Here is why we have to break the back of the Republicans now, in preparation for Obama’s second term:
The president, in an interview for TIME’s Person of the Year award, said the economy, immigration, climate change and energy would be at the top of his agenda for the next four years.
The interview took place before the Newtown Massacre, so you can add gun control to the president’s top priorities.
The Republicans oppose Keynesian economics, which means that they won’t vote for any stimulus spending.
The Republicans hate brown people, so they won’t vote for any kind of immigration reform.
The Republicans are in the pockets of Big Oil and Big Coal and Big Gas, so they pretend to disbelieve in climate change and oppose efforts to promote clean and renewable energy.
And the Republicans are totally beholden to the NRA, so they oppose all efforts to curtail the acquisition of lethal arsenals by deranged lunatics.
If the Republicans are not splintered on the rocks of their deluded and extreme agenda now, then the president’s entire second term agenda is dead in the water.
You make a good point.
They need to take a beating. They need to become as unpopular as they were after the debt ceiling madness.
Here is my fear. The problem is that even though they might become unpopular, they are still in the House. And if they choose to defy public opinion, there really isn’t a damn thing we can do until 2014. And even then, it will be an enormous climb to purge enough of them to get anything done.
I don’t think we can ever get “them” as a whole to regain their sanity.
The goal of delivering the Republicans a crushing defeat is to splinter them – that is, to break a few of them off. It would only take a few to get, for instance, the old Comprehensive Immigration Reform bill passed, since the Democrats would vote for it en masse.
Republicans are far more afraid of primaries than general elections. They have figured out there are very few “moderates” who vote and that taking centrist positions from time to time gets primary challenges but no meaningful general election boost (see Lugar, Richard). We’re not going to get 17 Representatives, even on immigration reform. We’d need more anyway, since some Dems will object to any controversial major reform (no conspiracy theories, there’s just a lot of Dems with varied opinions and varied constituencies).
And now is the time, when the President has momentum from the election and is showing his strength and compassion in regards to Sandy Hook. Please don’t waste this positive energy! And don’t capitulate to the Republicans, hoping to appease any of them. Give Boehner something to really cry about.
you’re not wrong, BooMan.
http://www.nsfwcorp.com/dispatch/newtown
Read the whole thing. Interesting analysis about why the gunnut culture is central to the entire right wing movement.
Very interesting article.
Stunning stuff. I knew that something happened to the NRA in the late 70s, but I did not know about this fellow. I used to shoot in Rifle Club in HS from 1966-1970. I would bring my rifle to school (that is, I would carry the gun into the school with the bullets in my pocket) and leave it in the office. I would shoot with others (all guys) at the police range on Wed afternoons. I got up to Marksman 2nd class. My gun was so old and inaccurate that it was hard to get better. At that time, the NRA was about accuracy, gun safety, and promoting target shooting. There was NOTHING political about it.
Interesting and not the only right-wing capture during that period.
In 1978 and 1979, W. A. Criswell of First Baptist Church, Dallas, engineered the takeover of the Southern Baptist Convention called Conservative Resurgence.
I agree 100%. Which is why Social Security cuts had better be kabuki.
Someone needs to explain what “kabuki” is to me in the first place. From what I know, it’s not generally appreciated here in the wider United States. The only connoisseurs of it seem to reside within the Beltway. Worse, when the untutored and unwashed, like me, se it, we often misinterpret its arcane forms — so, for example, when I hear a Democratic President proposing Social Security cuts I take it to mean he wants Social Security cuts.
Kabuki
Ritualized posturing, yes. But in using the term kabuki, I have not meant to imply that Boner and Obama have some kind of private agreement they made beforehand.
I do think that Boner has almost no wiggle room at all, so his posturing is just grandstanding for the base.
