Even AdNags thinks the Republicans are exaggerating their mandate. You think? Meanwhile, the Wall Street Journal is pretending that moderate Wisconsin Republicans are offering a reasonable compromise by sunsetting the loss of collective bargaining rights for public sector unions. The Hill reports on the Democrats’ coordinated messaging for the President’s Day recess:
In a direct jab at the Speaker, Democratic lawmakers are planning to message the continuing resolution (CR) to fund the government as the “So Be It” bill and have printed up buttons with that slogan for members to wear.
Boehner said that if the CR causes some federal layoffs, “So be it.”
“We will hold House Republicans accountable for choosing the wrong priorities — putting special interests ahead of the middle class,” Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee Chairman Steve Israel (D-N.Y.) said in a statement Saturday after early morning House passage of cuts. “It’s wrong to take researchers out of the lab or keep homeless veterans on the street to protect special interests. It’s just wrong.”
It’s not terrible, but the Democrats need to learn to use more pungent language. The Republicans’ plan to tackle high unemployment is to destroy as many government jobs as possible. But there are not enough private sector jobs available right now for the people who are unemployed. How the hell will it make it easier for you to find a job if you suddenly have to compete against hundreds of thousands of newly unemployed people coming from the public sector? That’s what the Dems need to do. Talk directly to the people who are looking for a job, or a better job, and ask them if they want all this new competition. Ask all the people who are worried about the budget whether they want to pay the unemployment insurance for hundreds of thousands of government workers. Ask them if they want a new spike in home foreclosures in their neighborhoods. Tear the head off these Republicans and don’t stop until they stop kicking.
The Democrats have basically been daring the Republicans to shut down the government, but the Associated Press thinks the Democrats aren’t all that confident that they’ll win the public relations battle.
In the event of a shutdown, some Republican strategists say deficit-weary Americans would blame Democrats for refusing deeper cuts. Democrats say voters would view Republicans as unreasonable obstructionists, as they did 15 years ago. Neither group, however, seems fully confident, and no one knows how much the political ground has shifted since Obama’s election
The Democrats want to make the Republicans blink and they’re not afraid of a shutdown. I think that makes a shutdown inevitable. It’s not in the Republicans’ nature to back down until they’ve destroyed their position, advantage, the budget, the reputation of the country, whatever country they’ve invaded, their marriages, or anything else that comes in their path.
In the event of a shutdown, some Republican strategists say deficit-weary Americans would blame Democrats for refusing deeper cuts.
What polls are these strategists(goes for clowns like Geoff Garin, too) using? Do they live in some kind of alternate universe? As Atrios says, no one gives a crap about deficits. They want jobs!!
Hear, hear. Now, maybe there are some Republican strategists who are trying to spin the storyline in their favor. That’s part of their job, so I’m not surprised their doing it. If there are Republican strategists who truly have concluded—based on their polling and focus groups—that “deficit-weary Americans would blame Democrats”, then I strongly suspect Democrats are rejoicing that their opponents are such bad strategists.
Here are the top two priorities for a wide swath of the electorate:
*that the economy work well for them and the people they care about (i.e., jobs);
*that Washington politicians do the job they were elected to do without seemingly endless “bickering”.
If the government is partially shut down because House Republicans can’t agree with Senate Democrats on funding for the rest of the current budget year, it’s hard to see how President Obama looks anything but “presidential” and House Republicans look anything petty, clueless and disorganized.
Oh, that’s easy. They say that both parties are to blame for this. lol The only way Republicans can live with themselves is when they say both parties are responsibly. rolls eyes
Damn right, and I still don’t understand how we can get rid of our deficit when we have so many people that are unemployed and our economy still sucks. Deficit control is something one is supposed to worry bout when the economy is in a good enough condition to deal with it.
You can’t negotiate with a Party whose favorite moment was Shock & Awe.
Deficit Weary? Did they say Deficit Weary? ? ?
I say raise the taxes on those hedge fund managers. Anyone who can make a half billion a year in salary plus a piddling $10 mil “bonus” needs to pay a whole bunch more in income taxes.
The top marginal tax should be in the 70% range. And how about the loopholes for the big corporations, such as GE, who pay absolutely NO taxes.
I blame the Republicans, RepubliKKKans, The Tea Partiers, the Tea Klan or whatever you want to call them
My guess is they get it from Fox News. Because that is the only place I can see where the deficit is hawked as the #1 concern.
Gallup’s latest certainly doesn’t reflect the GOP line.
Addressing Americans #1 concern of unemployment by purposely creating more unemployed Americans.
What Palinesque logic that is.
I’m part of the Democratic Base, I say this, without hesitation – I don’t give a shyt about the deficit. It is a GOP creation,and a bunch of bullshyt.
