends.
He typically golfs with a trio of mid- to low-level staff members little
known outside the West Wing. He does not spend much time at Camp David, the
retreat other presidents have used to woo Washington. His social life runs
toward evenings playing Taboo with old friends and their families, Wii video
games with his wife and daughters or basketball with Robert Wolf, a banker and
the rare new best friend Mr. Obama has acquired since entering politics. He
vacations with friends from Chicago on Martha’s Vineyard in August and in Hawaii
at Christmas.
This week, for example, Mr. Obama is ensconced in the protective bubble of
the Secret Service. With him are his closest outside-the-Beltway-friends,
including Eric Whitaker, a Chicago doctor, and two of Mr. Obama’s Hawaii friends
from Punahou School: Mike Ramos, a businessman, and Robert Titcomb, a commercial
fisherman whom Mr. Obama has stuck by despite his arrest in April on suspicion of soliciting a prostitute. Mr. Obama
bolted from Washington last Friday barely an hour after he had signed
legislation extending the payroll
tax cut after a grinding fight with House Republicans whose result is widely
viewed as a big win for him. His relationship with Washington insiders is
described by members of both parties as “remote,” “distant” and “perfunctory.”
“This is not a Lincoln bedroom guy,” said James Carville, the Democratic
strategist, referring to the guest bedroom at the White House where President
Bill Clinton put up supporters and donors. “In fact, he’s the anti-Lincoln
bedroom guy. He doesn’t seem to relish, or even like, having politicians
around.”
To many in Washington — including those, of course, who crave presidential
face time — Mr. Obama’s seeming aloofness is risky. He is the nation’s
politician in chief, and the presidency has always been first and foremost about
politics.
“It’s about building relationships,” said Gerald Rafshoon, a television
producer who was President Jimmy Carter’s communications director. “Some people
are saying he’s a recluse. You don’t want that reputation. He needs to show that
he likes people.” Mr. Rafshoon’s old boss, an outsider to Washington when he
became president, recently wrote in his book “White
House Diary” that he did not socialize enough when he was the chief
executive.
On Capitol Hill, Republicans say they rarely hear from the president, and
members of his own party complain that Mr. Obama and his top aides are
handicapping themselves by not reaching out enough.
“When you have relationships with individual members, you can call them up
and ask a favor, and a lot of times, if it’s not objectionable, you can get
things done,” said Representative Dennis A. Cardoza, Democrat of California.
The president hosts plenty of large gatherings — like a recent holiday
reception at the White House, attended by 400 lawmakers and their spouses — but
they lack the intimacy of smaller events, where there is real give and take, Mr.
Cardoza and others lawmakers said.
Similarly, some of the president’s aides acknowledge complaints from
Democratic fund-raisers that they have not been shown much love from the
president, beyond standard grip-and-grin photographs at fund-raising dinners.
White House officials, however, counter that Mr. Obama’s detachment from
Congress could end up benefiting him politically. After all, many Americans
regard this Congress as dysfunctional, with abysmal approval ratings.
“We have a culture here where people actively dislike everything about this
whole city,” one senior administration official said of Washington, adding, “the
only leverage he has right now is as an outsider.” Another official argued that
Mr. Obama’s perceived distance from Congress is partly why he is viewed as the
clear winner of the payroll tax cut fight.
In fact, Mr. Obama’s re-election strategy involves running against Congress,
particularly the Republican-led House, calling attention to its inability to
pass even the simplest legislation without resorting to threats to shut down the
government or default on the country’s debt.
With that in mind, another senior administration official said, the last
thing the president wants is to provide more photo ops of himself golfing with
Speaker John A. Boehner, Republican of Ohio, as
he did this summer in a frustrated effort to resolve the torturous fight
over raising the debt
ceiling.
Some critics compare Mr. Obama unfavorably with the gregarious Mr. Clinton,
who used to play cards on Air Force One with Terry McAuliffe, a Democratic Party
heavy-hitter, or golf with Vernon Jordan, the well-connected Democratic power
broker. But another former president, George W. Bush, was not especially tight
with much of the Washington establishment. He was known for going to bed at 9
p.m., regularly retreating to his ranch in Texas and having distant if polite
relations with Capitol Hill.
Despite the narrative in Washington of Mr. Obama as a loner, his friends and
aides say he likes people just fine. He looked positively ebullient when he
worked the crowd at a hangar last Wednesday at Fort Bragg, N.C., reaching out to
nearly every one of 3,000 troops returning from Iraq.
With Mr. Love’s departure, Mr. Obama’s new body man is Marvin Nicholson, a
former bartender and golf caddy who served as Mr. Obama’s trip director and
regularly accompanied him to Andrews Air Force Base for rounds of golf.
So Mr. Nicholson is already well versed in how his boss spends his free time.
Said Mr. Love, who has probably spent more time with Mr. Obama in recent years
than anyone other than the first lady: “The president would prefer to watch the
Bears, White Sox or Bulls, or any sports matchup, instead of watching MSNBC or
watching 13 Republican presidential
debates.”