Knowing that Boner can’t really negotiate, Obama can propose stuff, even stuff that will piss off his base. Why would he do that? A couple of reasons. One is that if Boner “looks like” he’s negotiating, Obama’s got to “look like” he’s negotiating too. Second, his offers make him look “moderate” and “reasonable” to independents. He knows Boner can’t get his lunatics to say yes t anything reasonable. Thirdly, by pissing off his own base, Obama’s actually helping to strengthen his position. When push comes to shove, he has all the proof he needs of all the things his base won’t stand for.
Sound familiar? Haven’t we seen this before? You’re never wrong to take a public negotiating stance that ASSUMES your opponent is negotiating in good faith, even when you know perfectly well he isn’t. Remember, nothing is agreed until everything is agreed.
That’s what I call kabuki.
Proof to whom? Nobody cares about “reasonable negotiating postures”. Everybody wants what they can get. With the people that count, there are Republicans, who have no interest in fairness, and everybody else, who are all at or left of Obama’s initial offer. There’s nobody to impress. The Villagers are essentially all Republicans doing centrist Kabuki to try to fool a few remaining moderates into thinking the Republicans are reasonable.
You’re wrong.
Just this morning, Scarborough was giving props to Obama for being willing to piss off his own base, and criticizing Boehner for being bound to them.
One need only look at the approval rating of Congress, and what happened to it between June and August 2011, to see the effect that looking reasonable, and putting the blame on the other guy, can have.
Congress’s approval rating reflects that people don’t want the government to go bankrupt and crash the economy. It wasn’t being “unreasonable”. Obama was being “reasonable” and his numbers fell too.
Nobody is going to care about Joe calling Obama “reasonable”. He cares because the austerity bomb negotiations were supposed to be the payoff of this round of “starve the beast”. The Bush tax cut caused budget problems; the plan was that later those budget problems would be the excuse for budget cuts. If the austerity bomb goes off, the bush cuts go away without the kinds of cuts they were hoping for. So he’s trying to browbeat the Republicans into taking one of Obama’s offers, which, while not everything the Republicans were hoping for, is long-term progress in their direction.
So you really thing Morning Joe is the only one in America that feels that way? And they’re all going to be mighty disappointed.
Obama is isolating the Tea Party lunatics.
Most people would describe causing “the government to go bankrupt and crash the economy” as “unreasonable.”
While Obama’s numbers dropped, the Republicans’ dropped a lot more. In a two-party system, approval is a zero-sum game.
In this context, brendan means that Obama is only offering chained CPI to make him look reasonable, thereby winning the war for public support. It’s an interesting counterpoint to the idea that cuts to SS are deeply unpopular and that anyone suggesting them will be punished. The underlying assumption is that the administration knows that Boehner cannot accept their offer.
This is brendanx, though. A fairly new user not to be confused with brendan.
Ooops, I see you’ve had a long exchange below.
I’m fairly sure the administration knows that as well.
At the same time -for reasons I have articulated in previous threads- I do not like the idea of social security cuts, and kabuki or not, I call my reps when I hear that phrase. Which makes me, indirectly, one of the kabuki players as well, I suppose.
The stakes have always been high. The question is how? It seems like a recent post was suggesting that we should offer Republicans deals that will create internecine tension, even if it means our compromising on core populist positions. I don’t think that the gain outweighs the loss in that approach.
If what I’ve read is true, I’d rather see us using discharge petitions, which apparently is a way that we can force a vote in the House on bills that have passed the Senate without going through committee or needing Boehner’s approval. Coupled with real filibuster reform, we could force votes that either we win with a simple majority or get Republicans to come out on the wrong side of issues, all without damaging the Democratic brand.
I think the best time to do that is after January 1st.
Now that the Rep’s have been stripped, on every issue, of popular support the public is viewing a Party operating solely in the interests of their financial masters.
Never in my lifetime have I seen an entire party governing completely outside the interests of the Country.
So it’s not just that they and what they represent are vulnerable and need to be taken down sooner rather than later; it’s that they MUST be. A future in their shadow is not acceptable.
Exactly why you take the anvil out of their hands and offer up the Social Security cuts yourself. Make it clear they want to pay for tax cuts for the rich with Social Security cuts.
