We're in a bad situation politically right now, and we need to explore options. This post offers one possible option. I don't have time to think it through completely, but maybe no one person can do that. So I'm sharing it anyway, knowing that there might be flaws. There are a lot of smart minds here. Maybe I'll learn more through discussion than through sitting quietly at home pondering this. So here's the thought for as far as I've gotten...
We have a compromise on the debt. Early returns are not good. The blame seems to go both ways. The Democrats think we shut down too much spending, the Republicans think it's too little. Then again, Boehner said, “When you look at this final agreement that we came to with the White House, I got 98 percent of what I wanted. I'm pretty happy.”
And now we're on autopilot to follow what amounts to the Republican plan, but which has the Democratic stamp on it. The President signed up for it, and many Democrats. If it fails, and I personaly think it's a pretty sure bet it will, the Republicans will say it was the Democrats that made it fail by crippling it, by not giving them what they wanted.
Something that has bugged me for a long time about these shifts in policy is that they're never accompanied by metrics—a testable prediction about what was to result and a timeline for when it should happen. To quote Reagan in my favorite out-of-context way, we need to “trust, but verify” these claims that policy will bring specific benefits. I'd like to see a bit more science in government.
For one thing, it's been pointed out that we're cutting funds, among other things, for the parts of government that measure government. That makes no sense, since it means we have less raw data to work with in finding out whether what we're doing is working. At minimum, we need to keep good stats on how we're doing.
But what if we asked the Republicans, “Fine, you won this round anyway. What was the last 2% you wanted in order to bring back the jobs.” Let's suppose they said, “Cut Social Security and cut Medicare.” I don't think that's a good idea, but I also don't think that will help.
And this political impasse will basically not get fixed until the election. Either the voters are going to buy what the Republicans are selling or what the Democrats are selling. Yet right now we have neither of those, and the certainty of an election based on political mud wrestling rather than quality data.
So what if we ask the Republicans to have the courage of their convictions and we'll say: Suppose you tell us what more you wanted in order that the markets would, right now, be reacting positively. Assuming it was not instantly devastating to the public, we could agree to take their proposal until the next election. If their proposal worked to restore the economy by that time, surely everyone would know it was a Republican proposal that was saving us and would vote Republican to continue the plan. If their proposal was not working, however, we would know who to blame and at the next election it would be clear we should vote the people and their policies out.
For years we've been hearing that the alleged “job creators” need enough freedom to get their job done. I don't think we've seen the jobs. We've had all kinds of stimulus, but what big business in the US need is not cash. They have cash. American companies have almost two trillion dollars in cash and assets they are not spending. They just don't want to. And I don't see why a change to Republican policy will fix that.
But fine, let's find out. We're already not doing the Democratic experiment, let's at least do someone's. So we try the Republican experiment, the one we're mostly doing anyway, and we see how it feels around election time.
I'm guessing it won't last that long. I think things will tank worse. But in that case, the Republicans won't have the cover of saying “the Democrats didn't do all of what we wanted, and that's why it's losing.” Right now they have cover to blame their bad policies on the Democrats, and the Democrats get no value in return.
If it gets worse fast, Obama can say, “well, we tried the Republican plan and it didn't work. I want everyone to call their Republican congressman and say, it's time to be the Party of Yes and let the Democrats try some government spending. They might not do it. They might prefer to just wait it out to the election. But we're already in that boat.
If we continue on the present course, we're not safe. We're gambling that people can sort it out at election time, and I think there's a good chance the Republicans will blame this on the Democrats, take control, and we'll have years more of this.
Of course, the Republicans might say “No, we don't want to tell you what the other 2% was.” or “No, our plan couldn't work that fast.” It would be worth it just to hear them say that. And if they don't want to ante up, that gives the President an opening to again propose doing the Democrats' plan again and while so doing to underscore that this mess we have now is the choice of the Republicans.
Time to have the courage of our convictions, and to do a bit of scientific measuring.
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RomanticPoetess
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Comments
It never has. Why whines here?
