Opposition Pay-offs
The day before the Obama Inaguaration, I outlined the Republican strategy and its payoff matrix:
The stimulus has non-symmetrical political pay-offs. Seeing positive impacts of the stimulus package and voting for or against it still leaves the GOP rep SOL. The big project is a Democratic Branded project, almost all benefits will accrue to the Democrats. Voting for the stimulus and seeing a fairly crappy economy in the summer of 2010 deprives an incumbent of a good sledge hammer. The only positive political outcome is to oppose the bail-out and be proven right about your wisdom….
Caving and hoping that the popular opponent screws up without destroying your own credibility as a critic is amazingly stupid political strategy (Hi John Kerry, Dick Gephardt, Hillary Clinton, Tom Daschle etc) as well as a predictor of crappy results.
The stimulus as passed in ARRA was necessary but insufficient. It was too small at the topline number for the size of the output gap we actually faced (as the recession was deeper than the earlier data showed) and poorly designed with too much money going to AMT fixes and ineffective lump-sum tax-cuts. The effective parts were pared back to please Sens. Collins, Snowe and Nelson. And this was because the Republican Party realized they were the opposition and the job of the opposition is to oppose. It also was because the Obama Administration likes to punch dirty fucking hippies, especially when they are right on the math and the political outcomes.
We are likely to see the same dynamic next year as the Republican strategists read political scientists. Presidential re-elections are primarily determined by disposable personal income growth and job approval levels. Those two variables are correlated variables. Republican chances (including Sarah Palin) are much higher if the economy continues to suck for another two years. And if they have a majority in the House, and a minimal blocking coalition in the Senate, they can guarantee a shitty economy for another two years.
Bruce Bartlett, via the Big Picture, says this is the Republican plan:
“Clearly, a weak economy in 2012 will be very good for whoever the Republican presidential candidate is. It’s hard to see how the Republicans lose by blocking stimulus.”
Opposition politics means millions of people will get hurt worse than they need to, but those people will vote Republican because Obama, Democrats, and unfortunately the dirty fucking hippies who were right and punched for being right, will get the majority of the blame for the state of the economy in 2012. And that is how we could get President Palin.
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The effective parts were pared back to please Sens. Collins, Snowe and Nelson.
The effective parts were pared back to please Obama (R). Collins, Snowe, and Nelson were just cover.
The ineffective parts were inserted to please the former senator who chose Lieberman as his mentor.
In the financial crisis, the proposed bill (ARRA) was one that a Republican would submit. If there had not been an financial crisis, then the proposed bill would have been 100% tax cut, that is, GWB Stimulus III.
Substantial losses in the House and Millionaires’ Club (senate) combined with over 10% official unemployment (with unofficial even higher, of course) could lead to a primary challenge for Obama. (See, Carter/Kennedy 1980.)
What scares the DLC democrats more: the words “President Palin” or “the Democratic party turns to the left”? My guess is that the latter.
…is that the latter. should be …is the latter.
And that is why the Democratic party should have stopped Obama when he chose to disenfranchise the voters of two states in order to nab the nomination. There is no way in heaven or hell that Hillary Clinton wouldn’t be a far superior president to the one we have now.
And anyone who comes up with the trite response that Obama is governing as they expected Clinton is just too fucking stupid to be listened to. The same demographic that put Bush in the White House put Obama in the White House.
Until someone stands up and says that we backed the candidate, and starts pushing it, nothing will change. Obama doesn’t want to be naked and if the preference for Hillary becomes overt, he’ll do something worthwhile.
That should say, “we backed the wrong candidate”.
This Texan is mighty offended you didn’t choose President Perry, rather than that reverse carpetbagger Palin. How dare you!
Now if you’ll excuse me, I have a tea party, a book burning & a queer beating to attend. Y’all take care now. And god bless.
Even when Democrats had sixty senators they didn’t accomplish anything with that super majority. They let Sens. Nelson and Lieberman, among others, hold up the process for their own purposes, instead of saying “If you’re a Democrat, you vote for cloture”, and making it stick. That’s because they didn’t want to.
The Democrats’ refusal to stand for good policy is what gave the GOP its chance this year and in 2012.
Assuming, of course, that the two legacy parties don’t form a single system, which they do.
It would be nice if the Ds dragged the Rs over the cliff with them, instead of vice versa, but I don’t really care which of ‘em goes over first.