True, but I can’t forget that 47% of the country voted for them last month. Serious question: I wonder how much of that support is “soft”. I expect a lot of working-class Republicans in Michigan, for example, are having serious buyer’s remorse right now.
I’m thinking a fair amount voted for their Party, their Rep but not for the platform. The polls are shoving them towards single digits on platform issues.
No doubt you’re right, though I find it hard to understand that mentality. “I support my party, I just don’t like what they do.”
I think I felt that way when Pelosi said she could get the votes to cut Social Security by $140B over ten years then added it was not a cut but would instead strengthen Social Security.
Yes, but there’s a big difference. When Pelosi did that, she was going against what the party is supposed to stand for, it’s not surprising the rank and file didn’t like it. The Republican voters we’re talking about here don’t like what the party is doing when it’s doing what it is SUPPOSED to stand for. So why are they still voting republican?
booman,
This talk of “breaking” the Republicans reminds me about our press talked about breaking the Iraqi insurgency. It sounds like magical thinking, the idea of irrevocably breaking their will to resist.
And while this is an article of faith with you, you haven’t addressed the serious concerns of Democrats who question Mr. Obama’s dealmaking on a particular point of policy, Social Security cuts. Besides the fact that it is offensive to us that Obama thinks Social Security is his to offer up (especially to this bum, Boehner), you haven’t explained why he is the one who has to offer it up first, unless he’s really keen on it. I mean, why not force the Republicans to demand these things explicitly themselves?
I suspect that question is rhetorical, because I can’t imagine a convincing justification for it.
The Iraqi insurgency was broken. The civil war was ended. The war was ended. Our troops came home. Obviously, we broke the country and it still has massive problems and the potential for a resumption of civil war or ethnic/sectarian cleansing, but the surge basically worked as well as our political elites needed it to. Nothing magical about it. At worst, we’re talking about some self-serving definitions.
In any case, the Republicans are currently operating in an alternate universe. It is extremely severe at this point, as the Romney reaction to the election helped to show. This lack of rational thought is the single most dangerous thing facing the country. And because the USA is so powerful, it is the most dangerous thing facing the world (ask Iraq).
There are powerful forces that have driven the GOP to this place and that are keeping them there. The money of energy corporations, the NRA, Grover Norquist, the Koch Brothers, think tanks, campaign finance law, gerrymandering, changing demographics, regional polarization, Fox News, etc.
One of the only ways to change things is to force elected Republicans to break free of the pledges or to vote against their monied benefactors. And then they will have to defend their votes, which fractures the cohesiveness of their Borg Brain, rendering it much less effective. It carves out space for Republicans to be unorthodox and to buck the party line.
I don’t particularly want to give the Republicans anything to vote for, but the idea is to get them to vote against their orthodoxies, not ours. Any deal involves us giving something we don’t want to give and that the left thinks is some kind of treason. That has always been what a deal would look like.
So, rather than focusing on why Obama would offer something, or about the timing of it, you should focus on the balance between what he’s violating and what the Republicans would be violating.
And keep in mind that breaking this hive mind is essential to our future.
booman,
I’ve enjoyed your blog for a while, so I’m genuinely surprised by how bad this response is. When our warmongering pundits meant when they talked about “breaking” the insurgency was creating an ability for us to impose our will, and a government of our choosing, on Iraq. It had nothing to do with be able to leave. The fact that we’ve left indicates precisely that we didn’t break anyone. Your answer is worse than sophistry — you’re falsifying history here, which is strange how you usually call out neocons.
And you still don’t address the question of Obama’s negotiating strategy (if that’s even what it is) with Social Security. I asked why’d he offer it up first. Telling me “not to focus” on this significant point is dismissive to the point of rudeness. Sorry, a chit to him is a significant policy concern to me and everyone else here.
I can’t discuss the complexities of the Iraq War in a comment.
As an analogy for the Republican Party, the Iraqi insurgency isn’t particularly good, so it’s not worth my time to try to make the analogy work. It’s your analogy, in any case.
