“Invested In Economic Misery”: The GOP’s Job-Killing Election Strategy
The Republicans’ 2012 election strategy is perversely brilliant: Sabotage President Obama’s job-creation efforts, then blame him for the wreckage.
This strategy was in action the other day, when Mitt Romney assailed Obama on the stump. Romney said that “with America in crisis, with 23 million people out of work or stopped looking for work, he hasn’t put forth a plan to get us working again.”
Romney conveniently omitted the fact that Obama put forth such a plan last autumn. The American Jobs Act would have put as many as two million construction workers, cops, teachers, and firefighters back to work — so said economic forecasters — if only congressional Republicans hadn’t dynamited it.
Yes, sabotage was indeed required. Republicans knew their prospects for beating Obama would be damaged if they signed on to a plan that got more Americans working again. They’re far too invested in economic misery to let that happen. Working with Obama on job creation is not their top priority; as Senate GOP leader Mitch McConnell candidly remarked in 2010, “The single most important thing we want to achieve is for President Obama to be a one-term president.”
Fortunately for the GOP, voters typically pay scant attention to the parliamentary play-by-play in Washington. Fortunately for the GOP, we are a nation of amnesiacs. What happened last autumn, when Senate Republicans successfully blocked debate on the jobs plan, is ancient history. That episode, yet another example of obstruction by filibuster, has vanished down the Orwellian memory hole — which allows Romney to pretend the bill never existed.
The 2012 election may be a cliff-hanger, much like 2000 and 2004, and the sabotage strategy just may be clever enough to work.
The GOP saboteurs deserve a share of the blame for our stalled economy, but politics is a shorthand business — and the shorthand is that presidents take the hit when times are tough. When the latest jobs report tallied only 69,000 new jobs during May and put the jobless rate at 8.2 percent, Obama got the brunt of the blame. People tend to believe the maxim that sat on Harry S. Truman’s desk — “The buck stops here” — even though power is widely dispersed in a system that cannot function without at least a modicum of bipartisan comity.
By: Dick Polman, The Philadelphia Inquirer, June 10, 2012
“Nutballs And Buffoons”: The GOP’s Next Internal Debate
This morning, Jeb Bush said some somewhat surprising things in a meeting with reporters, at least for a Republican. He noted that neither Ronald Reagan nor his father could be elected in today’s GOP, and said in essence that Mitt Romney had moved too far to the right on immigration. He also said some of the things you’d expect a Republican to say, like that the blame for the current partisan atmosphere lies with President Obama, because he didn’t seek common ground with Republicans enough. Anyone who has been watching politics for the last three and a half years knows how utterly insane this is, but in case you missed this tidbit, a bunch of influential congressional Republicans got together on the night of Obama’s inauguration to lay out a plan for how they would obstruct everything they could and sabotage his presidency.
The question of what Jeb is up to sheds some light on where his party is going to find itself this coming fall, should it lose the presidential election. The simplest explanation for his willingness to tenderly criticize other Republicans is that he is realistic about the country’s yearning for more Bushes in the White House, so he feels free to state the blindingly obvious about his party’s gallop to the right. The alternative answer, which Jonathan Chait suggests, is that Jeb “is clearly engaged in an effort to position himself as the next leader of the Republican Party.” Chait explains:
To understand what Bush is saying, you need to anticipate how the party might diagnose the causes of a loss in 2012, and then you can see how he is setting himself as the cure. Bush has been publicly urging Republicans to moderate their tone toward Latinos and to embrace immigration reform. Here is the one issue where Republicans, should they lose, will almost surely conclude that they need to moderate their party stance. The Latino vote is both growing in size and seems to be tilting ever more strongly toward the Democrats, a combination that will rapidly make the electoral map virtually unwinnable. Indeed, the body language of the Romney campaign suggests it already regrets the hard-line stances on immigration it adopted during the primary…
If you try to imagine the Republican consensus after a potential losing election, it will look like this [a moderation in tone, without a moderation in substance]. It will recognize that its harsh partisan rhetoric turned off voters, and will urgently want to woo Latinos, while holding on to as much as possible of the party’s domestic policy agenda. And oh, by the way, the party will be casting about for somebody to lead it.
Chait may indeed be right about what Jeb is thinking. But it’s important to remember that if Romney loses, there will be a vigorous debate within the GOP about why he lost, and the outcome of that debate is not completely certain. Many Republican leaders will certainly argue that the rhetoric got out of hand, and they’ll be right. But lots of other Republicans, including the remnants of the Tea Party and the people who represent them, will argue that there was only one reason Romney lost: he was too liberal. They will push for more hardline positions, more uncompromising obstruction, and more conservative candidates, at all levels but especially when it comes to the 2016 presidential race.