We are clueless? Ghouls reign?
We no wish to see folk hanging.
On deathbed no brawl in hades.
Ask rabbi what grub taste good.
`
Oysters, sour kale and collards,
Garlic pesto, smokes ham hock,
cheese -OSs dipped in pickled `
brine cabbage-fermented old `
sauerkraut. Wear Hindi bibs,
shoes, and enjoy shoo flies on
shoo fly, apple, peach, and on
blueberry pie with Moo Suede
Blue Cheese...
`
Keswick's Farmstead Cheese.
It a PA Cheese etc., Creamery.
Cheers.
&=+-*;
Thanks.
&*-+,!,)
There is a way, however, to find out how the Republican agenda will impact on the nation and its problems—and I would bet the farm that we are going to find out. They’ve gotta win…and win big time. They’ve got to get their man or woman in the White House and win big majorities in both the Senate and the House of Representatives.
Then they get to do what they think is right—and then the truth will out, so to speak.
The reason I would “bet the farm” is that I see the Republicans, conservatives, and tea partiers talking about what they will do when they get control of the government—and I see the Democrats, liberals, and progressives pretty much focused on who will bear the blame for the loss. So if intentions are any indicator, and I think they are, the Republicans have the upper hand major league.
I think we are going to find out, Kent, if their ideas are any good. I think it is going to be a very costly lesson. But with both sides aiming at a Republican victory—it seems damn near assured.
It's in no one's interest in government to measure the effectiveness of their policies. Yes, their policies might be shown to be effective, but the policies could also be shown to be wrong.
Several years ago, I was at a conference wit at a panel discussion with several senators. I asked this question: "I am willing to change political parties, because I care about outcomes more than political affiliation. What measurements should I be looking at to evaluate which policies, to know if I should change parties?" The moderator said, "Excellent question." and immediately took another question. He refused to pass my question along to the panel.
After the panel discussion, some audience members—who were high-ranking party officials—came up to me to discuss my question. One of them quite emphatically told me, "The world is too complicated to know if a given policy works. So this isn't about getting results; it's just that we want to get our way and this is how we do it."
Who was it who said we elect who we deserve, or something like that? While I still think Obama was the right choice, we—the collective voters—deserve this to an extent. We voted for the Republican majority; thus, we allowed them to bully Obama and the Democrats to compromise their own party's principles. I'd say it was spectacularly unfair if the lowest common denominator, i.e., the majority, didn't push for this. How do we defeat said majority if they apparently make up the foundation of this country?
So the closest idea I have for a solution is to force responsibility on the voters who opted for this quagmire. They must own up to their actions, inactions, beliefs, etc. They can be in the front lines when this all blows up. Let them take the flak, pay for the damage, and actually make reparations to compensate us for our hardship.
I'd suggest making it mandatory to register for a party, but that has two complications. First, I believe the two-party system needs to go away for good. Second, I wouldn't want to dismiss a future Goldwater, if one exists.
Frank, my thought was that next year there's an election and there will be a change of regime. If you could get people to understand we're already under Republican rule now, it might be to something non-Republican. If you can't, and you end up having the Democrats own this fiasco, then the Republicans will insist it's time to give them a turn. As such, we're faced with either a year of lossage now or 4 years of it a year from now. Even if it meant making things worse now, that might be superior to the 4 year plan if only one could make it clear that that's the plan. I am pretty confident that the Republican plan will not work at all, and the Democratic plan, while not perfect, will work well enough.
Stever, thanks for the added texture.
Harry's Ghost, I only partly believe what you say. Voting turnout is a function of discontent. The system we have now is the result of a minority of voters because the majority were content enough to leave it to chance. If there's greater turnout and the majority is differently distributed in its opinion than the minority (and I think it is), you could expect to see different outcomes. One reason that the Republicans push the moral issues is that they know it fires up their base while the Democrats don't get as fired up, so it changes the proportion of people who turn out to vote. The particular mix of who votes and who doesn't is what modern elections are won and lost on, not the actual message.