But the point isn’t to break the GOP so that it offers no resistance. That wasn’t a realistic goal in Iraq and I have no idea why you make that the measure.
The “chit” of which you speak is one of many possible enticements to the Republicans. If you find it especially appalling, perhaps you have some other “chit” to offer. Most likely, someone else will find your chit worse.
Personally, I don’t think Obama has offered enough to get the GOP to cave. That means, no stimulus, no extension of unemployment benefits, no raising of the debt ceiling, no extension of tax credits, a car wreck with federal appropriations that must be fixed, a threat to our credit rating, and one more failure to make government work.
Let’s be clear that going over the cliff is a shit sandwich for the country and for the Democrats and the president and the economy. The only consolation is that it will be worse for the Republicans.
It will be worse, but it will leave them still cocooned in their alternate universe of total opposition.
So, yes, I care about the COLA’s for Social Security recipients. I think it is important not to reduce benefits for some of our most vulnerable citizens.
This piece is entitled “The Big Picture.”
The analogy wasn’t to Iraq, per se. It was to another kind of wishful thinking. Your arguments sound like wishful thinking.
Here’s what I genuinely don’t understand, and I may be naive or ignorant, but why has Obama “offered” anything on Social Security. I have never heard Republicans demand anything specific. The Democrats were making a lot of hay mocking the Republicans for saying what entitlements they wanted cut. Have I missed something (I’m not being sarcastic here) — what specifically have Republicans demanded in entitlement cuts. My understanding is they’re expecting an offer of cuts.
meant “mocking Republicans for NOT saying what entitlements they want cut”.
The administration sees chained CPI as preferable to other alternatives the Republicans see as desirable. You may have noted that Paul Krugman begrudgingly agreed that chained CPI was preferable to raising the retirement age for Medicare, and it is certainly better than cutting Medicaid, especially now that Medicaid is tightly entwined with ObamaCare.
Once they decided that chained CPI was the least bad option, there was no reason to keep it a secret. Jay Carney openly mentioned that it was a GOP demand, not something they offered because they wanted to. Once it is on the table, it should be waved as evidence that Obama is willing to take a hit from progressives and is therefore making significant and painful concessions.
Whether the administration is doing this with full knowledge that Boehner can’t deliver is an interesting question, but they’d make the deal if he could deliver. And with good reason.
This is actually a satisfying answer to my question, even if I don’t like it. Thanks for your several responses, not to mention your time.
Whether the administration is doing this with full knowledge that Boehner can’t deliver is an interesting question, but they’d make the deal if he could deliver. And with good reason.
Well, that’s good to know, although it kinda stands on its head this notion that President Obama is only making these kinds of offers because he knows the GOP won’t or can’t accept them.
Fwiw, I agree with this (new?) assessment. I realize it’s dangerous in politics to accept anything at face value, but for the most part I tend to take this President at his word. Nothing in his record, actions, or demeanor suggests that he’s the sort to make any offer that he wouldn’t immediately back up if called to–including an offer that he expects to be rejected.
That’s what I believe today, and that’s what I believe was the case last year when his big negotiation with Boner fell through, although I was unsure about it for quite a while. This President is consistent, and–for the political realm, at least–remarkably honest.
I completely agree with you. I think the idea of the theater part of this is what so many people do as an excuse so they can project onto Obama what they want him to do. He does not do theater.
I have a core principle in my personal life not to lie, to myself or to others. I don’t care if it often works against me, I don’t have to constantly try to remember what I said. I mean what I say and I think this is what Obama does. Leave others to get tangled in their web of theater. Yes, if you want a clear picture of Obama, by all means, take him at his word. I also think he can and will change his mind so by all means, speak up because it’s important.
I think the idea of the theater part of this is what so many people do as an excuse so they can project onto Obama what they want him to do…I have a core principle in my personal life not to lie, to myself or to others. I don’t care if it often works against me, I don’t have to constantly try to remember what I said. I mean what I say and I think this is what Obama does.
Physician, heal thyself!
