Monthly Archives: December 2011

“Kamikaze politics” led to republican capitulation

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Capitulation. Humiliation.

The vote for the Senate payroll tax compromise today in both houses of Congress must be biggest political capitulation of the year for the Republican majority in the House of Representatives.

How did that happen? It came about as a result of the Republican “kamikaze politics,” according to the conservative columnist Charles Krauthammer in the Washington Post today.

To continue the resistance to the bipartisan compromise in the Senate would have meant tax increases next year for 160 million Americans at an average of 1,000 dollars, an impossible political position of the “party of tax cuts,” in addition to 1.8 million unemployed no longer receiving unemployment benefits.

Clearly, the House Republicans overplayed their hand. How did they get here, many wondered, while watching with increasing alarm President Obama’s rising poll numbers. He and the Democrats have clearly benefited from the Republican “kamikaze politics,” and there is a new spring in their steps ahead of the coming election year.

The pressure on the House Republicans had steadily increased since their no to the Senate compromise earlier in the week and after their demands for renegotiations had met with firm refusals by President Obama and Senate Democratic majority. Crucial to the eventual capitulation, however, were the Wall Street Journal’s editorial on Wednesday about a Republican “tax fiasco” and Republican Senate leader Mitch McConnell’s appeal yesterday to his Republican colleagues in the House to adopt the compromise.

Speaker John Boehner saw that the battle was lost and threw in the towel, although he tried to the end to make the best of the humiliating situation:

“This may not have been the politically smartest thing in the world, but I’m going to tell you what, I think our members waged a good fight.”

You’re not kidding – it might just have been the dumbest of all political strategies. And it was another nail in the coffin for Congress, which has had a really miserable year with a record low 11 percent of Americans approving of how it does its job. Chris Cillizza in the Washington Post names someone every week for having the worst week in Washington. It is always a fun read. Last Sunday, he named Congress as having the worst year in Washington of all.

Merry Christmas!

The last debate before Iowa and the race heatens up

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Tonight is the 16th, and final, television debate with the Republican presidential candidates before the Iowa caucuses on January 3.

Thank god, I often hear from friends, but the fact is that the debates have been popular with the American public, with an average of almost six million viewers. The debates have also saved money for the candidates, who have spent considerably less on political television ads – only three million U.S. dollars so far in Iowa compared to 27 million four years ago, and only 1.3 million dollars in New Hampshire against 17 million four years ago. For TV stations in the two states, however, this must be sad news…

I think this is a healthy trend for American political campaigns. I’d rather have the debates than the television ads with their dubious messages and outright lies. And anything to take the money out of politics…right!

Lately, the republican race has heated up and it’s downright exciting. Although many of the polls should be taken with a grain of salt, and national polls at this juncture are pretty meaningless, Gingrich now seems firmly in the lead in Iowa, while Mitt Romney maintains his lead in New Hampshire. Gingrich’s new popularity seems to have more legs than the previous upstarts — Michele Bachmann, Rick Perry and Herman Cain. This is deeply worrisome to many conservative columnists. The editors of the conservative flagship National Review warned today of what a Gingrich victory could do to, as they see it, the Republicans’ excellent chances to beat Obama next year:

“We fear that to nominate former Speaker Newt Gingrich, the frontrunner in the polls, would be to blow this opportunity.”

It’s a battle between between “ideology and electability” as the polls suggest – Obama would defeat Gingrich by 51 to 40, while the race against Romney would be much tighter, 47 to 45.

Still, could it be the case that none of the present seven candidates in the end will be the Republican candidate? Could someone else, in the end, capture the nomination? It is not inconceivable, according to Sabato’s Crystal Ball, the web site of the respected political analyst, University of Virginia professor, Larry Sabato. I don’t think so, but it’s interesting reading!

Obama’s speech is praised by liberals — “finally!”

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Leading liberal commentators are pleased with president Obama’s speech yesterday in  Osawatomie, Kansas.

His best speech ever on the economy, writes Robert Reich on his blog. Finally, we have the president we elected in 2008.

At last, writes Michael Tomasky at the Daily Beast, Obama delivered his best speech in a very, very long time.

Obama has found his voice, writes John Cassidy on his blog at The New Yorker.

The populist, almost hour long, speech sets the tone for Obama’s election campaign. It’s not about bipartisan compromises. Rather, it is a passionate speech about the growing economic inequality in America, about the losing fight of the middle class and about economic justice whee Obama cites Teddy Roosevelt’s speech a 101 years ago in Osawatomie about the “New Nationalism.”

Here are a few excerpts from Obama’s speech.

