If you’ve ever been in a no-limit high stakes poker game and found yourself with a short stack of chips, you know what it’s like to play with a major disadvantage. It’s not enough to have a good hand. At any time, another player can force you to make the decision between folding and going all-in with the remainder of your chips. Any hand you choose to play could spell your elimination. Under those circumstances, you have to wait until you have a great hand. Bluffing becomes a suicide mission. And, yet, if you just keep folding as you wait for a great hand, your pile will be slowly bled dry by the antes. You must gamble. Analogous decisions have faced the Republicans since the beginning of this Congress.
Barack Obama has watched how the Republicans play their game, and he appears to have come to the conclusion that they like to overplay their hands.
In a meeting with House Republicans at the White House Thursday, President Obama reminded the minority that the last time he reached out to them, they reacted with zero votes — twice — for his stimulus package. And then he reminded them again. And again. And again.
A GOP source familiar with the meeting said that the president was extremely sensitive — even “thin-skinned” — to the fact that the stimulus bill received no GOP votes in the House. He continually brought it up throughout the meeting.
You can call him ‘thin-skinned’ if you want, but he’s really just being realistic. He made concessions to the House GOP during the stimulus debate and he got absolutely nothing in return. In essence, he folded a good hand and lost a pot that rightfully belonged to him. The Republicans had been bluffing about bipartisanship. He’s not about to trust them again over the signature domestic issue of his campaign: health care reform.
It’s a bit byzantine and I’m not going to get into full details here, but the Democrats have decided to use the budget ‘reconciliation’ process to push through health care. It’s a procedure that limits debate, which therefore eliminates the GOP’s ability to filibuster. The point is that health care can pass with 50 votes (plus Joe Biden’s tiebreaker) instead of the 60 normally needed to cut off debate. If Congress does not pass a health care bill by October 15th, it will be passed under reconciliation.
Democratic aides said that Obama made clear to the GOP leadership that he would continue to work in a bipartisan way, but that they didn’t have veto power over health care policy. GOP aides, however, said that Obama was pretty clear that reconciliation would be used. “From what was told me, it sounded more like he would almost definitely use reconciliation for healthcare. I don’t think he hedged much,” said one.
Actually, what Obama meant is that he will definitely use reconciliation if the Republicans don’t act in good faith and attempt to filibuster a health care bill they don’t like. They have until October 15th to work on a bill in a bipartisan way. They can have input, but not veto power. To understand the poker analogy, you have to understand the bluff that Obama just called. Via Roll Call (subscription only), Sens. Cornyn (R-TX) and Hatch (R-UT) threatened to grind the Senate to a halt if Obama uses reconciliation on health care.
The GOP might first go after White House nominations. Republicans could require each appointee to get a separate hearing and a separate roll call vote. They could stop attending committee hearings, and decline to provide “unanimous consent” to move forward on even the most benign issues or routine Senate business. Republicans could also demand that the text of bills, which are often hundreds of pages long, be read aloud.
Essentially, the GOP was betting like they had a full house when they were really holding a pair of deuces. Obama looked them up and down, and then he pushed enough of his chips into the center of table to make the GOP go all-in. Go ahead and grind the Senate to a halt, Obama is saying, but I’m still getting my health care.
Will the GOP fold? Or will they keep throwing good money after bad? With this crowd of high-rollers, you just never know.
If only any Senators would stand up to him on civil liberties and the goddamned wars.
Looks like Obama jacked up Ben Nelson.
What a douche Ben Nelson is.
The thing about the ‘all in’ bet in poker is that it works …… all the way until it doesn’t. Then you are out. The only way to stop all in bets is to call them. As your stack gets smaller, even the other nominal stacks stop fearing you, because they know your are forced to play worse and worse hands.
The Republicans will go all in. That has been their play for years …. and it HAS worked. It probably will still work a few more times, but then will come the time they overplay their hand and they will be … out.
You can see this happening in the ‘media torture debate’ going on right now. And in the tea parties. Much more of the media has taken a dismissive attitude towards the republicans has they have had to go further and further out on their limb. They are getting more push back than I have ever seen on any subject. In a twisted and sick sort of way it’s great fun to watch.
It’s a GREAT analogy.
nalbar
David Plouffe said the other day that the Dems had won all there is to win in the House, but I don’t believe it. We can win another twenty seats from these clowns if they keep throwing good money after bad.
did ploufe (or whatever) make that statement before tedesco announced?
yes, but I don’t think he meant we can’t win any new seats. And that one was a hold anyway.
I think there is no limit to gains if any two of three things happen;
Any combination of two of those three will start to pull the middle class southern whites from republicans. I don’t believe in ‘unreachable’ red states. You give relief to the middle class after 20 years of stagnation and they will notice. They already ARE noticing, and right now we are only in the ‘it looks like we might get attention’ phase.
