He made it personal. He appealed to their loyalty. He asked them to give him what every modern president has had. He argued the facts, disputed the politics, quarrelled over the history and at times lashed out at those who still refused to stand with him.
Yet in the end, after years of frustration with Republicans blocking his ideas in Congress, President Obama found the most sweeping legislative initiative left on his agenda thwarted not by the opposition but by his own party. If not for his fellow Democrats, Obama would have a landmark trade bill heading to his desk for signature.
The sting of defeat may be temporary. The White House adamantly insisted that it made important progress by passing part of the trade package and still has a chance to turn around the vote on the other part. If that proves true, Obama may yet secure the negotiating authority he needs to seal a legacy-building 12-nation Pacific trade agreement and the day's setback may ultimately be overshadowed.
But for the moment, at least, the defeat laid bare a fundamental schism within the party over economics and, according to some analysts and officials, exposed a stark divide between Democratic lawmakers and a Democratic president late in his tenure. Once eager to support Obama, Democrats now are less willing to buck their labour-dominated base or their own convictions to advance their president's programme.
"It's a big hit," said Patrick Griffin, who as President Bill Clinton's legislative director navigated the politics of trade in the 1990s. He said it also speaks to years of frustration among Democrats who feel that when it comes to Obama, "you call me only when you want something."
Others said the defeat had more to do with policy and politics. After decades of watching presidents secure trade agreements from South Korea to Mexico, even in the face of opposition from their base, Democrats have broadly come to the conclusion that such agreements exacerbate income inequality. "Enough is enough," Representative Debbie Dingell, Democrat of Michigan, said during the debate.
Phil Schiliro, who managed congressional relations for Obama in his first term, said that Democrats believe the people they represent have suffered from past trade pacts. "I don't think it's a lack of loyalty to the president; I don't think it's a lack of wanting to be with the president," he said. "If your friends genuinely have a different view, that's the hardest thing to square."
The fracture is reminiscent of President George W Bush's troubles with his own party at the same point in his administration. Like Obama, Bush aligned himself with the opposition party that controlled Congress only to find himself at odds with fellow Republicans who rejected the idea of a pathway to legal status for millions of immigrants who entered the country illegally.
But aides to Obama argued the outcome will be different. In this case, the House passed the trade promotion authority with the support of 28 Democrats, but rejected decisively a program of job assistance for those displaced by trade. Even though they normally support such trade assistance, Democrats voted against it in hopes of torpedoing the overall trade package.
The White House and Republican leaders hope to reverse the vote on trade assistance, although aides to Obama acknowledged the path was not clear. They can try to convince Democrats that they do not want trade assistance to expire at the expense of their constituents or they can dangle incentives to win more Republican votes, or some combination. If they succeed, no further vote will be needed to approve negotiating authority since that part passed.
Obama's struggle reflected his longstanding distance from Capitol Hill, irritating members of both parties. He devoted more time in lobbying lawmakers on this issue than any since House Republicans took control after the 2010 election, but even then he delegated most of the arm-twisting to his unpopular trade representative, Michael Froman.
As they seek to regroup this weekend, the president and his fellow Democrats will now experience the same thing Republicans have for the last few years - a narrative of their party divided and in disarray.
©2015 The New York Times News Service