You might say, well, that happened in 2012, didn’t it? And the establishment’s candidate eventually prevailed. That’s true enough, but Mitt Romney had the good fortune to run against a remarkable collection of nutballs and buffoons. It isn’t as though defeating Michele Bachmann, Rick Perry, Herman Cain, Newt Gingrich, and Rick Santorum makes you some kind of giant-killer. After a few months of those primaries, he came out looking like the closest thing the party had to a candidate who was in possession of all his faculties.
In every presidential election in the last half-century with the exception of 2000, Republicans have nominated the person who was “next in line,” almost always someone who had run for president before and come in second. But the closest thing to a next in line for 2016 will be Santorum, and the party couldn’t possibly be dumb enough to nominate him. There will likely be some candidates more acceptable to the establishment, and some who appeal more to the base. But the former group will still feel enormous pressure to move as far right as possible to placate those base voters. In other words, it’s possible Jeb Bush will wind up as the leader of the GOP. But if he does, it won’t be because he’s a moderate. It’ll be because, like Romney, he can give the base the wingnuttery it demands, while winking to the establishment that he’s not as crazy as he sounds.
By: Paul Waldman, Contributing Editor, The American Prospect, June 11, 2012
“Tasteless Craziness”: Gun In Campaign Ad For Gabby Giffords’s Seat Is Unconscionable
It was a little too close for comfort when the political action committee of former vice presidential nominee Sarah Palin used crosshairs in ads to “target” Democrats for defeat. A number of lawmakers had received death threats during and after the vote on healthcare overhaul, and when Arizona Rep. Gabrielle Giffords was shot in the head while she was meeting constituents at a shopping center, the threats became scarier. While it appears that Giffords’s shooter was motivated not by ideology but simple craziness, the episode doesn’t excuse the tastelessness of using gun-related imagery in connection with the democratic elections process.
Palin’s ads, however, were done before Giffords was shot. What can explain the judgment of the Move America Forward Freedom PAC, which sent out an E-mail depicting the district’s GOP contender holding an assault rifle?
According to NPR, which broke the story, the PAC said, in backing Republican Jesse Kelly:
While we applaud the former Congresswoman’s recovery, this race is not about Gabby Giffords. We want to give the people of Arizona a new voice that reflects their values.
What values are those—that guns are the way to resolve conflicts and win elections? That if the Democrat, Ron Barber, wins the race, he better watch his back? The E-mail is even more offensive because Barber, who was an aide to the former congresswoman, was injured as well in the January 2011 assault.
Kelly, who faces Barber in a special election Tuesday for the seat, is complaining, too, about having the assassination attempt used against him for political purposes. Democrats have been showing a tape of Kelly calling Giffords “a hero of nothing,” a comment that sounds horrific when heard in the context of her near-death from the shooting. But the comments were made before Giffords was shot.
Said Kelly to reporters:
To try to exploit a tragedy to win a special election is one of the saddest things I’ve ever seen in my life. It’s exactly what they’re doing.
Point taken. But using an image of a candidate with an assault weapon is distasteful in any campaign. In the race to succeed Giffords, it is unconscionable.
By: Susan Milligan, U. S. Newss and World Report, June 11, 2012
“Mouth Open, Brain Dead”: Mitt Romney Looks A ‘Gaffehorse’ In The Mouth
When Republicans propose cuts to essential public services, Democrats generally respond by accusing their GOP opponents of wanting to fire teachers, police officers, and fire fighters.
These public servants are cherished members of their communities. Anyone who would denigrate them must want a dumber, scarier, and more dangerous society. In other words, as the great Admiral Ackbar once said: “It’s a trap!”
Usually Republicans tend to skip over that particular trap, retreating into blather about debt for the grandkids or overbearing union bosses. What they never do is confess to wanting fewer firemen, policemen and teachers, at least not in public—until Mitt Romney came along.
It all began last Friday, when Romney advisers decided that President Obama had blunderingly delivered a gift to them during a White House press conference. “The private sector is doing fine,” the president had said. Of course he meant that the private sector is doing much better than the public sector – not going as far as many, including Business Insider’s Joe Weisenthal, who argue that the private sector actually is doing fine.
Still, Romney’s team practically ignited with glee. They pounced on May’s 69,000 jobs report, although that’s 58,000 more than Bush created on average. (And never mind that economists think Mitt’s plan won’t help and could make things worse.)
So Romney blurted an attack, shouting angrily: ”He says we need more firemen, more policemen, more teachers. Did he not get the message of Wisconsin? The American people did. It’s time for us to cut back on government and help the American people.”
Now we all know that Mitt wants fewer firemen, fewer policemen, fewer teacher. This will help the American people? And this was the lesson of Wisconsin? That’s like being born on third base and thinking the lesson is you hit a triple.
