Let’s stipulate that Republican strategist and pundit John Feehery is engaging in a bit of hyperbole and alarmism here; I still think he makes an important point that the business community would be wise to heed.
If Sen. Harry Reid’s rule change on filibusters did anything, it sent a message to the business titans who support Senate Tea Party challengers to Republican incumbents to knock it off.
Regaining control of the Senate is now more important than ever.
Republican strategists have been putting all of their campaign eggs in the ObamaCare basket. The president’s healthcare law, the reasoning goes, will be so unpopular that it will drive base voters to the polls a year from now.
That’s a risky bet. As we found with the Iran deal over the weekend and with the passage of the nuclear option in the Senate last week, it is hard to keep the attention of the news media — and the voters — on any one issue.
I think ObamaCare will still prove to be unpopular in the next year, but Republicans have to construct a wider message going into the election year.
Checking President Obama’s unbridled power is a pretty powerful message.
And having control of the House is not just good enough in the era of the so-called Reid Rule.
When Reid (D-Nev.) got his Senate majority to lower the threshold on executive branch and judicial nominations from 60 votes to 50 votes (assuming the vice president could break any tie), he gave tremendous power to the president.
Obama can stack the court in his image and can put anti-business ideologues in places like the Department of Labor, the Environmental Protection Agency, and the Commerce and Agriculture departments. And those ideologues can spend the next three years writing regulations that will govern this country for a generation or more.
And those regulations will cost the business community trillions of dollars in compliance costs.
In my experience, industry groups do a very effective job of lobbying Congress and protecting their clients’ interests. It’s certainly more effective to talk to Senate Democrats about how various proposals might adversely affect your industry’s bottom line than it is to promote the anti-government nihilism of the Tea Party. Nihilism is very ineffective when it doesn’t prevail. The reason is simple. Believing in nothing and doing nothing precludes you from entering into negotiations, and if you enter into them despite your opposition to any compromise, no one will take you seriously or be willing to offer you any concessions.
To use Mr. Feehery’s example, the decision to oppose nominees without cause (which is a form of nihilism) led the Democrats to remove a choke point where lobbyists could influence regulatory rules. More and more regulations will be generated within the executive branch rather than as a result of congressional compromise.
Will it cost the business community trillions of dollars in compliance costs? Over what time frame?
I don’t know the answer to that, but it definitely looks like the portion of the business community that bet on the Tea Party made a major mistake.
Hey, you go to all-out mutual assured destruction thermonuclear political war with the TeaTards you’ve got, not the TeaTards you wish..
…no wait, that’s not it.
Okay…perhaps putting on that TeaTard-supplied suicide vest wasn’t the best possible plan, but at least it’s a plan. But they didn’t sign up for actully pushing the button!
Obama can stack the court in his image and can put anti-business ideologues in places like the Department of Labor, the Environmental Protection Agency, and the Commerce and Agriculture departments. And those ideologues can spend the next three years writing regulations that will govern this country for a generation or more.
Oh please, oh please ….
Of course, after all these years everyone on the left recognizes the symptom of a classic wingnutism: when the right wing is accusing the left of doing something it is because they either have been doing it or wish they could do it. The quoted paragraph above perfectly describes both the Reagan administration and the Cheney/Rove administration.
But it certainly is time for Obama to offset all those Federalist Society judges and also to stock his administration with lefties who will offset the harm done by past (and in some cases, still present) right-wing appointees.
Second poll that shows Dem advantage in generic Congressional ballot is gone. In fact GOP leads by two here. Different firm than last time.
It’s the product of ceaseless anti-Obamacare, anti-Democrat news for the last 4 weeks or so.
I never watch TV news at home or by choice, but when I travel I can’t avoid it and lately I’ve been doing a lot of air travel. It’s basically been GOP talking points all day long on all channels.
However, as I put it in another post here, that isn’t necessarily to the GOP’s advantage for 2014. First, when the Obamacare issues are worked out and people actually get affordable health insurance the meme will die out – and that should be long before election time. Second, the GOP has firmly taken a position against a law that, when most people actually understand it most people will actually favor – and by next election probably most people will understand it.
