I suspect that the Democrats played this one perfectly, actually. Obama made a good show of going to the Republicans, meeting with them, and addressing their concerns. He made high profile concessions to them - generally minor ones, but high-profile ones. Tax cuts were always a part of the stimulus for them, he politely but distinctly took Pelosi to the woodshed for the contraceptives line, he's made a very, very good show of bi-partisanship. And now, because the Republicans showed what was frankly excessive discipline, he has the moral high ground - the entire House Republican bloc is tainted with this. Because they acted so completely monolithically, they no longer have an easy claim to individual principled stances. They acted as one, so this becomes a partisan move - in a way that it's not for the Democrats, because Obama lost a few votes there. For the Republicans, this was a nakedly partisan move, and Obama can and will nail them on petty partisanship on a fundamentally important issue.
And that's why I suspect that 2010 won't be bloody in the same way - because as it stands, Obama outplayed them in the public sphere. He looked conciliatory and bipartisan. They looked like angry hacks.
I mean, back with the Clinton impeachment, the Republicans maintained credibility in part because they lost some votes. Losing Shays and Specter, who publicly turned on the party there, kept it so that there was a shred of moral integrity behind the vote. Only a shred, but at least the Republicans who voted to impeach and remove from office can claim with a straight face that it was a sincere conviction on their part that Clinton had done wrong.
To me, it looks like the Republicans are playing out of a decade old playbook against the guy who wrote the most recent edition. It's a gruesome mismatch.
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Date: 2009-01-29 05:23 am (UTC)And that's why I suspect that 2010 won't be bloody in the same way - because as it stands, Obama outplayed them in the public sphere. He looked conciliatory and bipartisan. They looked like angry hacks.
I mean, back with the Clinton impeachment, the Republicans maintained credibility in part because they lost some votes. Losing Shays and Specter, who publicly turned on the party there, kept it so that there was a shred of moral integrity behind the vote. Only a shred, but at least the Republicans who voted to impeach and remove from office can claim with a straight face that it was a sincere conviction on their part that Clinton had done wrong.
To me, it looks like the Republicans are playing out of a decade old playbook against the guy who wrote the most recent edition. It's a gruesome mismatch.