“This is the defining issue of our time. This is a make-or-break moment for the middle class, and for all those who are fighting to get into the middle class. Because what’s at stake is whether this will be a country where working people can earn enough to raise a family, build a modest savings, own a home, secure their retirement.”

”In the last few decades, the average income of the top one percent has gone up by more than 250%, to $1.2 million per year. For the top one hundredth of one percent, the average income is now $27 million per year. The typical CEO who used to earn about 30 times more than his or her workers now earns 110 times more. And yet, over the last decade, the incomes of most Americans have actually fallen by about six percent. This kind of inequality—a level we haven’t seen since the Great Depression—hurts us all.”

“It’s heartbreaking enough that there are millions of working families in this country who are now forced to take their children to food banks for a decent meal. But the idea that those children might not have a chance to climb out of that situation and back into the middle class, no matter how hard they work? That’s inexcusable. It’s wrong. It flies in the face of everything we stand for.”

“I’m here in Kansas to reaffirm my deep conviction that we’re greater together than we are on our own. I believe that this country succeeds when everyone gets a fair shot, when everyone does their fair share, when everyone plays by the same rules. These aren’t Democratic values or Republican values. These aren’t 1 percent values or 99 percent values. They’re American values. And we have to reclaim them.“

On political ads — sleazy has now become the norm

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Speaking of political television advertising, I recommend the article “The Reinvention of Political Morality” by Thomas Edsall on today’s New York Times blog ”Campaign Stops.”

Edsall, one of the most experienced political journalists in America who is now a journalism professor at Columbia University in New York, focuses on the Mitt Romney TV commercial recently where he falsely and misleadingly uses a quotation from President Obama by neglecting to point out that Obama was quoting his Republican opponent John McCain.

Romney’s ad is “the first irrefutable violation of ethical standards in the 2012 campaign,” writes Edsall. While outlining how political television ads have evolved over the years, for the worse, he adds that “what was once considered sleazy becomes the norm.”

And now the war of the TV ads is starting….

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Political television ads have not played a particularly important role up to now in the Republican primary election campaign.  That’s different from previous years and an interesting phenomenon.

Instead, the campaign’s focus has been the constant panel debates between the eight, well, now seven, candidates, which have benefited those who can talk, like Newt Gingrich, and those without much money, again, like Newt Gingrich.

But Gingrich has now launched his first TV-ad in Iowa, at a cost of 250,000 dollars, and soon political TV ads will flood the media in the State ahead of the January 3 caucuses. There are many similarities with Gingrich’s ad and Ronald Reagan’s classic “Morning in America” from 1984. Take a look!

Gingrich:

Reagan:

But Gingrich will surely not be allowed to play Reagan. Just take a look at Ron Paul’s scathing attack on the former Republican Speaker called ”Serial Hypocrisy.” It takes me back to 1988 and the vice presidential debate between Loyd Bentsen and Dan Quayle.

Bentsen to Quayle: ”you are no John Kennedy.” It seems to me that Paul is saying about Gingrich: you are no Ronald Reagan…

A conservative cries out about the Republican party…

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Circus. Reality show. Watch and weep. Clowns.

Damning comments like these are heard frequently about the Republican presidential candidates as the primary election campaign is about to start in earnest on January 3 in Iowa. But they are, mostly, liberal voices, and they can be dismissed, and are, by  conservative voices.

However, today on Rick Lowry’s blog “The Corner” at conservative National Review Online someone calling him/herself “One American Conservative” cries out about a Republican party gone astray. I don’t know, of course, who this person is, and I generally don’t approve of anonymous comments. But, if genuine, it’s heavy stuff, and it deserves to be quoted in its entirety, for I am not sure it could be said any better.

It IS an embassarassment, and not only for the Republican party but for the state of American politics today.

One American Conservative : 12/05/11 02:25:

“Please, please…can’t we bring this embarrassing and self-destructive Republican primary to a speedy end? As a conservative member of this party, I am being humiliated by a roster of candidates that the media, the Democrats and the White House are exfoliating layer by layer – with toxins provided by the candidates themselves!

Cain: likable but inexperienced, immoral and unelectable. Gingrich: experienced but pathologically egotistical, immoral, unattractive and unelectable – he is his own characterization – over the decades, he has “written” his own negative ads again and again.

Paul: the outlier, the serial candidate – too old and too odd to be unelectable. Bachman: smart, attractive, seemingly moral, but unelectable, not presidential, not big league – you just cannot see her in the oval office no matter how much you squint.

Santorum: same as Bachman – smart enough, seemingly moral, but out of his league, unelectable – can’t see him as the leader of the free world – can’t even imagine him as a corporate CEO. News anchor, maybe.

