Winning ugly

The Democratic-led Congress is about to hand President Obama victories by way of a bill to delay the DTV transition to June 12 and a gargantuan economic recovery package with billions of dollars in broadband grants and tax breaks for companies in wireless and other telecom sectors. There will be nothing pretty about how the two measures – or those that follow – end up at the White House. The inaugural euphoria has dissolved. The honeymoon, if one actually ever existed, is over. Things are back to normal. Barack Obama may well accomplish many things as commander-in-chief. It is doubtful he will change official Washington, however. It was a lofty aspiration, one probably best suited for the campaign trail and one Republicans promptly snuffed out by temporarily blocking House passage of the DTV delay bill and effectively boycotting the House-approved economic stimulus bill.
As such, there’s bound to be plenty more political theatrics for No Drama Obama. The president is going to have a hard time assuaging Republicans, still disoriented and desperately seeking a road out of the political wilderness in the aftermath of the November elections. Obama did the smart political thing by making nice with Republicans at the outset, providing an elegantly contrasting preface for the watching public to the GOP’s hue and cry over DTV delay and economic stimulus legislation. It is but a preview of things to come. Obama will score his share of legislative triumphs, owing to support from Democrats with enhanced majorities in the House and Senate. Those victories are apt to be every bit as messy as the upcoming ones on DTV and economic recovery.
Obama knows a little something about winning ugly, the modus operandi of the president’s beloved Chicago White Sox in 1983. (The president apparently is no more about to give up his weathered Sox baseball cap than he was about surrendering his BlackBerry.) Truth is, for any president, winning ugly is more the rule than the exception. In Obama’s case, getting Congress to sign off on his major programs will not be enough. If he is unable to pull the country out of the worse economic funk since the Great Depression – a situation increasingly being felt in the wireless space – it will matter little how many times Obama scored on Capitol Hill. The scores that matter most are those involving employment and economic growth. Obama has created a buzz by talking up universal broadband and mapping out a game plan to expand deployment – through wireless and other delivery platforms – in hopes of creating new jobs and giving have-nots a powerful tool to be more productive in the 21st century. Former President Bush was demonized by Democrats for the state of broadband in the United States, particularly the No. 15 penetration-based ranking by the 30-member-nation Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development. Broadband penetration is indeed an important data point, but can be overstated insofar as being a key indicator or predictor of economic progress. Consider this: Iceland ranks No. 5 on the OECD’s broadband penetration scorecard. The country is also in the midst of a financial and political meltdown. It has nothing to do with global warming.