Here are the real lessons of Wisconsin:
- Don’t get outspent 10-to-1
- Start attacking early
- Don’t initiate a recall without a charismatic alternative
- Move to the center
Scott Walker wasn’t only helped by the Citizens United ruling. A loophole in Wisconsin law allowed the challenged governor to raise unlimited donations from individuals. Meanwhile, his Democratic opponent only had two months to raise funds and — despite winning most late-deciding voters — he got creamed. Nearly 20 per cent of Obama supporters voted for Walker simply because they disliked the idea of a recall. And Democrats won at least a symbolic victory by taking back the State Senate.
According to Mitt, however, Wisconsin means people don’t want more firefighters, cops, or teachers — an argument too ridiculous even for Walker to endorse. No, Mitt thinks they want more tax breaks for investment bankers and oil barons.
The Republican candidate answered a “gaffe” with a big, loud GAFFE. The President’s campaign should be very grateful.
By: The National Memo, June 11, 2012, @LOLGOP
“Government Is The Solution”: Healing The Economy For The Common Good
Why don’t Democrats just say it? They really believe in active government and think it does good and valuable things. One of those valuable things is that government creates jobs — yes, really — and also the conditions under which more jobs can be created.
You probably read that and thought: But don’t Democrats and liberals say this all the time? Actually, the answer is no. It’s Republicans and conservatives who usually say that Democrats and liberals believe in government. Progressive politicians often respond by apologizing for their view of government, or qualifying it, or shifting as fast as the speed of light from mumbled support for government to robust affirmations of their faith in the private sector.
This is beginning to change, but not fast enough. And the events of recent weeks suggest that if progressives do not speak out plainly on behalf of government, they will be disadvantaged throughout the election-year debate. Gov. Scott Walker’s victory in the Wisconsin recall election owed to many factors, including his overwhelming financial edge. But he was also helped by the continuing power of the conservative anti-government idea in our discourse. An energetic argument on one side will be defeated only by an energetic argument on the other.
The case for government’s role in our country’s growth and financial success goes back to the very beginning. One of the reasons I wrote my book “Our Divided Political Heart” was to show that, from Alexander Hamilton and Henry Clay forward, farsighted American leaders understood that action by the federal government was essential to ensuring the country’s prosperity, developing our economy, promoting the arts and sciences and building large projects: the roads and canals, and later, under Abraham Lincoln, the institutions of higher learning, that bound a growing nation together.
Both Clay and Lincoln battled those who used states’ rights slogans to crimp federal authority and who tried to use the Constitution to handcuff anyone who would use the federal government creatively. Both read the Constitution’s commerce clause as Franklin Roosevelt and progressives who followed him did, as permitting federal action to serve the common good. A belief in government’s constructive capacities is not some recent ultra-liberal invention.
Decades of anti-government rhetoric have made liberals wary of claiming their legacy as supporters of the state’s positive role. That’s why they have had so much trouble making the case for President Obama’s stimulus program passed by Congress in 2009. It ought to be perfectly obvious: When the private sector is no longer investing, the economy will spin downward unless the government takes on the task of investing. And such investments — in transportation and clean energy, refurbished schools and the education of the next generation — can prime future growth.
Yet the drumbeat of propaganda against government has made it impossible for the plain truth about the stimulus to break through. It was thus salutary that Douglas Elmendorf, the widely respected director of the Congressional Budget Office, told a congressional hearing last week that 80 percent of economic experts surveyed by the University of Chicago’s Booth School of Business agreed that the stimulus got the unemployment rate lower at the end of 2010 than it would have been otherwise. Only 4 percent disagreed. The stimulus, CBO concluded, added as many as 3.3 million jobs during the second quarter of 2010, and it may have kept us from lapsing back into recession.
So when conservatives say, as they regularly do, that “government doesn’t create jobs,” the riposte should be quick and emphatic: “Yes it has, and yes, it does!”
Indeed, our unemployment rate is higher today than it should be because conservatives blocked additional federal spending to prevent layoffs by state and local governments — and because progressives, including Obama, took too long to propose more federal help. Obama’s jobs program would be a step in the right direction, and he’s right to tout it now. But he should have pushed for a bigger stimulus from the beginning. The anti-government disposition has so much power that Democrats and moderate Republicans allowed themselves to be intimidated into keeping it too small.
Let’s turn Ronald Reagan’s declaration on its head: Opposition to government isn’t the solution. Opposition to government was and remains the problem. It is past time that we affirm government’s ability to heal the economy, and its responsibility for doing so.
By: E’ J’ Dionne, Jr., Opinion Writer, The Washington Post, June 10, 2012
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