Mr. Obama should let any Democratic foot-draggers know that if they don't get with the program, he will un-elect them and put in Democrats more in tune with his priorities. His threat would be credible, since Mr. Obama is one of the great campaigners of modern political history. He still enjoys popularity - though it is dwindling - among the broad coalition that mobilized to elect him. Mr. Obama could convincingly threaten to fund candidates to run against uncooperative senators in the Democratic primary and to campaign on behalf of his slate of candidates.
But to make that threat, Mr. Obama has to mean it. He has to show a quality that the nation has not seen in him since the presidential election ended last November. Some glimpses of it were present in his powerful health care speech, but now he needs to show that a new LBJ is in town.
Lyndon Johnson made mistakes - the escalation in Vietnam being his gravest (Mr. Obama, take note) - but more than any president in the last half century, he passed landmark legislation that remade this country into a better place. And he did it fighting against the same barriers that Mr. Obama now faces: outdated attitudes, fear of change and vested interests defending the status quo, not only across the nation but within the Senate, and indeed within his own party.