Pedant, making it mandatory to vote might be more important than making it mandatory to have a party. Parties are like religions, and sometimes one wants to make that kind of choice privately.
Kent, that first “if” should be in bold and in font size 72! In fact, the other three “if’s” in the paragraph ought to be also!
We can’t even get “the people” to understand that the Republican agenda is detrimental to damn near everything almost every non-billionaire person in the country wants. We want fairness, an end to poverty, decent schools, a clean environment, reasonable access to healthcare, food, clothing, shelter, a modicum of comfort…and all that other stuff—but “the people” are unwilling to acknowledge that the conservative agenda pisses on those notions while pretending they are aiming for them. The conservatives have a huge segment of the “people” convinced that they have the common interests in mind—but that the conservative way of attaining “the common good” is more effective than the liberal way of efforting towards them.
Frankly, anyone who doesn’t understand that the uber-conservative agenda is already dominant (after four decades of ascendency) simply isn’t smart enough to understand an explanation on the issue no matter how dumbed down it is. You’d have better luck explaining quantum mechanics to a weasel than explaining to a grassroots conservative why he is steadying a hand trying to slit his throat.
The Democrats ARE going to own this fiasco, Kent, not because of lack of communication from people who know better, but because the politicians of the dark side (Republican conservatives) have become masters of selling the simplistic. They are selling “no tax increases”; “government is the problem”; “less government is good”; “GREED IS GOOD!” and bullshit from here to Jupiter and back. They are selling “the solutions are simple and easy…and can be enacted with little or no negative impact on your life.”
The Democrats (the liberals) are selling the reality that the solutions are very, very complicated and we are going to have increased pain before relief sets in. The liberals are selling the idea that more government is needed in order to make life fairer; more taxes are needed in order to get done what must get done.
There is no question of who will win that battle, Kent.
In the movie 2001, A Space Odyssey, HAL predicts the failure of a key communications component. HAL’s double back in Houston disagrees--and the technicians decide to allow the component to fail and then do a forensic analysis of the failure. Unfortunately, that is how we are going to have to deal with this catastrophe we have in the making.
There is no reasoning with the extreme right—and quite frankly, no reasoning with the extreme left either.
We are living a tragedy!
I consider all this to be just practice for Climate Change, where it will (and already does) matter to understand how to inject some rationality. The idea that we have to wait years for someone to care is unacceptable. It's bad enough we've already waited. The problems of Climate Change are so gigantic as to reduce this problem to the level of trivial, in my view... which is not to say anything about this present problem being small but only to say how big I think the consequences of the other is. On the one hand we have droughts like the one in Texas and on the other I heard someone call in to NPR today remarking on having to close a “greenhouse” and lay off employees due to the economy. I don't know what that individual case was about, and it's just anecdotal, but it highlights an example that matters to me: We're going to have crop failures. All the stories of how great climate change is seem to build in some hidden story of how there will be farms up north. But I don't see anyone planting a single new farm in a new place to compensate. So I don't see how capacity will increase. And soon it will happen “by surprise” that we have no food in the world, or a lot less than we had, spiking prices, and making this whole business of cutting government services into a deadly business. People need jobs and need to be investing in preparation for the storm ahead.
But again, I strongly suspect that while we'd have a different set of problems, the current ones would be mitigated to a degree if we did away with the bi-partisan and were forced to elect the individual as opposed to a party's ideology.
The basic flaw at the core of the American system has now been revealed for all to see. A smaller third party, which is what the Tea Party is, that holds the balance of power over two larger powers has the ability to dictate policy to the Congress and the President.
Boehner didn't win. The Tea Party did.
That said, the response is withdrawal from the system. I want my money back from Social Security. I paid for something and the contract has been broken. I figure, with interest, they owe me around $250,000, and I will see them in court if they break their promise. I will lose, but if enough of us do the same thing, that's all we need to do to bring the government to heel because we can flood the entire justice system with those claims and turn the government upside down that way.
http://open.salon.com/blog/alan_milner/2011/08/05/the_debt_debate_tax_rates_and_employment
But you can't get your money out of the Social Security system, because you don't have any money in it to speak of. It's not an investment. It's a transfer of wealth from the young to the old. Your money has been spent on your parents. You're depending on your children to spend it on you.
