It’s interesting to see the Republican leadership of the House crowing about how they achieved near-unanimity from their caucus in support of Paul Ryan’s budget plan. I do understand that significant dissent on the budget plan would cause certain problems for the leadership as well as make it easier for the Democrats to level their criticism. But the truth is that everyone who voted for Ryan’s budget voted to destroy Medicare at the same time that they voted to give the rich another massive tax break. I haven’t seen any polling that indicates that these are safe positions to take. Quite the contrary, actually.
Something similar happened in the Democratic caucus in the last Congress. For some reason, Nancy Pelosi insisted on whipping her caucus to vote for a Cap and Trade bill that had no chance of passing through the Senate. This made a lot of members needlessly vulnerable. If they had somehow succeeded in creating a carbon tax, they might have come out roughly even, as they could take credit for doing something about climate change. But they didn’t excite their own base by casting a symbolic vote that accomplished nothing. All they did was vote for a tax, which was then exploited by relentless anti-Cap and Trade messaging by the Republicans and their astroturfing outfits.
The thing is, though, that Cap and Trade is a complex issue that relatively few people understand well enough to be passionate about. Medicare is a relatively simple program that a significant percentage of the population understands through direct experience. Medicare isn’t the only vulnerability created by this budget, but it is the biggest one.
Now, some people will say that the Republicans passed this budget to shore up their base and keep them excited. But 2012 isn’t going to be a base election. It’s a presidential election year, and the battle is for the middle. I noticed only one Republican who seemed to understand this. Rep. Danny Rehberg (R-MT) is running for Jon Tester’s Senate seat and he voted against the budget because it raised too many questions about the future of Medicare. Rehberg wisely decided that he didn’t want to campaign statewide in Montana with the destruction of Medicare hanging around his neck.
Nate Silver noticed two other members with a sense of self-preservation:
Of the six Republicans who either voted no or did not vote, only three appeared to do so for reasons of electoral strategy. Dave Reichert, a Republican from suburban Seattle whose district leans Democratic, declined to vote on the bill. Denny Rehberg of Montana, who is running in a highly competitive Senate race against the Democratic incumbent Jon Tester next year, voted no, as did David McKinley, a freshman Republican from a poor district in West Virginia.
Here’s the most important part:
But of the 60 Republicans who come from districts where President Obama won at least 50 percent of the vote in 2008, 59 voted yea, the only exception being Mr. Reichert.
That’s 59 Republicans who basically decided to play Russian Roulette with their political careers. If I were a member of the House Leadership who had an interest in staying in the majority, I would not have wanted so many backbenchers demonstrating a death-wish. They just created a needless headache for themselves.
And I don’t think the danger from this vote is limited to districts that Obama won last time around. Voting to destroy Medicare is deeply unpopular in almost every district in the country. It might even be unpopular in every district in the country.
The whole spectacle is confusing. What are they applauding about?
They are counting on Dems not using it against them? Party leaders said ‘don’t worry, we’re going to MAKE the public like our plan?’ Citizens United? Koch money? Insanity?
“They are counting on Dems not using it against them?” If so, they must have not been paying attention to Obama’s speech or to Steve Israel’s (chair of the DCCC) comments immediately after the vote when he said the Dems would hang this on every Republican in the country next year, and that this would be the vote/issue that will cost the Republicans their House majority.
I just hope that on their recess, Dems go out and tell their constituents what the Republicans are doing.
Whom the Gods would destroy, they first make mad. Gosh, it’s happening right in front of us. Hey Republican Reps, why don’t you want a second term?
Just throwing this out there: maybe after the Democrats punked them on the vote for the RSC budget, the Republicans are relieved that they managed to stay on message for Ryan’s budget bill?
Of course, now they have to explain to their base why they had a golden opportunity to pass their dream budget that really does what they believe in and balked.
The tea party Republicans believe they are the silent majority; they think 2010 was a realignment and that the Republican party is ascendant again. And they think no one with a brain is going to put the black man back in the White House; and 2010 proved how angry folks were that he was there. Just as they are angry.
It’s the same kind of thinking that could get Halperin to say that Obama attacking John McCain for not knowing how many houses he has was good for McCain; the idea that the black guy isn’t going to win and definitely won’t if he shows up the white dude.
That’s the thought. So, they feel safe going to extremes.
JMHO
I’d read Krugman who suggests the difference between the two.
I have yet to see “mainstream media” explain how cutting taxes for the rich raises taxes (and fees and costs through the privatization of government) for the rest of us and yet that is the process by which the bottom ninety percent has felt their lives deteriorate over the last thirty years.
I’ve heard “cutting taxes” but the ultimate irony is, of course, that cutting those taxes is not always good for everybody.
But at the next tea party meeting you think that message will have appeared on “Meet The Press”?
