I liked Matt Miller’s column, but I am getting a little concerned about the triumphalism I’m seeing on the left. The polls are still extraordinarily troublesome. It’s true that the Republicans are stumbling in the dark and that they have no cohesive message or ideas for tackling the problems the country is facing. And it’s true that, in time, we’ll look back at the passage of health care reform as the requiem of the Reagan Revolution’s dream. But, we have short-term shit to worry about. If the country is indeed about to vote-in a bunch of crazy movement Republicans, then we’re headed for a world of gridlock and hurt. People need to wake up.
About The Author
BooMan
Martin Longman a contributing editor at the Washington Monthly. He is also the founder of Booman Tribune and Progress Pond. He has a degree in philosophy from Western Michigan University.
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Absolutely. Way too many people don’t understand health reform and are still scared of it. The administration and the left need to go backwards and sell the package slowly, with complete information about how it affects everyone.
The WH has a good idea with its website where different categories of people click to see how it affects them – but the site is out of date, referring to “the president’s proposal”. Worse, it’s a sales job and lacks relevant details.
People don’t want a sales job, they want information. What changes take effect when, what taxes take effect when, and where and when to look for further info.
Come on!! When is the last time Democrats ever sold anything effectively(besides Obama’s election)? I’ve been beating this drum for the past few years, but Democrats need more party unity. It’s hard, and not always a good thing, but we have to deal with the hand dealt to us(quoting Rummy).
Fine!! But do you know what that means? Is Obama prepared to either light a fire under Geithner and Bernanke or have them resign? You heard Geithner’s comments today, right? Just because everything is fine in “Bobo” Brooks’ neck of the woods doesn’t mean a darn thing. Obama needs to be putting people to work. And fast. If need be, circumvent Congress.
And the biggest short-term problem for Democrats is 10% unemployment.
I liked Miller’s column too, but I’d go a bit further than Booman. Barring dramatic economic change in the next six months (e.g., jobs growing by several hundred thousand a month), the country will indeed vote in a bunch of crazy movement Republicans.
Why? Because elections tend to be a referendum on the recent past, and incumbents tend to lose when the recent past is bad as measured in economic terms.
Hopefully the Democrats do in fact focus on jobs, jobs, jobs (and not deficits, deficits, deficits) when Congress goes back to work, but I don’t have a lot of confidence that they’ll be able to overcome 30 years of conservative ideological hegemony fully enough to pass jobs legislation that is sufficient to deal with the problem.
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By losing the Independent voters big time!
"But I will not let myself be reduced to silence."Short term or long term, THIS is our problem.
http://digbysblog.blogspot.com/2010/03/theyre-good.html
What Digby said.
We are screwed.
nalbar
Short term, we’ve got problems. Long term, the fundamentals look pretty good.
For the coming decade, about 2.5 million people will die each year—most of them old, most of them white, many of them conservative and likely to vote for Republicans.
For the coming decade, about 4 million people will turn 18 each year. Those new voters are increasingly diverse racially and ethnically, increasingly liberal, and likely to vote for Democrats by something like a 3:2 or 2:1 ratio.
Put those facts together with a 10% unemployment rate and it’s no wonder that crazy movement Republicans seem increasingly crazed.
The 2010 election doesn’t look good for Democrats. However, assuming even a relatively weak, but steady, economic recovery, the 2012 election looks much better.
One lesson of the past 14 months is that the biggest structural problem progressives face is the US Senate. Even there, there’s some reason for long-term hope.
Already about half of Senate Democrats—including the top leadership (Reid, Durbin, Schumer)—are on record favoring some kind of rules reform to eliminate or limit the filibuster and the hold.
That half of the Democratic caucus is disproprtionately made up of the classes of 2006 and 2008 (who aren’t on the ballot in 2010). That means the chance of passing some kind of significant rules reform in the next few years is—if not great—at least within the realm of possibility.
Finally, much to the consternation of the crazies, Obama is as skilled at defeating them as any politician in recent memory.
Bill Clinton was a pretty good counterpuncher, but mostly on the defensive—both as President and as Governor. (That’s more a commentary on America in the 1980s and 1990s than it is a commentary on Clinton’s political skills.)
Obama, in the Illinois and US Senates, and in the White House, has demonstrated an ability to take punches, allow his opponents to overstretch, and then counterattack. (He also has the advantage of a society that is—I would argue—moving, however haltingly, in a more progressive direction.)
We progressives need to be wary of triumphalism. We also need to be wary of despair.
Perhaps Matt Miller should look at the new CNN poll that has Republicans edging Dems on the economy by 2 points.
The caution I note in Miller’s article is his statement to the effect that the real problem facing the country is that taxes must somehow be increased to pay for SS funding of the baby boomers’ retirement.
Why on earth he buys into this lie is beyond me.
The $2.3 billion dollar trust fund surplus came into existence in the mid-eighties through legislation specifically to pre-fund that retirement.
As baby boomers retire, the surplus is, by designation, expected to be depleted. That’s what it’s for.
Prior to that, SS was a pay as you go system–each working generation’s SS tax paid for the retired generation’s pensions.
After the depletion of the surplus, SS is designed to revert to pay as you go.