Really, that's the way it's always been; Social Security is just a modern adaptation of the pattern, which allows the children more mobility and flexibility, and the promise of support by the next generation, even if they don't have children, or their children are broke. It's a good deal all around.
But it's not an investment.
Kent, the biggest problem I have with your piece, which I'll try to come back and comment on further, is that it sort of implicitly assumes there's the Democratic way, and the Republican way.
Nobody is doing things MY way. And MY way is quite a bit different from either one.
MY way involves changing the game, not picking a side in the game. MY way involves changing the incentives, drastic transparency, radical accountability and a gradual dispersion of federal responsibilities according to where those responsibilities can be most responsive to the needs -- with accountability for the results of those decisions.
NCLB made no sense at all, for example. But a simple web site with published standards for reference by local school districts would. Or a collection of such standards, produced by various consortia of local schools.
I think Federal student loan guarantees make more sense than local ones. I have trouble seeing how local ones could really work.
But funding elementary school programs? No.
Enforceable standards for civil rights? Yes. Including under the ADA (which is enforced by the Civil Rights Division of the DOJ, BTW).
Federal control means Federal responsibility and Federal complexity and -- always -- a dilution of representative control. We need to make those tradeoffs intelligently.
But mostly, we need to defeat the political parties, and regain control. As Alan points out, the Tea Party gained control of this, by very undemocratic means. The parties subvert -- inherently -- the very mechanisms and levers of democracy.
Why do parties get many states to run their selection process ("primaries") at public expense?
Why do parties control allocation of committee membership, control who is elected to preside over legislative bodies?
Why do we have a "super congress", allocated by party? What possible constitutional justification is there for such a thing?
To debunk this (I really should write this up in a blog post of my own, but you can do it yourself easily enough), look at Bush's 2008 budget submission, and compare with Obama's 2012, looking specifically at the 2011 numbers.
Obama is hardly over Bush's projection for expenditure. But revenues are WAY below Bush's projections.
So Obama's really not spending much over what Bush projected -- presumably, what a Republican would spend. But we're not getting the promised revenue to cover it.
Because that was either a fantasy or a lie.
There's plenty to fault Obama for, without blaming him for spending put in place before he was elected.
Worse -- presidents don't control this anyway. Congress does.
I think for the Democrats, it would behoove them to run a different candidate so that people could clean house on Obama without getting rid of the Democrats.
I think it serves the Republicans to pretend their own policies are really Democratic policies because they're going to fail. What's weird, and this is the part I don't quite understand, is that the Republicans seem to know they will fail. They know that something more Democratic is needed, in other words, I assume, or else they think everything will fail no matter what. That's the part I don't understand. Because if they think even for a moment that this much cutting and this much not raising taxes is going to help, why aren't they crowing about how great they've just made things?
But yes, certainly, there could be a third way. The tricky part is to have the third way not be a shoe-in for the Republicans, since we're already trying their way. There is a strong risk all a third party will do is spoil the Democrats' chance. And while some people think they are not different than one another, that both are bought, I continue to assert that the Republicans are “more bought” than the Democrats, and that the Republican policies are way worse than the Democratic policies, even as much as I'd like to see some very different policies altogether.
So please don't read this as excluding those other options or other ideas. I'd just like to hear how to make those things realities not just pipe dreams. Being discontented is easy. Figuring out how to channel that discontent to successful government is hard.
I have a few more ideas I may write about, but I'm open to hearing what others have to say and am certainly not assuming only two parties should be there or that two kinds of ideas exhaust the space. I think, though, that there are two power bases, and anyone who has a belief that there needs to be a third for people rally around, especially by 2012, has their work cut out for them.
