[Newsbot]

Filibuster Cartoons
Title: Burning bridges (click to view)
Date: November 4, 2010
So the 2010 mid-terms concluded just as everyone had predicted, with the Republicans gaining control of the House of Representatives and the Democrats narrowly clinging to the Senate. Thanks to the Tea Party, the new class of Republican legislators will be significantly more conservative than before, though less observed is how notably less moderate the Dems will be as well. Many so-called "blue dog" incumbent Democrats went down to defeat on Tuesday, more than halving their entire House caucus. In other words, at the very moment when bipartisan compromise will be most needed to get anything done, both parties are more ideologically pure and demagogically contrarian than ever.

In the aftermath of the election, President Obama offered up the customary mea culpas. He is, after all not particularly unusual in helping lead his party to mid-term defeat; historically, most presidents face similar setbacks in their first term. I probably didn't have all the right priorities, he said, and I probably did misread the public mood on some issues.

He made the expected olive branch gestures, and said he would be willing to work with the Republican-controlled House, but also cautioned that his party and the Republicans hold some "fundamental differences" of opinion on many matters, which may limit the extent to which full co-operation will ever be possible. Obama is, after all, a much more ideological and liberal president than his most immediate Democratic predecessor, Bill Clinton, whose pragmatic character made him comfortable "triangulating" contentious issues into middle-of-the-road compromises. But there were also a lot more conservative Democrats (and liberal Republicans!) back then, who gave the president a broad base of legislative support to work with. Today's much more partisan, hive-mind parties seem much more likely to see confrontation and gridlock as positive ends unto themselves, in a fashion I would describe as downright parliamentary.

Rather than hope for any genuine legislative victories, I suppose the new challenge of American politics is to just create a more attractive narrative explaining why your party's obstructionism is more morally justifiable than the obstructionism of the other side. If getting your agenda passed is deemed impossible, the best you can hope for is making a good pitch explaining why we should at least be happy that their agenda isn't getting passed, either.

[Teikiatsu]

"In the aftermath of the election, President Obama offered up the customary mea culpas."

I can't tell which was more pathetic: the fact Obama held a news conference to apologize, or that he believed people would believe he really felt sorry.

As far as I'm concerned he was just setting the stage for the next round of partisan finger-pointing as the GOP tries to determine how much of the liberal agenda they can dismantle, if any.

[Taospark]

What bothers me more is how deliberately vague both sides are being in terms of their solutions. While the Democrats and Obama eventually arrived at specifics over both Afghanistan and health care after a year of pointless deliberation, the Republicans have dragged their feet even further.

Tax cuts have been championed a few times but taxes for the middle class are already as low as they can get without crippling the federal budget and increasing the deficit. Even another stimulus payment of $300 that both Bush and Obama pushed will likely not do much except make a small blip in consumer spending.

[Thanos]

If President Obama wastes even a single minute trying any more 'bi-partisanship' with a pack of yellow Republican ideologues, he deserves to lose everything in 2012.
No peace or accomodation with these people is possible. It never was and Democrats, particularly those in the White House, have been bafflingly oblivious about it. If the Republican good ol' boys in the Party Of Dixie can't lynch the President literally, they've done everything possible to do it figuratively. Democrats everywhere had better start growing a pair ASAP because from now on in it's total war against the hardcore right. And, once again, if they can't figure it out then they don't deserve to win in 2012.

[Proculation]

Hehe. Great caricature, as always.

[Thanos]

More like accuracy. I actually look up what these clowns are saying and doing. Too bad you don't.

[Pseudonym]

I sure hope the Dems take Thanos' advice. It would likely lead to further Republican gains in 2012. The number of independents who self-identified as conservatives doubled from 2008 to 2010. And the myth of Democrat bipartisanship is shown for the lie it is by the legislative record of the past two years. The only piece of legislation they didn't get was Cap-and-Trade, which had bipartisan opposition in the Senate.

Republican approval numbers are low, but the public simply can't stand the liberal agenda of the Obama administration.

[CommanderSock]

Pseudonym wrote:

I sure hope the Dems take Thanos' advice. It would likely lead to further Republican gains in 2012. The number of independents who self-identified as conservatives doubled from 2008 to 2010. And the myth of Democrat bipartisanship is shown for the lie it is by the legislative record of the past two years. The only piece of legislation they didn't get was Cap-and-Trade, which had bipartisan opposition in the Senate.

Republican approval numbers are low, but the public simply can't stand the liberal agenda of the Obama administration.

That's irrelevant IMO. If the unemployment rate falls back to 5% and economy picks up Obama will sail through, regardless of how leftist his agenda is.