Barack Obama does not do theater? He’s the most successful politician in recent American history! Of course he does theater. They all do.
Stupid question, but I have yet to see anything that says Obama made any offers on SS. I have heard it was one of the things being considered in the Boehner-Obama negotiations, but I have seen no evidence that Obama is the one that introduced it into the conversation. Could someone please point me to soemthing that specifically shows (not claims) that Obama brought SS into the discussion. I am open to the concept that he did, just want something to back up the claim.
I don’t have any chits to “offer”. I’ll wait for Republicans to demand them.
“This piece is entitled ‘The Big Picture'”.
Evidently with no awareness of the irony.
Generally, if you hear “But look at the big picture…” it means you’ve been screwed.
And if you’re asking someone to look at that big picture, it helps to make it blurry, too. None of those irritating details like chained CPI, or red lines you drew two weeks ago…
It is not my intention to blur or obscure anything.
I think we all understand what chained CPI means and why it sucks. I wrote about it.
This piece is about changing your perspective. If you don’t want to look at things this way, then you won’t.
Au contraire. I do want to look at things the way you’re presenting them; it would comfort me. It’s not just wishful thinking, either — based on track record I think you have a lot of insight. But I’m not convinced. I like the agressive way Obama labeled the Republicans hostage takers and would like to see Republicans further labeled as the party loudly demanding Medicare and Social Security cuts. But in fact, out here in layman’s world where I reside, that’s not what I see in the paper. Entitlements are a subject for negotiation, now, for the parties “meeting halfway”. For example, the Post had an article about the supposed contradiction between polling that indicates people want “compromise” but oppose cuts. Stupid people (and leading poll questions) I know, but it shows that Democrats will get blamed, too, for cuts — they are not deemed by definition defenders of Social Security by the public — and why should they be when they keep cuts on the table? That is a terrible precedent for the future when it comes to Social Security (happy with their defense of Medicare).
Another thing I don’t understand: Obama says debt ceiling is non-negotiable, then a prospective deal includes a Republican moratorium for 1 or 2 years on any fight over the ceiling. That is a contradiction. By definition, it’s now a subject of negotiation.
I understand your argument, but it’s just not convincing, especially when you talk about “their Borg Brain” or “space”.
What’s wrong with exposing a deeply unpopular party’s extremist agenda by forcing them to ask for cuts to Social Security and Medicare, or making them issue more terrorist threats to blow up the country over the debt ceiling? I liked it when Obama was calling them hostage takers. What’s he doing now? Negotiating on two points he said were non-negotiable (250K and debt ceiling) and on a third his party and Vice-President had said were off the table.
Maybe you’re right. I hope so. You’re just not very convincing, and I see I’m not in the minority here.
It was a sectarian insurgency, and it ran until sectarian cleansing was complete. Once the Shites and Sunnis were separated by deserts or walls there was nothing left to fight about and it ended. It was never broken, it just ran out of practical targets.
One quick correction, brendanx:
Obama didn’t offer up Social Security first. It was in Boehner’s opening bid.
Link:
http://www.politicususa.com/bernie-sanders-rips-john-boehner-calling-cuts-disabled-veterans-benefits
.html
“John Boehner’s deficit reduction proposal includes cuts to Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid with new tax breaks for the wealthiest Americans. Boehner also called for a switch to the chained CPI, which would reduce annual cost-of-living adjustments for Social Security recipients, and for disabled veterans.“
I don’t understand why this misapprehension is so widespread.
You can imagine why. As the article mentions “some Democrats” (like the ones in the administration) have signalled a willingness to give this away for some time now. Still, I’m glad to be corrected on that point of fact.
Don’t you just love this sort of narrative in political analysis? No specifics, just some nitwit read a statement as a signal.
And likely it was a public signal of “we are negotiating in good faith” whether they are or not.
That’s an important correction.
Thank you. Please help get it out there.
Everyone on the left seems to take it on faith that Obama put it out there first, and is basing their understanding of what’s happening on bad info.