And, frankly, I fear that if a Republican is elected, the barriers to free and open elections in 2016 are much higher. In general, for all I have some nervousness that Democrats won't do everything right, I think they want all people to vote. I don't have that impression at all about Republicans. The recent “accident” with a mailing related to the Wisconsin election is just one example. The changes in registration policy in a number of states is another.
Obama is going to lose. He has been abandoned (rightly or wrongly) by his base. If the conversation here by extreme left wingers is any indication (and there is no reason to suppose it is not) much of his base is going to actively work to defeat him—some unrealistically thinking they can actually work a third party miracle—some unrealistically thinking another Democratic personality will carry the day.
The Democrats might just as well stick with what they are doing so well right now—arguing over who they will blame for their loss.
The Republicans are going to win the presidency next election—and possibly both chambers of the congress.
The silver lining, such as there is one, is that we actually will see the results of conservative ideas in unfettered operation—provided, of course, that the Republic actually survives what is to come.
In any case, we will be left with a Supreme Court so stacked against progressive initiatives, nothing decent will happen in America for decades.
I despise pessimism with a fury...but what a sad state of affairs this is. We truly are living a tragedy—probably the actual decline and fall of the American dream on our watch.
The few pragmatical Republicans who understand economics, if any still exist, would say that there are too many uncontrolled variables; they could argue that their policy has a higher likelihood of success but refuse to own any failures. (I think this is plausible given that professional economists still tend to divide themselves up into schools that often give opposite recommendations in the same situation--or the same recommendations for different reasons.)
I think that more Republicans make decisions based on ideological grounds and wouldn't actually care about the results. They'd say that the last 2% is simply doing the "right" thing, independent of any consequences.
And then there are the Republicans purely interested in political gain. You can't even count on consistency from them.
Given the consolidation of power by the two major parties, it's not anything at all, or at most, a very lame sideshow.
Taking over a political party from the inside is more viable -- but I don't think you can fix anything that way. But you can break things more!
No, as I see it, we have to neuter the parties. That has to be our priority. We have to start demanding a reform to the political process.
Basically, we have to start demanding the political parties neuter themselves. So it's definitely not going to be easy.
But we don't have to wait until after the 2012 elections, out of any fear that the GOP will be rewarded. In fact, I think this works against the GOP.
We can start by demanding an accounting of campaign financing behind the hostage takers, and then focus on campaign financing of the SuperCongress. We can demand unprecedented openness in exchange for its undemocratic makeup.
To do anything else, is to cede the levers and mechanisms of Democracy to our most undemocratic institution -- our political parties.
So, it's very clear to me what is necessary. Barack Obama needs a personality transplant, and he needs to take James Carville's advice. And that is, Obama has to say, "Fine. The Republicans sure look like they're running this economy. And now, let's all watch how well they bring back a recovery with their policies."
It's that simple. One would hope that with the massive amount of negative feedback that the Commander in Chief has been having lately about his decision to cave, that he might want to try to have a little bit more testosterone in the next 17 months. After all, what does he have to lose?
I do, however, agree that the only thing that is possible to do going forward is informational. Shining sunlight on things and making sure the American people have a crystal clear understanding of what's going on is essential. He should be doing weekly fireside chats or the like just to help people monitor and understand what's going on.
But you're right about his ownership of this shitty deal. Frankly #44 has put himself into a helluva box, because he has to share 50% of the blame for this entire situation. If he had structured things properly in the beginning, he wouldn't be in this pickle. And if he had concentrated on jobs and the economy instead of the stupid deficit, he wouldn't be in this problem. But he made the mistake of saying "Yes" too many times to his corporate and financial masters.
I want a reckoning before 2012. I want a Frank Capra climax. I want the ant to move at long last the damn corporate rubber tree plants. And that probably especially freaks out the more intellectual and pragmatic people who know what a lock the bastards of the universe have on the ... well universe. Money and power and cronyism and power addiction and shock and awe violence all at their disposal.
I am an iconoclast. We all have our roles to play and our reasons and temperaments for them.
