How Obama can win re-election

By Charles W. Dunn

President Barack Obama's friends and foes question whether he can win re-election in 2012. But if he will learn a lesson from history, he can.

Constructive change in America often depends upon counterintuitive leadership and unnatural alliances.

Who would have thought that one of America's most fervent conservative and anti-communist presidents, Richard Nixon, would lead the path-breaking effort to open the door to Communist China?

Likewise, who would have thought that Bill Clinton would lead the historic effort to reform social welfare?

In both instances, Nixon and Clinton incurred the opposition of key constituencies in their respective parties, but their counterintuitive leadership in cooperating with former foes changed for the better the course of history and improved their standing as leaders.

Will Obama change history and salvage his standing as a leader by becoming a counterintuitive leader? And will he, like Nixon and Clinton, win reelection? He could.

First, if he were to support the across-the-board extension of the so-called "Bush tax cuts," he would incur the wrath of many in his own party, but he would simultaneously rise above the partisan fray as a bipartisan, consensus leader.

Second, if he were to fight for the recommendations of his own bipartisan Deficit Commission and the Bipartisan Policy Center, he would do the same.

In undertaking these fights, Obama would be taking on many of America's most powerful interest groups, which have historically supported him and the Democratic Party.

On the Bush tax cuts, he would be turning his back on everything he has stood for. But his leadership would bode well for substituting a much-needed new tone of cooperation and harmony for the rancor and bitterness that now exists in Washington and the nation. Besides that, it would enhance the business community's ability (1) to invest in growth and development, (2) to increase job opportunities, and (3) to do so with certainty about their tax obligations.

On the path-breaking proposals of the Deficit Commission and the Bipartisan Center, such as reducing Social Security benefits and increasing the retirement age to 69, Obama would be taking on two sacred cows in the Democratic Party. His foes would call his leadership folly, but he would go down in history as a profile in courage.

With a GOP majority in the House and a significant GOP minority in the Senate, the stars for change would be in near-perfect alignment, awaiting only Obama's leadership to be in perfect alignment. By persuading a minority of Democrats in the House and Senate to cooperate with Republicans in supporting these landmark changes in public policy, he would rival Nixon and Clinton as a counterintuitive leader.

But more than that, he could then follow in their footsteps on the path to re-election in 2012. Although not the sole reason for their convincing re-election victories in 1972 and 1996, Nixon and Clinton offered to Americans significant counterintuitive successes in public policy, which gained widespread public support.

Today, more than anything. else rank-and-file Americans want (1) an end to acrimony and hostility in politics and (2) solutions to seemingly intractable problems. Counterintuitive leadership by Obama could accomplish both and change his political trajectory from a loser to a winner in 2012.

Will he? Not if he continues to pursue his ideological agenda. But yes if he sacrifices his ideology on the altar of the public interest.

Charles W. Dunn is dean of the Robertson School of Government at Regent University.