Why don’t all the members of the Democratic caucus act like they know this? And WTF doesn’t President WTF act like he knows this? The Democratic strategy of out-rightflanking the Republicans is not working. And the problem is that even as independent party switchers buy the Democratic position, the Democratic base erodes even more. It hasn’t happened yet, but at what point do African-Americans start falling by the wayside over policies? Especially policies that ignore the pain that exists in minority communities and target cuts to programs that inadequately deal with that pain. The same programs have more white beneficiaries than minority ones, but poor whites have traditionally been hung out to dry by the “betters”. And no they are not the folks who show up with the TEA Party crowd. That bunch are poor-mouthing small-town and suburban middle-class, and small business folks.
Why don’t all the members of the Democratic caucus act like they know this?
Let me try this way: when was the last time you saw “sixteen hedge fund managers made over a billion dollars last year, and paid less in taxes as a percentage of income that any of the teachers in Wisconsin”?
In the middle of a class war the Democrats have none. Who does? Bernie Sanders. The last honest man in the Senate.
Because he’s trying to make it clear that he’s willing to work with Republicans but they aren’t willing to work with him, but he does it in a way that doesn’t hit you over the head and seem phony.
I grew up in an Evangelical Christian home, as I’ve stated before. So I sometimes wonder where my influence came from, barring my own brain, and I think it must have been the comedians I to which I listened (and I’ve watched the Daily Show ever since I was 12):
<iframe title=”YouTube video player” width=”480″ height=”390″ src=”http://www.youtube.com/embed/7DX9T6A4lsk” frameborder=”0″ allowfullscreen></iframe>
Bleh:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7DX9T6A4lsk
Kabuki, kabuki, kabki.
Anything “Republican stragegists” say are embedded talking points, not statements of fact. It’s part of their “create the reality” mentality. Anyone who quotes them directly or indirectly is enabling them, either out of agreement or stupidity. It’s pure Village talk.
A shutdown is inevitable, because Republicans think it will gain them support for cutting the budget deeper. Someone needs to point out that “shutdown” is kabuki too. Is the US going to cease operations in Iraq and Afghanistan. Is the Navy going to cease patrols and lower anchor wherever they are until the “shutdown” ends? Is Congress going to forgo their pay and benefits. Will the Congressional office buildings be shut? Will the electricity be turned off in the Capitol? Will government limousines and SUVs cease to roam the streets of the capital city? Will tax forms cease to be processed? Will taxes cease to be collected? Will Congresscritters be denied health care at Walter Reed or Bethesda Naval Hospital? Will pensions for ex-presidents and former Congresscriters be halted? Will the White House go dark? Will the FAA stop air traffic control? With the TSA stop air security checks? Will DC restaurants be empty?
No. The kabuki says that only innocent bystanders that are targets of Republican cuts can be hurt. The expendable. The poor. The disabled. The middle class elderly. Only bystanders who have not power to change Congress.
That is why the President and the Democrats will let the Republicans dominate the narrative. And Boehner has essentially defined the terms by the fact that the CR has specific cuts that target Democratic programs and not Republican programs. And not an across-the-board cut.
Once again, the strategy is for a shutdown happen in such as way as the Democrats anger their real base (not the self-appointed progressive base) and the resulting depressed (in both senses) voter turnout in 2012 allows the Republican victory that ushers in the permanent Republican majority.
And the problem the Democrats face is that the quislings in the Democratic caucus prevent effective and full-throated messaging.
Representational democracy is dead at the federal level and beginning to die in a number of formerly progressive states. The process cannot be handled within the system anymore. The current de facto system is the problem. And no one knows how to make changes in the business culture, the media culture, and the political culture to stop the drift into a closed oligarchy.
Agree with all of this. But I hold out one hope — there are more of us than there are of them, and the population trends are against them too. Arizona and maybe even Texas, are in play because of that. There are a lot of unemployed people in those states who are going to be very pissed off by the republican budget tactics
The only slogan that would work at this point is “FUCK OFF” but that won’t make it on TV. And trust me, any harsher language than “So be it” would send the media into their new civility mode as if their shows can survive civil politicians/guests. No discussion of the GOP cuts, no discussion of any substance just constant yapping that Democrats aren’t being civil.
IT would be nice if the media was now obsessed with telling the truth. Lots more people have been hurt and died because of lies politicians tell. lies that Republicans tell.
I am not surprised that Murdoch who controls the WSJ has a non union stand. He poured enough propaganda into the campaign for the semi-idiot that was elected to kill the unions for the Koch brothers’ kleptocracy in Wisconsin.
The plutocrats are in the state legislatures to an enormous extent. They possibly have control of enough state legislatures to pass any new amendments that they want to.
When they own 75 percent of the legislatures, you are going to see some really obscene amendments to the Constitution.
They already own the legislative, judicial and executive branches of the federal government so here comes trouble.