I feel like the fog machine of both parties has been on full blast and we need the bedrock of decency now! That can be our moral compass since we do not have an empowered and prevailing leader with one -- though definitely some second tiered ones whose backs we need to cover. And God the parties have certainly made it easy enough you would think to illuminate decency vs. evil. Corruption on steroids prevails. Saturates our governance.
These are the times that try men's and women's souls. This is a test for America.
Good government, awake and monitoring government, responsible government, real law and order humane government, active government, non-cronied up government, is what we need. It has been propagandized negatively as "socialistic" thanks to a bottom-feeding pimped out media and bottom-feeding political operatives.
I don't want a Republican. I want Obama out and I want a decent Dem if that is VERY remotely possible (or at the very least the fear of defeat in the heart of the strategists and operatives that their opportinistic amoral rides are over) or I want a third party candidate who will give it a serious college try. Who will stand for principle and integrity.
Yes, you guys are looking realistically -- pragmatically -- at the prospect of Obama losing as the Dem rep. I gave up the ghost of Obama. I certainly don't want the reality of the Republicans' worst offerings or the Tea Party's worst offerings either. But given what I consider the level of hypocrisy and mendacity of Obama and the Dems, there is so much credit of evil to go around.
When I was little I thought a lot about Hitler. I wondered how one man could make so many people do such horrible things. Burning people in ovens. I was convinced that everyone but Hitler was still moral and was just so afraid of Hitler that they did whatever he said. I wondered about how he had to sleep some time. So couldn't all those people under him, do something to turn around such evil? I was a kid and I didn't get the enormity of "enabling". Though, yes, one person and their psychopathology can get such a grip on the reins of power especially when enabling goes on so long. Look at the madness of Jim Jones in Jonestown and the origin of "drinking the kool aid" in that case not voluntarily.
I am grateful I was old enough to participate in anti-Vietnam protests. To hit the streets. To take on the "status quo." To breathe in the beauty and hope and faith of the folk songs I compulsively listened to and even wept to occasionally.
Sorry to go on with my own tangent. I was just thinking of what RFK said, let's see, something about "how some people see things are they are and ask why. I see things as they might be and ask 'why not?'.
Starbucks is closing. Gotta end here for now. libby
A friend on correntewire, madamab, wrote a blog iirc entitled AUSTERITY = MURDER. That pretty much bottom-lines it for me, at least. Slow or fast death our leadership faux-reps are accessories to murder or some to the first degree level of it. We made fun of the mythologizing of death panels? Who knew they are real enuf with members of both sides of the aisle. I hear a super one will be convening soon.
Trickle down economics is a BIG LIE. Trickle up economics. I wrote a blog a while back on how in 2009 the top 10 hedge fund executives were pulling in $900,000 an hour. You do the math for their yearly salary. My mind can't wrap itself around numbers bigger than that obscene and surreal one.
Alan Greenspan spanned both sides of the aisle presidents and he minimized fraud and encouraged deregulation. And he is still looked upon as the "expert" on the economy thanks to a celebrity-obsessed amoral working for the corporatists media. On Meet the Press back when I could still stomach it, David Gregory was falling all over himself apologizing for so often not understanding Greenspan's brilliant analyses. Probably true. Gregory didn't recognize the crap sincerely is possible. But how tragic! First degree "mystification" from Alan, who married a media person and that sure helped lock in that dimension of cronyism .
Ralph Nader asked why were were letting the VENDORS of health care, the pharmaceutical companies and insurance companies et al., decide EVERYTHING? It wasn't about the government, the doctors and hospitals and the patients. IT WAS THE FRIGGEN VENDORS who were butting in and putting profits over people and how the hell did that happen? Whether we lived or died. Whether we or our families got help. I stood in a clinic a while back and the doctor said, "I want to do a bone scan." He called down the hall to a nurse assistant to ask what three initials were on the back of my insurance card. She apparently said the right 3 initials and I got my scan. It felt like such a crap shoot, but I am lucky, or was in that minute. I still have a job and though my insurance is cheapening at said job, I still have some. And for the time being the right 3 initials.