I got the idea from this TPM story from Dec 17:
I can see how this year’s negotiations opened up with Boehner calling first for chained CPI, but that call started during last year’s negotiations iirc (the term’s been bandied about plenty over the course of the last year, however it originally appeared–Bowles-Simpson?), so in that sense it’s nothing new for either side.
What seemed quite new about it was to see the Obama team offer it as part of a package deal; I was never under the impression that President Obama invented the concept on his own, only that he offered it up at a time when prevailing wisdom seemed to be saying he didn’t need to.
Well, that was the problem with the first term as well. So how does it happen now? The preconditions I see for it happening are:
I don’t see this happening until 2014 at the earliest and it will take an immense amount of grassroots effort for that to occur. The inside-the-Beltway crowd will continue business-as-usual.
What I wonder is: Does Obama realize this? He’ll get nothing done legislatively for the rest of his time in office barring a sea change in 2014. For him to get something through in 2015-16 he’s got to make the Republicans vote against popular provisions over and over again for the next two years. My take on the budget negotiations is that he doesn’t get it. The #1 issue to fight on is ending tax cuts on 250,000+ earners. It’s overwhelmingly popular and the Repubs will fight to the death against it (e.g. Boehner seems to need sweeteners to pass a 1,000,000 limit). But he’s willing to give it away to avoid the austerity bomb, which is a short-term problem that even has long-term benefits.
Since he’s willing to give up his best weapon and some permanently beneficial legislation to avoid a mild recession my conclusion is: He doesn’t get it.
Since he hasn’t given away a thing, your conclusion seems premature.
Check back with me around the time of the President’s budget release in February as to whether Obama gets it. A lot depends on the tone of the new Congress–and there are a lot of pieces in movement on that one, from House leadership to filibuster reform to Democratic unity…
We peons are experiencing the fog of battle with regard to tax cut expiration and the fiscal sequester of discretionary and military spending. All of the messages and news is propaganda in that battle. Even the supposed news reports. Only the results matter, not what is brought to the table.
Here’s my perspective.
I ran as some know as a State Senate candidate in SD in a district that is/was winnable (more indies that the red-blue diff). That gives me a certain perspective.
So, conclusions:
Party affiliation matters.
Registration of voters is really important.
Obama isn’t trying to break the back of Republicans. Watch the fiscal cliff negotiations closely. What is Obama doing? By making various concessions, he’s trying to come up with a package that is acceptable to the House Republicans. In other words, he’s trying to help Boehner.
From CBS This Morning:
He’s already violated a campaign promise. At $400K, how different is that from a permanent extension of Bush tax cuts? Not much. And if it creeps upward to $800K, then people making excuses for Obama had better fess up that they were totally taken.
What did Obama do to enchant so many progressives? He’s not a liberal. Open your eyes.
He’s already violated a campaign promise.
Really? So, that proposal has been adopted?
Oh, wait, no it hasn’t. You’re spiking the ball on the ten yard line.
And when that proposal isn’t enacted, are you going to admit you were wrong? Or are you going to come up with an excuse about how, once again, Obama really really wanted to screw you, and only a bizarre series of coincidences and good luck resulted in him achieving the outcome he said he wanted from the beginning?
Unless this is all quite remarkable theater, Obama has clearly concluded that a fairly comprehensive fiscal deal simply must be concluded by New Year’s Eve. So much so that he is willing to expend an enormous amount of his newly won political capital attempting a deal with the worst, most irresponsible Repub Congress in history.
He has not at all explained why this is so important, although the hyperventilating corporate media provides a clue—the fiscal cliff is being presented as the onset of another financial meltdown, even though this is manifestly untrue. The corporate media is in panic mode because our corporate masters are absolutely demanding that Obama strike some deal to resolve this (Repub-created) “crisis” by year end.
Of course, even if Obama and Boner the Drunk announce some agreed “deal”, the reality is that a majority of Boners Boneheads cannot be made to vote for it, ever. The corporate masters who are desperate to protect their defense subsidies cannot make their Repub monsters vote for it. The Repub monster is out of control, not that this will give CEOs much pause.
