Tag: governing

From this day forward, all of the cynics, all the naysayers, they’re going to have to confront the reality of what this reform is – and what it isn’t. They’ll have to finally acknowledge, this isn’t a government takeover of the health care system.

Barack Obama. I hope he’s right, but doubt he is. The Democrat is functionally incapable of this sort of messaging.

Gravity (and other theories)

Yglesias wants to know:

If Mitch McConnell & co were really so sure that passing health reform would be a political loser for Democrats and that organizing around repeal will be a big winner, then wouldn’t they be making it easier to pass the damn bill?

It’s not that if McConnell believed what he said he’d be voting for the bill. But if your opponents are determined to inflict a wound on themselves, why not just let them, in a procedural sense? Why not stop the bitching and moaning about reconciliation? Why not stop talking about gambits to stick the reconciliation process up?

Because the GOP true-believers know that if anything is potentially more destructive to The Democrat (as party in charge) than either passing or failing to pass something, it’s the spectacle of a slowly unfolding legislative FAIL itself (regardless of outcome; the long process is, in and of itself, a failure).
People hate the process of our government more than anything. The outcome, whether good, bad, or indifferent really is beside the point. The longer ‘Merica is forced to watch Washington in the act of gridlocking itself, the better the GOP thinks it looks. And the GOP is completely an unalterably right about this one thing. As Clinton once said, “It’s better to be strong and wrong, than right and weak”; these slow-rolling legislative fits are, to the polity at large, completely indistinguishable from weakness, both in terms of legislative will and of ideas. And, of course, the beauty is that the GOP is entirely responsible for the slow-roll and will never, ever be made to pay a price. Period. As in: Not in this lifetime. Just how it is. Like gravity.

The Democrat, utterly unaware of any of this for reasons that are beyond unclear, acts as a both implicit and explicit enabler of this sort of behavior. Again and again. And wonders why it gets the same results.

Noises Off

Kevin Drum reacts to the 1.5-hour systematic refutation of GOP talking points by one Barack Obama today during the GOP caucus meeting (which you can see and read for yourself; Obama is particularly ferocious on healthcare and the preposterous rhetoric surrounding same. Also economic proposals. Worth your time.):

Right now Republicans have a built-in advantage when it comes to attack politics and they’d be fools to give it up. A format like this, which puts the president front and center, allows him to directly call out distortions and lies, and rewards conversation rather than machine-gun style talking points, is something Republicans should justifiably be very afraid of. Unless they’re suicidal — or somehow figure out a way to take better advantage of the format — they’ll never allow this to happen again. Without the noise machine, they’re lost.

I think this overlooks the fact that Obama can simply host the meeting anyway. TV cameras will be there. If the GOP refuses to show up, or won’t let him in the door, it makes for a powerful object lesson. Either they’re a) afraid to face him -or- b) have no valid response and know it. If they let him in but close it to cameras, that’s equally powerful in its own way. Any of these outcomes can then become the message for the next several days. You could even have count-up calendars: 64 days since the GOP last agreed to meet with the President. Will they turn up on Thursday? It’s the sort of simple, powerful concept that the American people will instantly and viscerally understand. And it will piss them off.

The Democrats need to focus all efforts at messaging. Most of the country is utterly unaware of just how pervasive GOP obstruction is, and will never find out on FOXnews. So you have to make it sufficiently unavoidable. Everyone must see it first hand, or hear about it at the water cooler, or see the particularly defenestrating YouTube clip, or what-have-you. Every day. Every week. Now until the mid-terms.