I found this piece by Stanley Kurtz for National Review to be oddly interesting. At first, I was mildly confused because he seemed to be making erroneous characterizations without even creating a predicate for them. But then I remembered that his audience has already been primed with a bunch of fake facts and weird interpretations, so they don’t need to be reminded why they hold their peculiar worldview.
The basic idea behind the piece is that Barack Obama is subtly changing the very nature of American society and that the Republicans need to point this out or they will lose. However, the Romney team supposedly has a different theory, which is that the truly undecided voters in this election are mostly people who voted for Obama and like him personally. As a result, Team Romney feels that Tea Party-style attacks on the president will be counterproductive. Insulting him or calling him a socialist or accusing him of nefarious plots is only going to alienate otherwise accessible voters.
Mr. Kurtz concedes that he doesn’t have access to the focus group data and that the Romney campaign may be correct in their assessment of the battlefield, but he’s skeptical.
One thing that stood out for me was Kurtz’s commentary on the 2010 election.
Republicans won big in 2010 by defining Obama as an overweening ideologue. Yet that was the Tea Party’s doing, not the Republican establishment. In those days, Romney even jumped on the tea-party bandwagon with some surprisingly cutting observations about Obama’s leftism. Obama may not have pivoted after the 2010 election, but Republicans did. They toned down their attacks on the president’s ideology, and to some extent helped to build up the very wall of “likeability” they now fear to scale, even as the president rejected the Clintonian way and stayed to the left.
Remember that the Republicans won big in 1994 by defining Clinton as an overweening ideologue. And Clinton responded by bringing in Dick Morris, signing a horrible welfare reform bill, the Balanced Budget Act, the Iraq Liberation Act, and disastrously deregulating the banks. The Republicans attempted to bully Barack Obama in a similar manner, but so far they have got nothing. Had they been willing to make some concessions on revenue, they probably would have found some willingness on Obama’s part to emulate Clinton, at least to a point. But they weren’t, and he didn’t. So, as a result, conservatives like Mr. Kurtz see Obama as having “rejected the Clintonian way.” He didn’t pivot after suffering catastrophic losses in the midterm election.
I find this less interesting for its literal truth that for the way it shines a light on the Republicans’ strategic thinking. There is a bit of a meld. On the one hand, regardless of the Democratic president in the White House, the playbook says to refuse cooperation and to paint them as a far-left ideologue. On the other hand, the Republicans in charge of executing this play have a strong tendency to come around to believing it’s true and real. They didn’t stop thinking Bill Clinton was a far-left ideologue when he started signing their legislation. They only acknowledge a “Clintonian way” in retrospect.
I also enjoyed the following observation by Mr. Kurtz:
If the public is willing to cut Obama some slack for the economic problems he inherited, that is partly because we’ve allowed him to define the problem to begin with.
Why wouldn’t the public cut Obama some slack for problems he inherited?
As for the merits of the case that Mr. Kurtz would like to see made against Obama, I think it is pretty thin gruel. Check this out:
With the possible exception of the McGovern convention, this was the most left-leaning Democratic gathering in memory…If Obama squeaks by, he will have done so with the help of a Democratic party that has taken a large, open, and disturbingly leftist turn. I think we’re missing the significance of that. It is completely accurate to say that the Democrats are pushing a bogus reformulation of the American way of life — slapping a bunch of flags on their Julia ad and turning classic conceptions of civic and religious community into covers for a cradle-to-grave welfare state…the Obama Democrats are slowly redefining American exceptionalism into the European social democratic dream.
Again, as I said at the beginning, Mr. Kurtz doesn’t bother trying to create any predicates for these characterizations. We’re all supposed to just know what the “Julia ad” is and why it matters. We’re all supposed to agree that the Democratic Party has taken a dramatic turn to the left. I’m not interested in arguing against an unsubstantiated set of assertions. What I find interesting is this idea that we Democrats are overturning “classic conceptions of civic and religious life.” Nothing much has changed in the welfare state under Obama except that a year from now some people will begin getting subsidies to help them afford health insurance. Even this is not really new. We’ve had Medicaid for decades, and we have other programs like SCHIP to cover kids. What’s really different is the comprehensive scope. Thirty million people are going to get health care access that they didn’t previously have.
