But given Congress’s unwillingness to spend that much, “only” $787 billion was possible. The economic team believed that, given the scale of the crisis, a stimulus bill on the order of $1 trillion would be necessary to restore the economy to full health. When the Obama administration took office, it was confronted with a once-in-a-generation economic crisis that demanded a sweeping response from Washington. He always took the pragmatic approach and was willing to accept partial success and incremental changes if they could deliver real benefits to working Americans. The Importance of CompromiseĪs president, Obama found that bringing about change from within existing political institutions necessarily entailed making compromises and setting aside more ambitious plans if they couldn’t be accommodated within that system.

Rather, running progressive candidates and using the power of government to meaningfully improve people’s lives was a crucial part of effecting change. It taught Obama that engaging in electoral politics wasn’t “selling out” or giving in to the establishment. Washington took on the city’s political machine, and he built a genuine multiracial, multiethnic movement of working people. Lessons From Harold Washingtonīut Obama’s attitude toward the electoral process began to change when he saw the success of the Chicago mayoral campaign of Harold Washington (1922-1987) in the 1980s, when the future president was working as a community organizer. During this period, he believed that activists could only effect change through radical, revolutionary means-attacking the system from the outside rather than reforming it from the inside. He believed that politicians were venal, transactional figures motivated more by power and money than by ideals or public service. As a young man, however, Obama had had a distaste for traditional politicians and electoral politics in general.

A Promised Land by Barack Obama