RSS Feed MenuAfter 8 years of patient efforts to roll back Republican gains, eventually retaking Congress, and finally electing a Democratic President, is the left really going to give up that easily? Manic progressives have moved from the euphoria of incipient healthcare reform into outright cynicism and despair.
Yesterday, Ezra Klein, whose Democrats still have four more members in the Senate than Republicans were able to achieve in their high watermark year of 2006, essentially threw in the towel on all medium-term liberal achievements.
But the likely outcome of the 2010 election — a narrowed Democratic majority with an enlarged, energized Republican minority — won’t allow for much in the way of legislative accomplishments.
As Keith Hennessey noted in his blog Tuesday, this does not have to be the case. President Bush was able to promote substantial legislative achievements (the 2001 tax cuts, No Child Left Behind, Trade Promotion Authority, Medicare Part D, Energy, Pension Reform, the 2008 Stimulus, and TARP) on a bipartisan basis. (I would also add Class Action and Bankruptcy reforms, and the Patriot Act.) And he was able to do so working with liberals and conservatives alike, under Republican and Democratic majorities.
Bush’s predecessor was also able to promote a serious legislative agenda, securing trade agreements, welfare reform, and a balanced budget. Even assuming that Klein and the progressive left reject these accomplishments as insufficiently liberal, they are foolish to slight Clinton’s work on healthcare after the debacle of Hillarycare. He made it increasingly difficult for Republicans to oppose Medicare prescription drug coverage, and he set the stage for this year’s near miss on healthcare by pursuing CHIP and the Patients’ Bill of Rights.
Even after 2010, it is almost certain that Democrats will maintain control of the Senate. And yet despairing Democrats are ready to pack it in.
I am not normally in the business of giving Democrats strategic advice, but somebody needs to tell them to get a grip.
Obamacare might not happen. It was perhaps a bit ambitious to attempt a wholesale restructuring of the American economy in 12 months. And 2010 is shaping up to be a disastrous year electorally.
But the evidence of the Bush and Clinton administrations is that the President, even absent a supermajority in Congress, is quite capable of enacting serious legislation that promotes his party’s long-term agenda.
DFL // Feb 24, 2010 at 12:23 pm
Our dead senator is probably right. If I were to guess, Obama will defeat Romney in a nailbiter 50-49. Of the states that McCain lost, Romney will pull back to the Republicans Indiana, North Carolina, Colorado, Florida and Nevada. Obama will narrowly keep Ohio, Virginia, New Mexico and New Hampshire in his column, ensuring a tight victory that won’t be decided until Oregon’s votes come in.
teabag // Feb 24, 2010 at 1:58 pm
The difference is that the Democrats during the Bush yeas were not 100% obstructionist. They were willing to vote alongside the Republicans when the interest of the country was at stake.
Contrast that with the current party of NO. Big difference. If the GOP get the house and Senate back and Obama is still President they will find some lame excuse to impeach him, there does not have to be any truth to the thing, they will try just because they can.
So we might have the situation where two war criminals Bush and Cheney got off scott free and a President was impeached just because he is a Democrat.
GOProud // Feb 24, 2010 at 2:25 pm
You just gotta love a so-called “conservative” website that continues to drag-out from under the shadows of the bridge, farLeft trolls like TeaBagged and DFL deep in the echo chamber trying to append their version of reality on a fakely named anonymous poster (HenryClay) at FF.
It’s Alice in Wonderland on meth.
No, our falsely named poster, you’ve erred again in seeing grand designs where none exist.
Bush won because his team was successful at uncovering a Democrat nominee who was weak on Natl Security, weak on defending America and dishonorable when it came to supporting the troops and their mission. Obama won because he stayed away from the Kerry mistakes, embraced the troops, created the fiction he was tough on Afghanistan and terrorists while he lined up an entire brigade of terrorist sympathizing attorneys for DOJ.
No one, especially the GOP or Romney, will count out Obama until after the election.
Obama has proven a willingness to lie, steal votes, pledge and promise anything to win, fraud the media, use Chicago styled political corruption to his advantage and smear his opponents with an elan not seen since his mentor, communist pal Saul Alinksky, sleazed his way through the gutters of the Midwest foaming dissent and civil disobedience under the guise of racial activism.
2012 won’t be a campaign where Obama can avoid attribution by having a Zero Record –like he was able to do in Illinois and in 2008. This time, his plans, his practices, his actions will be a sufficient arsenal to destroy the corruption that pervades America’s body politic. The only question is: Will Obama bypass Carter in the slide downhill as the worst president in history? I think, based on his first 13 months, the answer is yes.
dragonlady // Feb 24, 2010 at 2:49 pm
teabag: “The difference is that the Democrats during the Bush yeas were not 100% obstructionist. They were willing to vote alongside the Republicans when the interest of the country was at stake.”
Only a true ideologue would believe this. During Bush’s presidency, the Dems voted to deny war funds to our troops in Iraq as a way to try and force Bush to withdraw troops, or included legislation with ridiculously short troop withdrawal deadlines. The Senate on numerous occasions failed to pass funding, forcing the SECDEF to threaten base closures and lay-offs. Only after Bush’s veto of their cut and run bills did some of them blink, and the withdrawal legislation was defeated by very thin margins in the Senate–by only 2-3 votes. So much for supporting the troops, “This war is lost!” Harry Reid.
And how about the Bush proposal to reform Fannie and Freddie? Dems in both the House and Senate blocked and threatened to filibuster the legislation. The truth is Dems can’t pass anything with their supermajorities in the House and Senate b/c their radical lefty legislation has scared the moderate Dems into not voting for their own party’s bills.
You are truly bonkers–no respectable figure in the GOP seriously is talking of impeachment. Not even Ann Coulter types.
dragonlady // Feb 24, 2010 at 2:51 pm
You got to love this video clip of all these prominent Dems decrying reconciliation under Bush, saying it went against the Constitution and founder’s intent:
http://www.breitbart.tv/obama-dems-in-2005-51-vote-nuclear-option-is-arrogant-power-grab-against-the-founders-intent/
GOProud // Feb 24, 2010 at 4:37 pm
dragonlady, you’re wasting your time on trying to outline the intellectual shortfall of TeaBagged (who I think is just Bill Maher without the humor). He’s convinced that waterboarding is torture, EIT & Gitmo & military courts for terrorists are all unconstitutional, that terrorists are only victims of American capitalism and Christian hegemony and deserve our pity, understanding and access to the best trial lawyers EricHolder can hire.
Kind of strange that a moniker like “TeaBag” could be the absolute opposite of what his name purports… but, therein lies the best testament to the farLeft’s willingness to embrace and employ fraud at every turn… it’s part of their character, nature.