So, is this fear that conservatives seem to both cynically stir and actually half-believe based on the idea that government is replacing the traditional role of the church? Is that the totality of it? Or is it a little bit of that and a lot of rich people not wanting to pay taxes?
Either way, there seems to be very little justification for looking at the world this way. Certainly, the Democrats have no conscious plan to undermine religion or change classic conceptions of religious or civic community. During his acceptance speech at the Democratic National Convention, President Obama tried to revive a classical sense of citizenship.
As Americans, we believe we are endowed by our Creator with certain inalienable rights, rights that no man or government can take away. We insist on personal responsibility, and we celebrate individual initiative. We’re not entitled to success. We have to earn it. We honor the strivers, the dreamers, the risk- takers, the entrepreneurs who have always been the driving force behind our free enterprise system, the greatest engine of growth and prosperity that the world’s ever known.
But we also believe in something called citizenship — (cheers, applause) — citizenship, a word at the very heart of our founding, a word at the very essence of our democracy, the idea that this country only works when we accept certain obligations to one another and to future generations.
Obama also said this:
We know that churches and charities can often make more of a difference than a poverty program alone. We don’t want handouts for people who refuse to help themselves, and we certainly don’t want bailouts for banks that break the rules. (Cheers, applause.)
We don’t think the government can solve all of our problems, but we don’t think the government is the source of all of our problems — (cheers, applause) — any more than our welfare recipients or corporations or unions or immigrants or gays or any other group we’re told to blame for our troubles — (cheers, applause) — because — because America, we understand that this democracy is ours.
We, the people — (cheers) — recognize that we have responsibilities as well as rights; that our destinies are bound together; that a freedom which asks only, what’s in it for me, a freedom without a commitment to others, a freedom without love or charity or duty or patriotism, is unworthy of our founding ideals, and those who died in their defense. (Cheers, applause.)
As citizens, we understand that America is not about what can be done for us. It’s about what can be done by us, together — (cheers, applause) — through the hard and frustrating but necessary work of self-government. That’s what we believe.
That doesn’t sound like a guy who has radical ideas about civic or religious life. It sounds a lot like Bill Clinton, frankly. It almost sounds like something that Mr. Kurtz might write. And it doesn’t sound like the most left-wing thing heard at a Democratic convention since 1972.
Yet, Mr. Kurtz is correct that Obama didn’t pivot. And that appears to be making him insane.
Kurtz is trying to draw a well-educated face on the front of the bed sheet. With a crayon.
Yes, yes! Simpson-Bowles is definitely a left wing plot to run up the national debt and bring about the fall of capitalism. And Obamacare? Well it is obviously a plot by the government to put all those poor dears in the insurance industry out of business by requiring everyone to … buy insurance. Now if we can just keep the government out of everyone’s Medicare …
(My first comment here, but I’ve been a long time lurker. Keep up the good work!)
I think it drives right wingers crazy that they have not fully succeeded in stamping out the basic communitarian impulses of American culture. I was really glad that Obama used the word “citizenship” to describe it — this is a frame that is easy to grasp for just about everybody when they think in terms of their neighborhoods and local communities.
Over at Dkos this morning, they quoted Alec McGillis at TNR trying to split this idea of citizenship off from regular America, saying, “Instead, we got repeated, unembarrassed flashes of the let’s-get-along, pro-recycling, anti-materialism, look-out-for-the-little-guy, flannel-shirted soul of the party.”
The problem is that it’s not just a flannel shirt value, it’s a basic value in small towns, suburbs, and coherent neighborhoods everywhere to help your neighbor, volunteer in civic groups, and participate in local efforts and events. The right wing message is schizophrenic, endorsing this idea of citizenship locally while adopting its opposite nationally. If you’ll donate to and volunteer for your town’s food bank, why would you deny food stamps or school lunches for poor children? They twist themselves into rhetorical pretzels trying to convince us that what is good locally is evil nationally (or what is good to do for people who look like you is bad to to for people who don’t). There’s a huge internal tension to this argument that racism and greed can’t quite paper over.