We are the only industrialized nation without universal healthcare. Those statistics, Kent, are so worth reading about. Universal health care, expanded medicare for all would SAVE! pnhp, physicians for a national health program, has an awesome sight and were so heroic lobbying for health care but never allowed at the table. Why would what's his name Baucus et al. (including Obama) let compassionate doctors and nurses near the health care table, people who knew what the health care system needed to work well and humanely.
We give Israel $3 billion a year (our tax dollars that we might want to use for our own healthcare among other things), and THEY have universal health care. Not for Gaza of course. Universal health care would be so much cheaper but then the SHARK VENDORS don't get theirs, though there would be plenty of work for health care workers in that kind of socialized system to make sure it was honest and effective. But then you wouldn't have those Connecticut or whereever gated community types with their limo, Gucci, jet-setter lives pulling in those $900,000+ AN HOUR salaries.
And they use a small percentage but enough of that money to pimp out the political class members so that a rotten, unjust, VENDOR-controlled system stays in place, and even strengthens. And the media of course is in bed with the vendors. Is another pimped out community. THE VENDORS SIGN THEIR PAYCHECKS for heaven's sakes!
October 6th is it is the big anti-war protest. I hope there is such a tremendous turnout even the disinforming corporate media won't be able to black it out from the national awareness.
Kent appreciate your thoughtfulness and openness! :) libby
It what they do.
rated with love
Poetess, you are on safe ground in those predictions for sure.
Folks, I love ya…but the thought of dumping Obama for another Democrat and having that person win the election is such a flight of fancy, I honestly have trouble understanding why you are even willing to consider the scenario.
Thoughts of a third party riding into the fray like the cavalry is even more fanciful.
Unless the unthinkable happens (we all know Obama’s safety is not assured)—or he decides to do an LBJ (not likely)—he will be the candidate of the Democrats.
It will come down to this: Either Obama will be re-elected or the Republican candidate will be elected. The Republican candidate WILL be vetted and meet the approval of the tea party. In fact, the Republican candidate will strongly meet the approval of the tea party—will actually be a favorite of the tea party—will be the candidate of the tea party.
Honestly—if you good people do not see that clearly, we have got even more trouble than I think we have.
Polls suggest that people understand that the current mess is owned by the Republicans. This means it's possible that the public will reject a Republican pitch that it's time to put them back in charge. But they need someone to vote for.
Yes, it's true, the might vote for Obama. But last time around, he had hope on his side. A lot of people gave him the benefit of the doubt, and some of them feel burned and are looking for a way to express it. That's a problem.
Moreover, there is an underlying racial issue which the Republicans have been working for quite some time and are expecting to play. If someone else runs, that should-be-irrelevant aspect of the race will be out of play. As far as I know, no major alternative candidate is black. That's not to say that if Hillary ran, she wouldn't suddenly bring out an anti-woman vote. But even if they did, she still is a familiar quantity and there would be reason again for hope in that she's been a steadfast and strong figure for quite some time.
A lot of your argument seems to read in a way that I don't quite understand. It seems to suggest that, come election, someone will be challenging Obama. But the point of the primary is to get that out of the way. So either we would know by election time that Obama was not running for re-election and that another candidate was being offered instead, or we'd know that Obama was running.
You wrote, “Either Obama will be re-elected or the Republican candidate will be elected.” But this folds into “The Republican candidate will be elected with certainty if Obama loses the primary.” I don't see how that could be. So either you're saying the strongest Democratic alternative is weaker than the strongest Republican, something I think is far from clear, or you're saying there's no way that a Democrat could successfully challenge Obama, which I also think is far from clear. What I think is true right now is that no one is trying.
Also, as I've said before, even if Obama is not successfully challenged, the primary race will be an opportunity to get the venting out of the way about the issues. It will require Obama to pull back to the Left. Right now, he is almost single-mindedly focused on the Right because he assumes the Left is in his corner. It would be good for him not to take that for granted, and to have to make some new and substantive promises to hold his base. Your strategy seems to be a mirror of his in this last negotiation: Why don't we just have our opening bid in a request for ground be “We're going to support you even if you don't give us anything in return”?