Is this what America’s seniors want? Is this what the baby boomers want? Boomers (at this time 43-63) are a large proportion of the electorate, and we are the group that is most affected by this idiocy. The Democrats need to go VERY STRONG on this. Call a spade a spade: This is the “catfood for seniors” plan, the “put Grandma on an iceflow” plan. There are 2 views of America: the Republican view, and the American view, and they are antithetical.
They made the mistake of believing their own rhetoric. They got half the country to believe that healthcare reform was evil, so they think that segues into dismantling Medicare. Then they interpreted the results of the last midterm election to be an endorsement of their idealogy, when it was simply people angry about the economy and the job market.
They’ve swallowed their own kool aid.
Interesting to note that “districts that Obama won last time around” includes WI-1, Paul Ryan’s turf, where Obama got 51.4%. Is it possible that the Dems there will get on the stick and mount a real campaign this time? Kicking Ryan out would have a huge psyop effect, and it’s clearly doable. All it takes is the will to fight. We should be finding a candidate and raising money right now. MoveOn, ActBlue, where are you while opportunity beckons?
There’s already a guy running against “Kill Grannie and Granpie” Paul, and others may join. This is a defining moment. If the Dems take this up and CLUB the Repukes, stuff may happen. If they do not, Social Security and Medicare will end in 5-6 years. It’s the crucial moment.
“If the Dems take this up and CLUB the Repukes”
Yeah, like that would ever happen in a million years!
I agree with many of the posters above. The GOP is delusional. They believe their own rhetoric…my guess is that the watch Fox news all the time and only talk to other conservatives, and they don’t understand that there are people in this country who don’t think like them.
That said, I wonder how much this vote will matter. The election is a year and a half away. By that time, the Ryan budget will be all but forgotten.
My guess is that the calculus in a Rep congressman’s mind is something like this:
Vote for Ryan budget=no effect on independent voters, who won’t remember
Vote Against=piss off Republican base votes, who will remember
Bill after bill opposing abortion, and not a single one about jobs.
they are counting on the Seniors and those who have Mom and Dad in nursing homes on Medicaid to vote against their own interests.
they don’t believe the political ads are coming.
I’d write letters to papers, if possible. I have sent off a couple so far. It’s time to pin their ears back.
They’re applauding because they believe their own rhetoric, and they believe a silent majority is on their side. But beyond that, they’re applauding because they think they’re changing the conversation. And it’s worked before.
In 2010, every Republican nominee for the US Senate came out against climate change legislation, and most expressed doubt or outright hostility to the idea that climate change even exists. This seemingly extreme position not only didn’t cost them at the polls, but, as Steven pointed out in a recent post, the percentage of the public who also doubted climate change, and who didn’t prioritize it as a policy issue, went up quite a bit in the same period.
It helped, in the climate change example, that Democrats chose not to rebut the craziness. That won’t happen this time. But Republicans are used to the notion that in terms of both media coverage and public opinion, what Democrats say doesn’t particularly matter.
Remember that for all the leftie alarm about GW Bush, he won more votes in 2004 than 2000, and the tide didn’t turn against him until his own actions, or lack of them, during Katrina. We talk a lot, and most of it doesn’t stick with the public, in part because such views rarely get expressed in the country’s dominant media, in part because too many elected Democrats don’t stay on message or back it up with action. It’s up to us rational folks to make the criticisms stick this time.
Really. What are they supposed to say?
These are also a group driven first and most by principle.
Principle matter far more than results. They believe in their principles and believe that in the long haul their principles produce the best results.
And if they don’t, it is because of evil socialist/communists undermine their efforts.
They absolutely do not care if this doesn’t become law. If the country goes to crap at least they will be smug in their belief it wasn’t their fault.
Or that will be ammo (literally) for the nuttiest of them to go all militia on the rest of us to “take back the country”
Because no one else will.
“everyone who voted for Ryan’s budget voted to destroy Medicare at the same time that they voted to give the rich another massive tax break”
It’s really simple. Fox ‘News’ will say it was the Dems that killed Medicare and they’ll also say ‘Tax Cuts stimulate the economy’. Hate Radio will repeat that message, CNN will have some hapless Dem on and ridicule them for killing Medicaid, and by 2012 it WILL be the Dem’s fault and the poor GOP tried in vain to stop them.
If Fox says it, then it IS true, and no facts, or truth, or reality will penetrate the fervent belief of the Republican voter.
It’s like the scene in ‘Wag the Dog’, when Dustin Hoffman asks, what is they find out? and Robert DeNiro says, ‘Who’s gonna tell them?’
This would all make sense if we see it as an example of the same thing that is happening in WI, OH, and IN, but on the national level. Remember, the Republican Party answers to its big donors, and the Koch Bros., US Chamber of Commerce, et al., seem to have decided that the 2010 midterms was the signal go for the whole enchilada. Unfortunately for them, they have no political sense. I think their attitude is, political sense? We don’t need no stinkin’ political sense. They think they can buy their way to anything.