It’s funny. The House Republicans voted almost unanimously to put the anvil of Paul Ryan’s budget around their necks. So, why would the Senate Republicans worry about Harry Reid making them vote for the same bill? Yet, it’s true, the Senate Republicans probably don’t want to vote on (for or against) Ryan’s plan. What’s strange is trying to figure out when the Republicans will act with some sense of self-preservation. They usually do not. It’s like they don’t worry about losing, until they do. Only a moron would vote for Ryan’s plan if they were at all vulnerable to electoral defeat. Yet, that didn’t stop the House Republicans from lining up as a bloc to vote for the plan.
Democrats’ actions are much easier to predict. They get scared and cave. I just wish I knew how much of this difference between the parties is tied to money and how much of it is just built into their characters?
I just wish I knew how much of this difference between the parties is tied to money and how much of it is just built into their characters?
You really don’t know? One follows the other. I think, deep down, you know the order.
I think if a Republican political strategist were to respond honestly to your query, he would say, “politics doesn’t work the way you think it works anymore.” There is a huge disconnect between what is actually happening in DC and how voters perceive it. There is an even bigger disconnect on the extent to which voters act rationally based on those misperceptions. I think you’re drastically underestimating the extent to which GOP politicians can capitalize on these electoral market failures to use (1) the stronger tribal bounds of their supporters (identity politics) and (2) better messaging to win over independents to continue to win elections.
Back in early 2009 GOP leaders decided to double down on the hard-right turn of the Bush years instead of trying to moderate and win elections that way. Extremism isn’t usually a great way to win elections, but it can be if that extremism is not only a policy move, but a political strategy to stymie Obama’s agenda and drive wedges between both him and liberals. In 2010 this gambit worked incredibly well for the GOP, and if this extremism can continue to inflict collateral damage on the economy (and its really a question of how much, not if), then they probably can win in 2012 as well.
I’m not really sure liberals are in a position to offer political critiques of the far-right. They’re doing just fine getting their agenda enacted and winning elections. They don’t need any advice from us.
Isn’t it even easier for them now to duck the vote procedurally and pretend that they voted however is politically feasible when it comes campaign season? Isn’t the Senate the place where you can always have it both ways.
not only should they have to vote on it, but the Dems should vote PRESENT
Just look at Rick Scott and Kasich to know why they do what they do. I think they’ve thrown away conventional political wisdom because they really cannot get too extreme for the public, and there are chances that come along where they win majorities and the presidency to do everything they want. Sure, polling has Scott in the dumps. But also look at polling regarding the oil spill. It’s almost like people forgot we even had an oil spill; polling has offshore drilling where it was before it happened. To same with the Republicans. Oh sure the public hates the GOP, but they’ll eventually blame the Democrats for why their lives suck and punish them. Especially when white people are becoming a minority.
And I think they do this because they don’t care about political power, they just send their people there for a few terms to enact decades worth of damage. It doesn’t matter who it is, they just need bodies. At least that’s how the House has been operating.
I’d also like to turn everyone’s attention to a colleague of mine’s diary.
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2011/04/25/970015/-Introducing-the-Facebook-Page:-One-Million-Strong-f
or-Barack-Obama
I was fairly prominent in the original group, and we plan to reshape how the group was operated in the future. So tell all of your friends: this is the NEW One Million Strong for Obama group, started by many of the original admins. I just hope this page takes all of the attention like the original one did, as there’s bound to be copies.
THIS.
The backers of the Republican party have figured out how to hack representative democracy – make sure that the representatives don’t care about their jobs. One of the key checks that citizens have over leaders in a representative democracy is that if the citizens get a raw deal from their leaders, they vote them out of office.
But if you have a rich uncle standing there ready to give you a six figure job if you destroy as much as you can before you leave office, well, that removes one of the few checks that the citizenry have on their leaders. You go in, you do as much damage as you can, your constituents get mad and kick you out but that’s okay, within a year you’re working for a think tank or a Koch Industries subsidiary or whatever.
And people don’t think about “parties” as much as they think “christ what an asshole”. People are very forgiving – they don’t sit there and say “well, the last Republican we had ran the state into the ground, maybe Republicans have bad ideas”. They think “Christ, Bob Taft was an idiot. Kasich isn’t as stupid as Taft was, so maybe he’ll do a better job.” They don’t blame the party, they blame the candidate.
And part of this is because the Republicans have spent decades with their partners in the media demonizing liberals and Democrats and Democrats, in general, don’t demonize groups. It’s part of being a liberal that you don’t want to go out and demonize whole groups of people for the ideas that they have – conservatives have no such compunctions.
I see Harley Barbour has put out the press release that he is not running for Pres. He was polling terribly but when the leadership powers that be look at his polling, watch the town hall fists flying, the direct hits the Party is getting (not to mention Ensign’s resignation news) from TParty, they are looking at nothing more than sheer survival tactics.
I wouldn’t try and figure out who they are right now based on any kind of history, instead better to recognize a gaggle of lemmings poised at the top of a precepice of their own building and the sound of fingernails on the chalkboard as they try to keep from going over the edge.
Listening to the TownHall constituents’ intelligent & well informed questions was … well, you could have knocked me over with a feather, and now their words will begin spreading like wildfire.