Nicole Belle points us to a transcript of this week’s Chris Matthews Show, where he, Ceci Connelly, Katty Kay, Mark Whitaker, and David Ignatius discuss the impact of the ‘Angry Left’ relative to the Republican Party.
MATTHEWS: If we try to put up the trade walls, are we going to have a fight on labor issues like this card check thing, about being able to organize individual decision making rather than a big voting election kind of thing. Those kind of issues can really, as you say, could divide the Democrats, right?
CONNOLLY: Absolutely but here’s the key to this: Rahm Emanuel, Chief of Staff. What did he do when he was in the House Democratic Caucus? He often was the person who had to break it to the liberals in that caucuses that things were not going to go their way.
MATTHEWS: Who’s going to break it to the blogosphere? They don’t like anything that looks like a give to the right. Where are they doing to be on this thing? Are they going to give him a break if he doesn’t go hard left and doesn’t do what they want?
WHITAKER: I think that Obama has to worry as much about the far left as he does about the far right. But look, you know I think that it could be a plus for him in some ways because I think they are going to give him what you might call a “Sista Soulja moment” when he can stand up to them.
MATTHEWS: Right.
WHITAKER: And talking to some veterans in those early Clinton wars who think that particularly this issue of the card check push by the labor unions to change the rules on organizing could be a moment for him either by delaying that, standing up to the unions, of positioning himself more in the middle and making it harder for the far right to position him the way they tried to during the campaign.
MATTHEWS: You see that, David?
IGNATIUS: This is where the economic crisis, you know, ends up being crucial because people are angry. The country’s furious and a lot of these really divisive issues I think will come from the left, not from the right and they’ll come from unions, from working people who are enraged at bailouts for big banks and wealthy executives and the pressure on Obama to check some what he’d like to do on the economy I think is going to be very strong from angry people.
MATTHEWS: And you say the left is going to fight anything that looks too conciliatory?
IGNATIUS: You can, it’s been obvious now for the past few weeks that the anger in the country is working its way through Congress and it’s, the bailouts might make sense in a macro-economic sense but they’re increasingly tough politics.
MATTHEWS: Bottom line, we asked the Matthews Meter, twelve of our regulars given the mountain of problems he faces will the right give Obama a longer than usual honeymoon. Our panel is always filled with cockeyed optimists. Eight say yes he gets a longer honeymoon from the right. Four say no, Katy you’re with the optimists.
KAY: I am. I’m not sure I’m cockeyed but I am probably an optimist. I think for all the reasons that we’ve been saying about the mood in the country and the desire to get things done I just don’t think that the right at this particular juncture can be seen to stymie an economic agenda in particular. I think that they have to give him the benefit of the doubt for a period of time.
MATTHEWS: Okay big time. Will the Republicans get out of his way and not use any obstructions to stop from getting through a big economic package once he gets in office.
KAY: I think they’ll give him…
MATTHEWS: No procedural tricks.
KAY: I think they’ll give him three months.
MATTHEWS: Three months.
WHITAKER: Six months.
CONNOLLY : I don’t think they’ve figured out that kind of procedural trick.
MATTHEWS: [laughs] You know what I mean. Filibuster, all kinds of ways to slow the…will they use those tools to slow him down?
CONNOLLY: Doubt it.
IGNATIUS: No, the Republicans will help him out on the package. His problem is going to be with the left, not the Republicans.
I believe there is some degree of truth in this discussion, in that the Republicans acknowledge that they were resoundingly defeated (even if they make occasional weak protests that they were not) but the liberals are convinced that they won a big victory and they want their spoils. What is more of a concern is the consensus Beltway view that legislation like the Employee Free Choice Act is ‘Angry Left’ legislation, and that the strengthening of labor unions is a ‘divisive cultural issue’. I mean, please. And Ignatius is basically telling us that Obama is going to catch hell from the left for leafleting Wall Street with cash (as he allegedly wants and needs to do) and will not catch hell for this from the right.
The right still controls roughly 40% of the seats in both Houses of Congress, and they have quite a bit more power and influence than the angry left bloggers and union leaders. If there is a qualitative difference between the angry right and angry left, it is that the left has been so traumatized over the last decade that they suffer from an unhealthy level of mistrust and cynicism. Of course, this is not without cause, but it has gone too far.
Having said that, the left is more self-aware than they were in the 1990’s. They are more organized, they are more disciplined, they are aware of the enemies in their own midst, and they better understand how Washington works. The left’s wish list goes well beyond a return to the Clinton era. The Beltway’s wish list consists of nothing more or less than a return to the Clinton era. There is a conflict here, and it will be played out during the next four years.
If Chris Matthews runs for Senate in Pennsylvania, the labor unions will remember how he sees them.