Spent the morning at the Red Cross — my wife is a platelet donor — and the local roller derby team was in there donating, along with its fans.
Not quite Norman Rockwell — but it really happens.
The Repugnant Ones would claim Obama is pushing radical things if he said “grass is green, the sky is blue, and America is the best place on planet Earth”
If Simpson-Bowles becomes toxic to Republicans, we might just succeed in saving Social Security and Medicare by leaving it alone.
I seeing a lot of smart politics in the Obama campaign taking the form of dumb policy. I hope it is sufficient to keep the Republicans in their extreme right-wing corner, now that the Mittster has doubled down on crazy in his convention.
The question now for the Obama campaign is whether they can take their position to the right of Eisenhower and use it to sweep the craziness out of our government.
The whole right nutosphere took a wallop on the noggin this week and took a bunch of stupid pills to treat the dizziness.
They really do live in their own delusions.
The takeaway of the two Conventions, and this article is a frail attempt of measuring is that the Rep Party is leaderless. Mitt is not their guy, nor is there any joy in Ryan. The strong bench of leadership that the Dem Convention brought on stage set out the stark difference for all to see. We like our leaders. We can and will join him/them.
Without fact checking from any of the various factions of R’s now they’re all making up their own histories. Which faction will the Kochs’ choose? That’s about the only question left.
The reason the Republican Party is leaderless is because in their current groupthink state it is not possible for them to have a leader.
They dream wistfully of an heir to Ronald Reagan but that’s because they have conveniently forgotten what Reagan actually did. Raise taxes dozens of times for one. Compromise in order to get things done, frequently. And Reagan accomplished what he did because he didn’t give a rats ass about skyrocketing deficits. A Reagan clone today would quickly be given the boot by the tevangelicals.
The primary campaign was most instructive. How many candidates were the darling-of-the-fortnight in the polls, only to be dropped like a rock when they were subject to cursory examination? I’m sure I can’t count all of them – Trump, Bachmann, Gingrich, Santorum, Cain – I have to be missing a few others. Then there is the Ron Paul phenomenon that never quite reaches critical mass.
There can’t be a leader because the Republican ideology is so full of contradictions that no one can resolve them all. Yet the traditional solution – have a candidate that won’t talk policy just generalities – won’t fly because the teavangelists want specifics. They are a funny lot – they know more about politics in depth than any other political faction because they care so much – it’s just that most of the facts they “know” are wrong.
Yes, you can say you’re against the deficit and against raising taxes, pro-increased military, and for jobs. But they also have to placate the big spending contributors who expect the massive corporate welfare to continue and increase. If you ever governed anywhere successfully you can’t have implemented all those things – either you raised taxes, increased the deficit, or pissed off your contributors. If you didn’t govern anywhere, as say just a Congresscritter, you may have toed this line but because you have no experience you’ll interview just like a tevangelist does – which comes across as crazy.
It’s quite the corner the Republican party has painted itself into. And yet, they have a majority of the house and they are within an October Surprise of taking over the Senate and the White House too.
Yes indeed, and it is a part II interesting to see how, in this campaign, what happens to the messagers when they have no core talking points. THAT is interesting, but damn hard to track for the guy stumbling behind trying to figure out who he’s talking to.
“A Reagan clone today would quickly be given the boot by the tevangelicals.”
He was. His name was Jon Huntsman.
This is amazing to watch. The whole conservative movement, not just the teavangelist wing, decided in advance that Obama was far-left and they have done nothing but collect isolated, context-free “facts” to support that view.