Perry: next to Obama? No chance. His rate of speech and heavy Texas accent convey a dimwittedness. He’s a lousy debater for one reason: IQ- Cs and Ds at Texas A&M…it shows. And I worry…what’s in the closet? Criminal cronyism? An affair?

Huntsman: smart, experienced, seemingly moral but haughty, condescending, unelectable Plus, for some inexplicable reason, TV isn’t kind to him. Just doesn’t “work” on the flat screen – nothing comes across. Maybe it’s that eyebrow.

So it brings us to Romney. Seriously smart, squeaky clean, attractive, presidential, experienced though doing a poor job defending some of his positions. That said, he’s getting hit, and so far surviving, from all sides: Obama, the DNC, the other Primary candidates, the mainstream media, liberal and even some conservative cable shows, and even the anti-Mormons. No other Republican primary candidate could weather the depth and breadth of such an onslaught. Least of all Gingrich. And the General will be even worse. Romney is the best, strongest shot we’ve got at the oval office. He can win and Obama knows it. So far, the Obama campaign grasps the dynamics of this race a lot better than the Republicans – it’s Romney they’re going after. And the longer this Primary continues, with multiple factions helping Obama beat up Romney, we risk losing the whole game.

Meanwhile, I’m an embarrassed Republican having to explain why my party keeps pushing the dimmer-witted, the inexperienced, the arrogant, the immoral (throwing out one adulterer and then embracing a serial adulterer), tolerates religious bigotry with few voices in opposition, and, in general, doesn’t appear to want to win. I ask again, on behalf of many, many who feel as I do, who are running out of excuses for the party and thinking maybe we’ll just become Independents, please, please help bring this self-destructive Primary to an end. In the beginning, this was fun and interesting. Now, it’s scary. We will lose…and so will this country I love. Thank you.”

Great uncertainty a month before Iowa

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In one month, the Republican voters will finally have their say about their party’s presidential candidates. Today, no one can predict with certainty the outcome of that first election in Iowa on January 3.

Panic? Desperation? No. But there is uncertainty and anxiety in the Republican ranks, and dissatisfaction. With a president with and approval rating of only 43 percent, a deep economic crisis and an unemployment rate of 8.6 percent, according to today’s new numbers, Obama should be extremely vulnerable, and the Republicans should have good chances of winning next year.

But this week it is clear that no one knows anything, writes conservative columnist Peggy Noonan in today’s Wall Street Journal.

Charles Krauthammer, another leading conservative columnist, is not happy in today’s Washington Post. He would have wished stronger candidates than the current eight – such as Governor Mitch Daniels (Indiana) and Christchurch Christie (New Jersey) and Congressman Paul Ryan. Instead, the fight is between Mitt Romney and Newt Gingrich, and Krauthammer concludes:

“You play the hand you’re dealt. This is a weak Republican field with two significantly flawed front-runners contesting an immensely important election. If Obama wins, he will take the country to a place from which it will not be able to return (which is precisely his own objective for a second term). Every conservative has thus to ask himself two questions: Who is more likely to prevent that second term? And who, if elected, is less likely to unpleasantly surprise?”

The fundamental question is if Newt Gingrich will last, or if his strong rise in the all the recent polls will prove to be just as temporary as Michele Bachmann’s, Rick Perry’s, and Herman Cain’s were. I still believe that Gingrich’s success is temporary. The vast majority of the Republican voters are still looking for their ideal candidate, a conservative, Christian, Tea party sympathizer. They clearly believe that Romney is not the ideal candidate, languishing, as he is, around 20 percent in the polls. The question is whether Gingrich is such a candidate – the Washington insider with dubious conservative credentials, three marriages and a series of damning flip-flops that may well compete with Romney’s.

The fact is that the Republican voters do not know what Romney and Gingrich really believe and what they really stand for.

Which of these two will have the biggest chance to defeat Obama? According to all opinion polls, Romney comes out on top here. But, asks the political analyst  Stuart Rothenberg in his newsletter, will the Republican voters follow their hearts or their brains?

“The question is whether there are enough true believers to nominate someone other than Romney, thereby putting up a weaker general election candidate against Obama. In other words, is this 1964, when Republicans listened to their heart over their head? That year, of course, President Lyndon Johnson looked unbeatable, so the Republican nomination didn’t have the value it is likely to have next year….Barry Goldwater’s famous 1964 campaign slogan was, ‘In your heart, you know he’s right.’ He went on to lose 44 states. Often, in politics, the head is a better guide than the heart.”

For Obama and the Democrats, that’s also an important question.