So if a fiscal deal ever passes, with whatever bad social security, medicare poison pills it ends up containing, it will be solely because of Dem votes in the House and Senate. Because we are the responsible party, the party of seriousness and maturity and deals and attempted compromise.
Breaking the back of Boner’s Boneheads would involve holding their feet to the fire and doing something more risky than agreeing to a bad deal by year end simply because the CEOs of our giant corporations are wild for it. I doubt Obama will “splinter Repubs on the rocks” by agreeing to a deeply unpopular deal, making Dems cram it down, and allowing the Repub Boneheads not to vote for it. Boner has not the slightest power or influence over them, everyone knows that.
OT:
OT—but where’s the post about Patraeus being knee deep with the neo-cons?
This article was unbelievable. I couldn’t believe the Post published it (though they neglected to mention both Kagans — how many are there, anyway?) have contributed the Post’s op-ed pages. It confirmed everything I already knew, but to see the mechanics of it exposed in such detail was still shocking. Petraeus’s joke about being their puppet was particularly scandalous.
They have the house and can still filibuster anything in the senate.
4 more years on defense.
We’ll be luck if he doesn’t voucherize Medicare and make 80 the age of eligibility to get more tax money out of the rich to cope with a debt crisis that doesn’t exist.
Breaking the back of the Republican Party will have to reach down to the state level as well.
Look at the latest from NC:
One of the consequences of a downticket disaster in a Presidential strong election.
Ok, I’m confused. The premise seems to be, if Obama can get a deal on the budget with the GOP, he will also be able to pass climate change, gun control, stim spending and immigration reform?
Really? How does that work? To me, this is the easiest of the remaining 4, and getting this done is in no way linked to the others.
The goopers have no incentive to act. They already were in the toilet in approval before the election, but thanks to gerrymandering very few lost seats. That isn’t going to change in the GOP house races. In the senate, next cycle is uphill for us. They can even get around the need for sanity/moderation in the 2016 Presidential race by messing with how blue states apportion electoral votes.
The difference between a defeat and a rout is whether the losing side’s troops hold formation while they lose ground, or scatter with every man looking out for himself.
I think BooMan’s argument is along these lines. If Obama can get some Republicans to break the Norquist pledge, it will break their ranks, and they won’t function as one unified force after that.
Correct, but it isn’t just the Norquist pledge.
Obama’s offer (if accepted) would make more than half the House Republicans break the Norquist pledge, plus it would force them to vote for classic Keynesian stimulus spending on infrastructure (read: Democratic union jobs), and it would force them to give up the debt ceiling as a weapon.
That is a three-fer.
Now, does that make them more willing to pass immigration reform or deal with climate change?
Not directly. But it splinters the cohesiveness of the party in general, leading to a situation where most elected Republicans are forced to defend raising taxes, paying our debts on time, and using the government to create jobs. It’s a big start.
Norquist has signed off on Plan B (before it was sweetened), and presumably on any deal similarly structured. It doesn’t appear that this tactic is the back-breaker it’s alleged to be.
“Republicans supporting this bill are this week affirming to their constituents in writing that this bill–the sole purpose of which is to prevent tax increases–is consistent with the pledge they made to them,” ATR said in a statement.”
I don’t know what Plan B has to do with my comment, or anything else for that matter.
Voting on raising taxes above a threshold (part of Plan B, which didn’t gather enough votes to pass earlier today), would involve breaking the Norquist pledge not to raise taxes, which you just mentioned in the comment above and elsewhere as a problem for Republicans. Republicans themselves may decide to oppose it, but Norquist at least has indicated that he’s not going to hold it against them. I assume when you talk about the significance or consequences of “breaking the Norquist pledge,” that Norquist’s approval or disapproval is a relevant part of the discussion. But maybe I’m mistaken about something.
The Republicans hate women, so they won’t vote for any kind of reproductive reform.
Cowards love an easy target, so accomplished women like Susan Rice will continue to struggle against republicans