This puts them starkly at odds with reality, of course. Policy-wise the guy is dead center on average, and to the right of, say, the Republican Party platforms prior to the southern/fundamentalist strategy era of the latter 1970s. You won’t find a major change like the clean air and water acts of 1970 in his portfolio – just minor environmental improvements countered by some serious back sliding (allowing more offshore drilling just before the BP oil spill, the keystone pipeline, fracking). His health care plan, although most want to forget it, is basically what the Republicans offered in 1993 as an alternative to Hillarycare – and is very popular with the insurance companies. The stimulus would have been purely centrist a few years ago. His foreign and domestic “terror” policies have won effusive praise from Darth Cheney. He’s continually talking up the work of the catfood commission and frankly, no one under 55 can feel secure in their retirement with the current Democratic leadership. His two Supreme Court appointees were (shudder) women, but both are moderates and one has actually sided with the evil 5 on some key decisions.
That’s not to say he’s not tons better for us than Romney would be – but to paint him as a leftie – let alone as further to the left than the Democratic party has been before – is just nuts.
But that’s what movement conservatives – in their fox news / drudge / newsmax information cocoon believe.
This is so far outside the bounds of reality that I wonder if even the low information undecided voters have begun to notice how crazy they are.
Though the stimulus was centrist policy, it was still a tremendous progressive achievement in its size, and quite unprecedented. Yes the crisis was unprecedented in a way, but it’s still important to note.
Oh let’s be clear, today that is very much a progressive achievement. Even 30 years ago, however, it would have been centrist policy. My point is that Obama is not in any way a leftist.
The only way the size of the stimulus is unprecedented is because the size of the economy is so much larger now. I wonder what GDP was in today’s dollars back during the Ray-gun years. FDR? Don’t forget, also, too, that GDP during the Great Depression dropped by almost half(I think .. but don’t shoot me if I’m wrong).
I’m pretty sure in GDP terms it’s still unprecedented in its size. That was my point. I could be wrong, but I thought I saw something over at Sullivan’s about it recently.
And yes, the GD was unprecedented, and still is even in the current context. But we have more ways to combat it that we didn’t have then, and more economic knowledge now. So maybe if they knew what we know now they would have had a truly unprecedented stimulus…but they didn’t.
So K-Thug is chopped liver? He was saying at the time that the stimulus was inadequate. Better than nothing? Yes. But certainly far from enough given the size of the U.S. economy.
No, not chopped liver. It was certainly inadequate. It was also unprecedented.
Calvin, I happen to have CPI numbers handy. These are from BLS, series 1983=100
October 1929 = 17.3
November 1932 = 13.2
April/May 1933 = 12.6 (bottom of the deflation)
November 1980 = 85.5
November 1984 = 105.3
November 1988 = 120.3
November 1992 = 142.0
November 1996 = 158.6
November 2000 = 174.1
November 2004 = 191.0
November 2008 = 212.425
July 2019 = 229.124
You’ve discounted the game-changing nature of health care reform.
Again, let me put it in context. I’m not saying that wasn’t a major achievement – it was. I’m saying that Obama is not the leftist they portray him as.
If I could rewrite that to make it clear I would.
Ok; I get you and I agree.
My sense is that those on the far right are most fearful of the demographic changes that are upon us, of which Obama is both a symptom and a harbinger, but they can’t be honest about that reality because they would have to admit (to themselves) they have become dead enders.
Many years ago, when the DLC was ascendent on the left and the right seemed to have all the interesting people with interesting ideas, a demographer told me it was all but inevitable we’d eventually have a European style social democracy here in the U.S. because demographics made it all but certain. I was skeptical but the more time passes, the more I see his wisdom.
A few years later, I took a long trip, a 10,000 mile trip, through wide open spaces of the rural west. In my travels, I’d stop in small towns and talk to people in bars and cafes. What became clear to me, before the red-blue divide emerged so clearly, was that people in rural places felt their lifestyle slipping away and were terrified. They were terrified they would be subsumed by the large cities, forced to move there by economic circumstances, afraid the resources of the rural places would be cut off from them (through environmental laws and roadless rules on national lands), that their guns would be taken away and their ability to subsist would go too. A lot of these people were getting by with side jobs and subsistence hunting. They knew people who had had to move to places they didn’t want to live, places very alien.