One other point is that although the TV news media, and Washington in general, is wired for the GOP they also love fads and deeply despise, at a fundamental level, the people who actually make up the Tea Party. I recall the famous quote from someone (Broder?) about how the Clinton’s had defiled the White House. For all the signs about how GWB was a moron and simpleton the fact was he was from the right people, which is why he was so supported by the Washington punditry. If the GOP establishment is not able to wrest control of the party from the Tea Party it is highly likely that the TV news media won’t be taking the GOP side leading up to the 2014 election.
Yeah, it’s just too early to say. Polls are always based on what people know, or think they know, and there’s a lot of mis- and disinformation out there. At least as far as ObamaCare, things will be a lot clearer a year from now. Maybe it will turn out to be an unmitigated catastrophe, but these polls are based on the fact that people started declaring it an unmitigated catastrophe on the first day.
Regardless, other things are going to happen between now and then. Even the combined power of the right-wing noise machine and the eternally hypnotized corporate media isn’t going to be enough to keep the focus on one subject for an entire year. And there really isn’t anything else that I can think of happening in that period that will favor the Republicans.
Since the elections will be over a year from now, I would hope it’s clearer!
I think ObamaCare will still prove to be unpopular in the next year, but Republicans have to construct a wider message going into the election year.
Another wingnutism is believing their own bullshit. Sure, it’s one thing to tell the rubes that Obamacare is the second coming of Hitler and Stalin wrapped into one, but it’s another not to realize that most of those GOP voters working for pennies with no health insurance are actually going to LIKE having affordable health insurance that actually covers costs.
We can only hope that this time Obama’s team really is playing 11th dimensional chess – that their plan is to let the GOP and the corporate media do all the anti-obamacare hype for a few months now (firmly establishing where the GOP stands on healthcare), but by next summer not only will Obamacare be running smoothly but also the 24×7 media coverage will be on the contrast between states with full Obamacare support and those without (run by GOP governors).
If that happens 2014 will return the house to the Democrats. One problem with gerrymandering is that it creates a bunch of moderately-safe districts for the party in power (55-60% advantage) and a few super-safe districts (90% advantage) for the party out of power. This means that when there is a landslide against the party in power they lose far more seats than they would with normal districting.
Yep, exactly.
I agree, but that’s not 11th dimensional chess. You’ve even got a Republican strategist here recognizing that the election next year isn’t going to be all about ObamaCare, so the idea of letting them have their feeding frenzy now is pretty obvious.
The funny thing is that ObamaCare is probably the best chance the Republicans have. Feehery talks about constructing a wider message, but what’s the message going to be? The only wider message he points to in his comments here is to let big business run everything. Beyond that, it remains the case that only message the GOP has for anyone who isn’t a frightened and angry white person is “Drop dead.”
I still find it strange how conservatives automatically, knee-jerk, 100% assume that Obamacare will fail and people will hate it. Where is the evidence for that? It seems much more likely to my that the opposite will occur – success, and people who can finally get decent insurance will be thrilled.
Especially since the only thing they can think of that’s wrong with it is website issues, which are being resolved. They can’t see beyond that one inch.
Shorter Feehery. The Republican establishment is now scared that the Tea Party could give Democrats a stronger hand in the Senate and House. Koch brothers, would you kindly cut it out. Go back and support the Wall Street Republicans who know when to compromise. Or lack the bigoted baggage.
Right, John. And which Republicans would those be? Oh, right. Incumbents.
There is no policy here despite the framing. It is a strict party unity, no waves please pitch. And also to please hire John Feehery as their all wise campaign strategist.
As each day passes, it becomes rather obvious that #ObamaCare is here to stay and by next year millions of Americans will get really p-o’d with anyone trying to take it away.
That leaves all the brilliant GOP strategist with a monolithic base – white, dumb and afraid.
Per Paul Krugman:
Yep.
Link: http://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/11/26/the-obamacare-worm-turns/?smid=tw-NytimesKrugman&sei
d=auto&_r=2&
Sorry about that …
Hahaha! That’s the worm that’s going to eat those Republi-harkonnen f*kers.
Trillions in compliance costs… Stimulus! Someone has to be hired for that.
And in the bargain, you actually might get compliance.