If the economy is still in the toilet 2 years from now and unemployment still high, he's out.

[Pseudonym]

Has he supported a popular piece of legislation? A majority or plurality of the American public has been against every major part of the Obama agenda. Healthcare? Comprehensive immigration reform? Bailouts? I guess his Afghanistan war policy has support, but I haven't seen numbers on it recently.

If the economy does turn around then Obama will have an easier time than otherwise, but he has been pushing some very unpopular things. A strong Republican candidate (more of a strong conservative with little baggage, like a Chris Christie as opposed to a McCain or Angle) should be able to beat him.

[CommanderSock]

It's not popular because people want him to focus on the economy.

It's simple, Americans want to get back to work. They will vote for who-ever promises a quicker economic recovery. Currently the administration has pushed different agenda, but has not had much success turning the economy around.

If he does, people will forgive and forget, and when all those Obamacare goodies start kicking in next year, he could gain even more voters.

When it comes to politics and policies, voters have far shorter memories than the average fish, lol.

IMO - it's in the economy. If it recovers he'll probably win, if not, then it's back to the ranch, or whatever place he spends his off time in.

[CanadianJeff]

Honestly this all is just blowback from not doing enough to fix the recession.

The real problem however was that almost every single bill aimed towards helping the American people get out of the recession was blocked by the GOP.

A lot of people were angry because their homes or homes of friends were foreclosed on and people keep losing jobs.

What Obama should have done is focused on job creation and fixing the economy and should have just pushed back against any GOP resistance on those issues.

There were certainly things he did wrong but I think the primary problem was the man was no balls to push back against these super right wing idiots.

[BartSimpson]

Thanos wrote:

If President Obama wastes even a single minute trying any more 'bi-partisanship' with a pack of yellow Republican ideologues, he deserves to lose everything in 2012.
No peace or accomodation with these people is possible. It never was and Democrats, particularly those in the White House, have been bafflingly oblivious about it. If the Republican good ol' boys in the Party Of Dixie can't lynch the President literally, they've done everything possible to do it figuratively. Democrats everywhere had better start growing a pair ASAP because from now on in it's total war against the hardcore right. And, once again, if they can't figure it out then they don't deserve to win in 2012.

So, Mr. Emmanuel, how's your campaign for Mayor of Chicago going?

[Pseudonym]

CanadianJeff wrote:

The real problem however was that almost every single bill aimed towards helping the American people get out of the recession was blocked by the GOP.

BS. There was absolutely nothing the Republicans could do to stop the Democrat agenda until Scott Brown won the Massachusetts special election in 2010. Even then, there were a couple Republican Senators (Olympia Snowe comes to mind) who were amenable to compromise with the Democrats. Republican alternatives were ignored. It takes some special kind of blindness to ignore the Democrat supermajorities in Congress.

[BartSimpson]

CanadianJeff wrote:

Honestly this all is just blowback from exacerbating the recession.

Obama has even lost the support of the AARP - which is like Noam Chomsky losing the support of the SDS.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20101104/ap_ ... lth_plan_2

Quote:

AARP's endorsement helped secure passage of President Barack Obama's health care overhaul. Now the seniors' lobby is telling its employees their insurance costs will rise partly as a result of the law.

On FOX News this morning a spokesman for AARP admitted that it may have been a mistake to support Obamacare given that it is causing hikes in premiums for people who pay for their care in order to subsidize those who don't.

Translation: If the Democrats stay married to health care in its present form then AARP will probably endorse the GOP in 2012.

[Psudo]

I don't think it's fair to blame either party as "the real problem." Democrats shouldn't have pushed economically risky issues (environment, health care, immigration) during hard economic times, and Republicans shouldn't have opposed doing anything at all about the economy. As usual, planning a laundry list of moral success stories for the next election took precedence over getting actual, empirical results.

That being said, the GOP has divided itself into so many disputing factions that I don't know of any economic policy they could propose without alienating some significant part of the party (except tax cuts). If, for example, the Republicans proposed a phased reduction to industrial subsidies they would distance themselves from the classic tax-and-spend and Obama stimulus-and-bailout paradigms, cut government spending, support the free market, and perhaps even attract some Democrat support from opponents to "corporate welfare." However, lobbyists from the subsidized corporations would throw a fit, and any reduction to military-industrial investment (during wartime!) would alienate the pro-military segment.

Thus, Republicans went with the "Party of No" strategy. This was often not unreasonable, given the Democrats' economic attention deficit disorder that led them to propose everything but clearing the way. But opposing literally everything during a bad economic isn't a great idea, either. Sure, they won a midterm success retaking the House, but House Republicans have two years to do something more memorable than oppose everything Democrats propose.