Algis, I think you're right that outsourcing has to be addressed, since it's part of the overall problem we have where we aren't making enough stuff here. (This is the point where I always reference my article Hollow Support.) The idea that we should give tax breaks for outsourcing is a definite problem. I'd like to see the Republicans defend that on camera—that's a place where media can help.
Hey, you are entitled to your opinion. Dump Obama...and watch what the Republicans will do with that brilliant move!
But getting through to you people on this seems impossible.
Anyway, I think the Republicans will win this next election in a landslide, not matter what you folk do. It truly is "the economy"...no matter what--and Kent, the economy is going to suck come election time.
The people will vote for change--and the change will be not "from Obama" but from "the Democrats."
We'll see. I may be wrong. But I'd bet big bucks on it.
On the one hand, I want to see "our" side of the aisle come out victorious...and have what I see to be the dark side of America lose big time.
But I also am a realist--and I have come to the conclusion that our side almost has to lose in order to win. The "people" have to see just how far into the abyss conservative ideas will lead. A big part of me wants to see the Republicans win a major victory--the White House and both houses of congress.
I am very doubtful the economy CAN turn around. I do not see the problem with "jobs" ever being cured again--certainly not in a capitalistic economy as extreme as ours. I just do not think it makes sense to pay people a living wage to do the kinds of things people can do.
Having the Republicans preside over the further disintegration of America (which I feel is almost a given right now) is a more palatable scenario than having progressives be at the helm while it happens.
Not really sure where to come down on this. Appreciate your input. Appreciate that you are willing for me to vet in your threads. Sure wish someone would come along that I can feel a high degree of confidence in--but I suspect that will not happen in the time I (and my country) have left.
Raining heavy in my area of New Jersey right now...fog is thick. Looks like it is going to be a miserable day. Perhaps that is what is working on me. I'll perk up soon--I hope.
"With all the respect in the world, I cannot think of a greater waste of “the time between now and the election” than to dump Obama and get another candidate."
and
"Obama is going to lose."
Sounds, "slightly"contradictory to me!
Are you proposing that NO democrat run -- just leave the spot blank?
We need and MUST have a viable challenger in the democratic primaries -- there are STILL a few men who possess morals and principles.
-R-
a. Kucinich
b. Feingold, and
c. Sanders, as unlikely as that may be.
My position on this has been explained to you in other threads...and in a PM. I think a move by the Democrats to abandon Obama for another candidate would NOT be a move toward "better chances for victory"--rather it would be almost a concession that the Democrats cannot chose good candidates.
In my opinion, dumping Obama for another candidate would going to lose votes rather than gain them. I may be wrong--you may be right--but that is my opinion. No contradiction in that.
That said, I acknowledged in my last post a certain ambivalence in what I want to happen.
If you truly think a primary fight would help the Democratic Party cause, do as much as you can to precipitate it. Personally, I think you would be able to raise money from Republicans for such an effort; they would be that delighted. But if you truly think it best, do it--and we'll see how it works out.
To announce that there must be no criticism of the President, or that we are to stand by the President, right or wrong, is not only unpatriotic and servile, but is morally treasonable to the American public."
"Roosevelt in the Kansas City Star", May 7, 1918
Still having trouble figuring this one out and how it applies to YOU???
Throw the bums out take back what they can and start over!
OK, I know it needs work; but the basic idea is sound once you fill in the details. ;-)
If Republicans responded to fact, to reason, or even to directly contradictory experience, they'd have left the Party years or decades ago.
So what do we do? Any suggestions? I have some ideas…
ref. Kent's suggestion:
"... ask the Republicans to have the courage of their convictions and we'll say: Suppose you tell us what more you wanted in order that the markets would, right now, be reacting positively. Assuming it was not instantly devastating to the public, we could agree to take their proposal until the next election..."