Republican Waterloo
Harry Hope
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/michaeltomasky/2010/mar/22/republicans-healthcare
Monday 22 March 2010
Republican Waterloo
By Michael Tomasky
David Frum has written a rather caustic piece that is getting lots of
pick up, and for good reason. http://www.frumforum.com/waterloo
It's spot-on:
A huge part of the blame for today's disaster attaches to
conservatives and Republicans ourselves.
At the beginning of this process we made a strategic decision:
unlike, say, Democrats in 2001 when President Bush proposed his first
tax cut, we would make no deal with the administration.
No negotiations, no compromise, nothing.
We were going for all the marbles.
This would be Obama's Waterloo – just as healthcare was Clinton's in
1994.
Only, the hardliners overlooked a few key facts:
Obama was elected with 53% of the vote, not Clinton's 42%.
The liberal block within the Democratic congressional caucus is bigger
and stronger than it was in 1993-94.
And of course the Democrats also remember their history, and also
remember the consequences of their 1994 failure.
This time, when we went for all the marbles, we ended with none.
Could a deal have been reached?
Who knows?
But we do know that the gap between this plan and traditional
Republican ideas is not very big.
The Obama plan has a broad family resemblance to Mitt Romney's
Massachusetts plan.
It builds on ideas developed at the Heritage Foundation in the early
1990s that formed the basis for Republican counter-proposals to
Clintoncare in 1993-1994.
This is all inconveniently true.
Re the Heritage Foundation, the leading conservative think tank here
in town, I think he's talking about at least in part about taxes on
high-end plans, which has long been an idea at least as associated
with Republicans as with Democrats.
You may recall that this was the chief financing mechanism in John
McCain's 2008 healthcare proposal.
But suddenly, when Hitler-Stalin-Muslim-Obama proposed it, it became
socialism.
More from Frum:
No illusions please:
This bill will not be repealed.
Even if Republicans scored a 1994 style landslide in November, how
many votes could we muster to re-open the "doughnut hole" and charge
seniors more for prescription drugs?
How many votes to re-allow insurers to rescind policies when they
discover a pre-existing condition?
How many votes to banish 25 year olds from their parents' insurance
coverage?
And even if the votes were there – would President Obama sign such a
repeal?
We followed the most radical voices in the party and the movement, and
they led us to abject and irreversible defeat.
There were leaders who knew better, who would have liked to deal.
But they were trapped.
Conservative talkers on Fox and talk radio had whipped the Republican
voting base into such a frenzy that deal-making was rendered
impossible.
How do you negotiate with somebody who wants to murder your
grandmother?
Or – more exactly – with somebody whom your voters have been persuaded
to believe wants to murder their grandmother?
I've been on a soapbox for months now about the harm that our
overheated talk is doing to us.
Yes it mobilizes supporters – but by mobilizing them with hysterical
accusations and pseudo-information, overheated talk has made it
impossible for representatives to represent and elected leaders to
lead.
The real leaders are on TV and radio, and they have very different
imperatives from people in government...
...So today's defeat for free-market economics and Republican values
is a huge win for the conservative entertainment industry.
Their listeners and viewers will now be even more enraged, even more
frustrated, even more disappointed in everybody except the
responsibility-free talkers on television and radio.
For them, it's mission accomplished.
For the cause they purport to represent, it's Waterloo all right:
ours.
It would be nice to think that Republican legislators will read Frum's
words and take them seriously.
As I wrote many times during this process, I'd have been and would
today be happy with a more moderate bill that had bipartisan support.
It would have been possible with a GOP that hadn't lost its collective
mind.
But instead, we have Republicans like Iowa's Steve King saying things
like this, via Yglesias, in response to the tea partiers' hate
speech-fest from yesterday, which I blogged about this morning:
http://yglesias.thinkprogress.org/archives/2010/03/rep-steve-king-r-iowa-says-racism-and-homophobia-are-okay-with-him.php
"I just don't think it's anything," King said, emphasizing that the
incidents were isolated.
"There are a lot of places in this country that I couldn't walk
through. I wouldn't live to get to the other end of it."
It might be nice if Steve King actually walked through a black area
sometime.
As Matt wrote there are many of them within just a few miles of the
building where he works.
He'd find to his amazement that most of the people work and go to
church and do pretty normal things.
King is extreme even by the surreal standards we must apply to the
House GOP caucus.
But it's on point to mention him because he's a hero on Fox and talk
radio.
And this is what's happened to the GOP.
The Chuck Grassley of eight or 10 years ago was a conservative person,
but as far as I knew a somewhat reasonable legislator, whereas the
Chuck Grassley of the last year has been a dishonest loon, helping to
spread the nonsense about death panels.
Frum is depressed and may be overstating the nature of the disaster
for the GOP.
The fact is that this legislation is complicated and while I think it
will be a political plus for Democrats, I think that will only happen
over the course of several years.
But his analysis of his party's extremism is right as rain.
And the real problem is that it's only going to get worse.
________________________________________________
Harry
New World Disorder
"Harry Hope" <riv...@ix.netcom.com> wrote in message
news:56rdq598affsog4ep...@4ax.com...
>
> http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/michaeltomasky/2010/mar/22/republicans-healthcare
>
> Monday 22 March 2010
>
> Republican Waterloo
>
> By Michael Tomasky
>
> David Frum has written a rather caustic piece that is getting lots of
> pick up, and for good reason. http://www.frumforum.com/waterloo
>
> It's spot-on:
>
>
> A huge part of the blame for today's disaster attaches to
> conservatives and Republicans ourselves.
>
> At the beginning of this process we made a strategic decision:
>
> unlike, say, Democrats in 2001 when President Bush proposed his first
> tax cut, we would make no deal with the administration.
>
> No negotiations, no compromise, nothing.
>
> We were going for all the marbles.
>
> repeal?
>
> We followed the most radical voices in the party and the movement, and
> they led us to abject and irreversible defeat.
>
> There were leaders who knew better, who would have liked to deal.
>
> But they were trapped.
>
> Conservative talkers on Fox and talk radio had whipped the Republican
> voting base into such a frenzy that deal-making was rendered
> impossible.
>
> How do you negotiate with somebody who wants to murder your
> grandmother?
>
> to believe wants to murder their grandmother?
>
> I've been on a soapbox for months now about the harm that our
> overheated talk is doing to us.
>
No Republicans voted yes. Repugs voted against us, their employer.
Fire them in November, sonsabitches.
Not Sure
> http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/michaeltomasky/2010/mar/22/re...
>
> Monday 22 March 2010
>
> Republican Waterloo
I wonder what Michael Steele will be sending Obama as a thank-you gift
tomorrow? :)
>
> By Michael Tomasky
>
> David Frum has written a rather caustic piece that is getting lots of
> pick up, and for good reason.http://www.frumforum.com/waterloo
> speech-fest from yesterday, which I blogged about this morning:http://yglesias.thinkprogress.org/archives/2010/03/rep-steve-king-r-i...
Bret Cahill
>
> Monday 22 March 2010
>
> Republican Waterloo
>
> By Michael Tomasky
>
> David Frum has written a rather caustic piece that is getting lots of
Hopefully Rasmussen will come out with a poll showing that rightardism
will prevail in Nov. and reduce the number of spree shootings.
Bret Cahill
Monsieur Turtoni
(snip)
Brets political memes are like his counter rejection of reality.
I'm a loser in life but i sure as hell win my minds gossip!