In a sense, Kurtz is right. The world as many people know it is ending. That’s been happening for many years. This is why the far right has been in total freakout mode for so long.
Intellectuals on the right also understand that health care reform changes everything. This is why they’ve thrown everything into taking it down. How do you manipulate those most fearful once it’s clear that government is not the enemy? At that point, cradle to grave becomes reality.
To prevent a European style system from taking root over time, the oligarchs have to convince people to vote against their economic self interest. We all know this; we’ve seen how smart they are when it comes to manipulating through fear, turning poor against poor. But the jig is almost up.
Here Romney is trying to pry away a few Obama votes in order to win a narrow election in a divided land where demographic trends are running counter to right-wing hopes. And Romney’s all about Romney; he doesn’t care about any term longer than the next two months. But the true believers on the right don’t care about Romney. They want to find a way to reverse the demographic realities. Sure, they want Romney to win. But more than that, they understand they need shifts of seismic proportions. They’ve bamboozled many old, white men. Now they’ve got to find a way to scare women and hispanics. Otherwise, game over.
Outstanding comment. The USA today reminds me of the dying days of Apartheid South Africa. Those whom the Gods wish to destroy they first make mad.
Thanks. Let’s hope we get through this without too much more damage. If Booman’s right about a landslide, the fever could finally break. If not, we’ll have to keep working (and holding true).
The really stupid thing is that the GOP wouldn’t let Obama pivot as Clinton had done – it would have destroyed Obama with his base – now he’s the Dem hero because he didn’t cave in the way they perhaps expected him to. Dems have been so spineless in the recent past they had a legitimate expectation he might cave…
You are exactly right. If Obama had caved or had succeeded in the Boehner Tax deal, he would’ve had a very real enthusiasm gap.
I for one, wouldn’t have voted for him. I would’ve voted for every other democrat, but not him.
I give Obama more credit. He might have disappointed us, his base, but not unless the Republicans were willing to disappoint their base too. He would have cut a smart deal. I think his apparent spinelessness was to telegraph to so-called moderates that he was willing to govern moderately and the Republicans were blocking it. He overestimated the extent to which such people pay attention and he underestimated the degree to which it would make him look weak to people across the spectrum. I don’t think we’ll see that strategy again.
As the first black President, he perhaps felt that he had to be seen to be reaching across the aisle. Moderates, independents and low information non political types like that. Whether he thought the Repugs would actually go for it or not is moot. The fact is they didn’t and made him look good by comparison – particularly with his own base, but, perhaps more importantly, with uncommitted and independent voters.
I agree that Clinton probably thought that bank deregulation and welfare reform were good ideas in their own right, or at least a price worth paying for continuing in office. What has probably scared the shit out of conservatives is how unapologetic the Dems are now about their own values and policy commitments. Dems are no longer bending over backwards to accommodate conservatives – as they have since Reagan.
What conservatives see now is not only the prospect of not winning the Presidency and perhaps losing congress, but also of losing the argument as well. Having been the dominant paradigm for 30 years, they risk being sidetracked and almost irrelevant to political debates of the future.
Remember that the Republicans won big in 1994 by defining Clinton as an overweening ideologue. And Clinton responded by bringing in Dick Morris, signing a horrible welfare reform bill, the Balanced Budget Act, the Iraq Liberation Act, and disastrously deregulating the banks.
This assumes facts not in evidence. Clinton was DLC. Do you remember what the DLC was about? They joyfully wanted to “reform” welfare. They wanted to reduce regulations on the banksters. Having a GOPer Congress just made it easier to pass those things and look all bipartisan-y.
The Clinton WH also spent their first term raising taxes and working on a far more ambitious health care reform plan compared to the ACA. You can’t really say they wouldn’t have governed differently given a more agreeable Congress.
Oh God, not the “cradle-to-grave welfare state.” Can we at least agree that maybe it would be nice to have a cradle-to-grave welfare society? All it means is that people help each other when help is needed.
