On Bipartisanship
Ben Smith at Politico captures the state of play as well as anyone at this stage:
… “bipartisanship” is as much a brand as any conceivable Washington reality. These House Republicans, as is traditional when a caucus shrinks, are more conservative, and in safer seats, than their predecessors. The notion that they’d wind up anything other than extremely rare allies of the Democratic President was always unlikely. Obama doesn’t need their votes. But his visible, cable-television-grabbing bipartisan gestures are aimed at cementing his hold on that brand, and ensuring when Republicans and Democrats go their separate ways, Republicans are seen as the partisan ones.
It’s not a particularly novel tactic, but it places the House Republicans in an uncomfortable spot. As Chris Cillizza wrote in a very smart piece today, their party is in danger of being defined as pure, intransigent, Rush-Limbaugh-style opposition, and Obama’s visit to the Hill may give their image a further shove down that road.
I’ve read of news reports (ABC and NBC) discussing Obama’s visits in just these terms — that he was working at outreach and the Rs wouldn’t budge. It doesn’t hurt Obama that there are those on the left howling about compromising with Rs. Obama was seen working at some compromise (and 33% of the package being tax cuts is compromise) and was seen being rebuffed.
Obama will be doing more of this, not less and you can see that the optics are as important as the substance. The minority caucus can afford all of their purity stands — with some notable exceptions (Snowe, Collins, Spector). And these exceptions are folks known to be able to garner Independent AND Democratic votes. Conservative purity only speaks to the conservative base — which isn’t enough to win majorities any more.
Tags: President Obama
Like I said yesterday… Republicans are writing their own headlines. Say what you want about the Recovery Package Republicans, no one’s listening. They are, however, watching.
…defined as pure, intransigent, Rush-Limbaugh-style opposition,
Yes. They own that brand, but what gets me is how utterly un-American they are willing to be in pursuit of that brand identity.
Some stupid hippie part of my brain always thought that Republicans would rise to the occasion at some point and thinks of themselves as Americans.
Silly of me, I know.
Very silly. 😉
BTW, Steele was just named RNC Chairman… in case anyone cares.
http://tpmdc.talkingpointsmemo.com/2009/01/steele-wins-rnc-chairmanship.php
hundreds of millions for condoms
hundreds of millions for the ministry of propaganda to promote socialised medicine
hundreds of millions to create a government data base of all your health record to speed up the transition to socialised medicine
why would republicans object to any of that??
and today you can add Project Labor Agreements by Exec Order… now 80% of construction workers can be excluded from federal construction projects because they don’t have (or want) a union card.
I really don’t know what to make of all this. I’m still waiting for them to fuck up somewhere…it seems like a brilliant play and to force them to look like a bunch of curmedgeon…
Some stupid hippie part of my brain always thought that Republicans would rise to the occasion at some point and thinks of themselves as Americans.
The worst of them will always think of themselves as Republicans first. I thought that they’d be able to set aside the constant positioning for advantage and just deal with the worst financial crisis of most of our lifetimes. I’m really shocked, I must say that they have absolutely no seriousness about this. No recognition that people are losing jobs, that businesses are closing, that we are facing a giant hole in the GDP that does not just affect us — it is also dragging down other economies since we are all globalists now. So I guess we leave them to their playpen and figure out how to remind people who is taking this financial problem seriously.
BREAKING NEWS this falls under the heading of get you head out of your ass and shows that the Repuk’s don’t have any idea what they are doing. New study by the budget office of the repuks plan. HOLD ON TO YOUR HATS it raises taxes on another 40,000 americans OOPS.
The Republican plan would create twice as many jobs as the Democrat plan according to the White House models. Why don’t the Democrats try being bipartisan and take the best from the GOP plan.
Republicans have nothing to lose by opposing President Obama. They are the loyal opposition. That is what they were elected to do. If the Obama plan works, no one ever loses an election for voting no on something that passed two years earlier. If the Obama plan fails, it will be 1994 again.
Ha ha, TT. I read that too. Republican tax & spenders! I guess for Republicans “lower taxes” really means lower taxes for me and my Wall Street buddies. It’s been well-documented that Republicans have tried to remove tax breaks for low income people.
As long the the taxes are raised on the people receiving the Wall Street bonuses that weren’t earned, I’m OK with it.
Apparently being in the minority hasn’t done a thing for the minority’s math skills. According to this account, it looks as though the Rs threw together a plan that reinstated AMT obligations for 26M people (after the D plan reduced them). And pay close attention to the response by Cantor’s spokesperson — the usual sneering of you’re just wring with no countering calculations or pointers to exactly where the Ds messed up in the analysis.
David !!!! Why oh why do trolls always get it wrong