From First Read:
Privately, Republican strategists admit that the expectations game has gotten out of control for them, with some analysts now predicting House gains in the 50s or 60s. But they’re embracing the expectations. In fact, they have helped Republicans and GOP-leaning groups raise a significant amount of money, which has enabled the GOP to expand the map. Bottom line: The expectations could end up being a self-fulfilling prophecy.
The Republicans will have to do very, very well on election day to avoid falling short of the expectations they’ve set for themselves, but who cares? What is the upside for the Democrats and the nation of the Republicans falling short of expectations? I hear people say that it will cause all this infighting in the Republican Party. You know what? The GOP is in a chaotic and dangerous state, and the outcome of the elections can’t fix that. A party that almost uniformly denies the worth of scientific evidence and expert analysis is not fit to govern. No matter what happens on election night, the GOP is going to be duking it out with itself for the foreseeable future. What’s dangerous is that the Republicans are going to make any gains at all. What’s dangerous is that anyone is taking them seriously.
Too many people are looking at the political landscape through the prism of the historical differences between the parties. A lot of progressives are oblivious to the realignment in politics represented by the Obama/McCain campaign, outcome, and aftermath. Basically, what we have is a coalition that represents everyone from the near-left to the middle-right. It’s made up of all the people who respect empiricism, science, and evidence. On the other side are all the people who find reality to be suspect (or are paid to make reality suspect). You can be for or against health care reform or reproductive rights and be part of the Obama coalition. What matters is whether you have a factual basis for your beliefs. Do you allow factual evidence to shape your views, or do you reject evidence that counters your views. Do you parrot mindless, misleading talking points? Do you ignore glaring errors in arithmetic? Are you guided primarily by emotion? If so, you aren’t a part of the Obama coalition.
It might be hard to understand what I’m saying because we tend to think in political terms. But, what’s going on in this country transcends the issues that typically divide the parties. Why are Robert Gates and Colin Powell in the Obama coalition? It’s not because they have suddenly adopted Obama’s foreign policy views, it’s because they know that Obama is at least dealing with foreign policy in a rational fact-based way. They can live with that, especially after their experiences with the alternative. And that’s why it’s important for the maintenance of the Obama coalition that it keep one foot grounded in the middle where fact-based people of a conservative bent can feel welcome.
It’s important to distinguish this from the worldview of the Democratic Leadership Council. Being welcoming to the middle isn’t the goal, but a concession and a strategy for keeping the Crazy at bay. It’s only one tent-stake among many to secure us in this storm of Stupid while we wait for it to blow off.
The people who believe in our basic institutions and want to improve and reform them stand on one side, even if they have vast differences about how to do those things. On the other side are people who want to tear down our institutions and start over. Whether it’s Social Security, Medicare, federal funding of education, the United Nations, or various amendments to the Constitution, the other side wants to upset how we have traditionally done things, and they aren’t making rational arguments for doing so. To protect the way this country works, we have to join hands with people with whom we have big disagreements.
And, at the top, the Obama administration has to do a delicate dance to keep it from flying apart as our divisions create inevitable frustrations. That’s how I see things in our current political environment, and it’s why I have a consistently different take on events than most other progressive bloggers.