Well, of course Republicans and a lot of other Americans too have come to see “welfare” as a synonym for unemployment. It’s kind of funny that such a filthy expression as “general welfare” occurs twice in the Constitution. we’re not sure why that’s there. Best to ignore it.
What’s amazing to me is how they’ve hypnotized themselves with their own bullshit.
I expect the rubes to fall for their BS, but a shocking number of people who should know better have fallen for it, too.
It will be interesting to see how they can crawl out of the crazy hole they’ve dug for themselves. It seems to me they have no way to get around ignoring the teatard base and the Birchers that finance the party, so I can’t see a way for them out of the crazy.
Just heard this new line: “How could you stoop so low to hurt your family, your business, your community?”
Answer: “Habit”
I’ve wondered for the last month or so if the whole strategy of the race is them(including the Romney team) knowing Romney is going to lose, and the only option left is to try to keep the House and Senate by keeping the wingnuts energized enough to bother to vote.
At every opportunity for Romney to moderate/appear sane, he’s done just the opposite.
I think this theory is totally correct. The McCain voters are not undecided. They voted for McCain and Palin, surely they are not now undecided about choosing between Romney and Obama. I might think they would based on Romney being more extreme than McCain, but if the swallowed Palin, they will never go Democrat.
Except that very few are strongly influenced in their choice by the running mate. Ultimately it was a McCain vs, Obama vote strongly influenced by an anti-Bush vote. They tried to neutralize the anti-Bush element by keeping him out of the picture and making Obama totally responsible for the economy/wars/deficit etc. So they have some chance of picking up some 2008 Obama voters who voted against Bush or who are always inclined to vote against an incumbent or need to blame someone for their current economic predicament .
The Problem is Romney is an even less attractive candidate than McCain with almost nothing positive (war hero, crusty independent image) to recommend him. So its down to driving up Obama’s negatives by demonstrating his “incompetence” on the economy. However it doesn’t help if Romney’s Bain record is so dodgy and Ryan’s numbers don’t add up. It’s much harder to paint Obama as a dark socialist now that he has been in office for so long without the sky falling in.
So its down to Nate Silver’a Referendum on the incumbent vs. a choice between two candidates paradigms. Obama wins on his personal qualities every time a straight choice is contemplated. If Obama can wriggle off the hook of being made solely responsible for the economy (and Clinton did a great job in this regard) then Obama wins by almost the same margin as the last time – aided by demographic trends even if not helped by voter suppression and Citizen’s united.
It wouldn’t take much of a late breaking upturn in economic indicators to make it a slam dunk for Obama – either that or a slow collapse in the credibility of the RR alternative. Most October surprises help the incumbent. With Romney pulling out of PA, Mi and Wi he is already fighting a rearguard battle and down to his last beachheads. It could get bloody after this…
Yes, this is the famous “pivot towards moderacy” that everyone was expecting Romney to take. Except that, considering what he did and said during the primary, many of us wondered all along how he could possibly pull that off. And the answer is, I believe, that he can’t. It’s just going to be another series of flip lops that few will believe and that will annoy and demoralize the base.
Actually I know a few McCain voters who are either going to vote Obama or stay home. Of course, these were true McCain voters – not the core GOP automatons who loved Palin and were secretly hoping McCain would win then croak.
Those McCain voters still can’t stand Obama, and believe a lot of the GOP lies about him, but are getting increasingly fearful of their own party.
“Why wouldn’t the public cut Obama some slack for problems he inherited?”
Well, he does give a reason in the next line, which is that supposedly the Republicans ALLOWED Obama to define (understood: misdefine) those problems.
Now that is a pretty big pile of crap for two sentences, but it’s interesting. It illustrates his theme that the only reason Obama is doing so well is because the GOP (read: Romney) “allowed” it, i.e. through not hitting him hard enough. I suppose this goes along with the “empty suit” “Teleprompter” meme that Obama is a puppet controlled by the evil forces of Librulism. I mean it couldn’t possibly be that most Americans don’t want a Republican president.