If Obama delivers the Republicans are dead, dead, dead. Like I have said in the past, it’s why they HAVE to destroy him. Clinton they did for fun, Obama they HAVE to ruin.
nalbar
An addendum;
Notice I ignored torture and wire taping and other Bush crimes. I believe that Obama is, in a certain sense right, when he says we need to move on.
The REAL issue facing America is middle class stagnation. No country can long survive a weak/shrinking middle class. Obama seems to understand this. This would be the first time in a LONG time that we had a POTUS who DID understand this. So I can see why he might not want the country to get distracted from the REAL goal, which is an America of economic strength, with a vibrant middle class.
I may not agree with him on it, but I can at least see his point. (of course that assumes I am right, and not full of BS)
nalbar
The torture stuff is enough on its own but the problem is it sets a precedent either way. Either an administration can do whatever the hell it wants regardless of the law as long as it has a hold on Congress, or each administration attempts to prosecute the ones before it.
And on that last point: Dems should prosecute republicans because in a human lifetime, there has not been a republican administration that has not been full of corrupt criminals who did their crimes while in office. Republicans will prosecute Dems because they hate liberals.
What is the point really? I mean, I’d rather we all die in attacks than we live in a nation where torture is okay and we just don’t admit we broke the law.
BooMan, I just want to congratulate you on the poker metaphor. It’s perfect.
the GOP could have opened early with cooperation, lulling Obama into a false sense of security. And then they could have filibustered at the end in a surprise move that would have killed health care for this year. Instead, they showed their cards on the opening hand and now Obama knows when they’re bluffing.
Stupid move.
this method has worked for them for years.
I love the “thin skin” smear, as if Obama is some kind of crybaby. He doesn’t have thin skin; he just gets tired of teh stoopid after a bit. But in this case I think the repetition was more about saying get on board or get run over.
However, even if reconciliation is used, there are still the so-called centrists among the Democrats to deal with. They still have time to be “concerned” about various things and gum up the works.
The GOP is still confident that they can blame the economy on Obama at some point. The Village will help them do this. The view is that eventually the economy will get so bad that the voters will turn on Obama and want the GOP back.
The GOP is now fully vested in making this the new reality. They’ve already gone all in on this strategy. They’re not bluffing. They may be holding a pair of deuces, but they honestly believe at some point that hand will beat what Obama’s holding. So, every time Obama asks to see their cards, the GOP simply has the Village rewrite the rules of Beltway Poker and warn Obama not to call the GOP out, then declare that the GOP is clearly winning. Obama’s not playing against the GOP, he’s playing against the whole Village House.
But luckily, Obama has finally figured out the Danny Ocean Rule: The only way to beat the House is recognize when the perfect hand comes along, and then put it all in.
The problem is, the GOP is counting on the same thing happening. Only one of them will be right.
This is a good post, and I like the poker metaphor too.
I also want to say that this is GOP thing.
The President is ‘ thin -skinned’. No, he doesn’t suffer fools, and he’s made it clear to his cabinet that they shouldn’t either, hence the bitchslaps of GOP Congressmen by Hillary Clinton and the Secretary of Energy this week. Clinton’s smackdown was a thing of beauty, and worth hitting the replay button over and over again. The Secretary of Energy? It looked as if he were processing the selection of his words. He was self-censoring. He was far more polite than I would have been, and the GOP better take a step back. He is a Nobel Prize winner. He has dead skin cells smarter than that congressman will ever be.
Yep, Clinton’s response was a thing of beauty. She is certainly showing why Obama wanted her in his cabinet.
Gore gave quite the response to.
Payback can be a bitch, huh Republicans?
nalbar
Great analysis.
Steve Perry in Minnesota did a great analysis once about the Democratic Party – that they were in it to lose it. They didn’t care. There needed to be two parties and they would take that role, with some jobs, some positions, some perks, and no control of the process. Keep things quiet.
Frankly, Bill Clinton was like that, at least as far as Wall Street was concerned. And the military-industrial complex. Want some spending? Let’s do some bombing. Want some deregulation? Here, and here’s some more.
I get the feeling Barack Obama is in it to win it. The order of major bills is important and determined. One for the banks, keep Wall Street happy, one full of Big Old Federal Pork, Just What the Economy Ordered (I am very supportive overall of the stimulus bill, even if larded with corporate crap) keep the cities and states happy. And he opened the process and gave some to the Republicans and got nothing, and nothing again.
So now he has set the narrative, and can legitimately roll all over them on something that’s very popular.
Sweet!