I don’t think that the idea that one party is “more likely” to do something has any utility. It’s false anyway.

Obama just cut taxes by $250 billion in the stimulus bill. Carter proposed tax rebates. Nixon established wage and price controls. Reagan raised taxes. Clinton’s tax policy raised marginal rates by a few points – to levels that were extremely low by historical standards. Clinton supported welfare reform, and, along with Carter, championed deregulation. It was largely democrats who presided over the deregulation of the energy industry. Bush and the Republicans passed the huge prescription mediare drug benefit.

These aren’t unusual: they are commonplace.

So when you say:

“The GOP is more disposed to finding free-market solutions; the Dems believe in activist government to solve problems.”

You are accepting someone’s campaign rhetoric as reality. As to Republican “free market” solutions, their record is hardly stellar (you can find any number of comparisons of economic performance under Republican v Democratic presidents, and Republicans don’t usually fare well eg: http://angrybear.blogspot.com/2007/08/comparing-presidents-rankings-of.html; http://www.eriposte.com/economy/other/demovsrep.htm). Although you may claim my links are biased, it is hard to make the case for Republican economic stewardship being vastly superior to Democratic stewardship. So their supposed “free market solutions” don’t really help the economy.

That’s probably because Republicans don’t support anything resembling a free market. They have supported shipping jobs overseas (along with Democrats). They have supported runaway deficits just as much as Democrats (Reagan ran historic deficits, as did Bush II…Obama is the current king, but Clinton on the other hand made some progress towards a balanced budget…and NOW Frum et al is bashing him for, of all things, proposing a spending freeze).

And Democrats don’t oppose free market solutions. They never have.

I think your formulation is completely false: Republicans have no love of free markets, and Democrats don’t prefer government solutions to the market.

But those are unusual circumstances.

The two political parties have differing philosophies that color how they deal with issues. The GOP is more disposed to finding free-market solutions; the Dems believe in activist government to solve problems.

Faced with a budget deficit, the Dems are more likely to raise taxes, the Repubs are more likely to try to cut spending.

That’s in fact the substance of the debate currently on in Congress.

I think Obama is, indeed, a gifted orator and speech delivery boy. I think the notion that a speech has to have “substance” or policy pronouncements in it to be good or great fails to take into account nearly all of Ron Reagan’s speeches… which were hollow, warm fuzzy wraps of dreamy word couplings fresh from a mushy over-the-top patriotic film trailer. It clearly ignores the speeches, for instance, that this blog’s founder helped pen for W… short on real intelligence or information and long on dreamy word wraps. And those were economic speeches!

Speeches and speech writers aren’t especially well regarded among the men and women in the policy wings and political basement who have to do the heavy lifting… and for real, solidly good reasons. Speech writers are for inspiring, for framing, for swelling the crowd’s bosom… to make the listener feel good, to be awed. Not to inform. Not to explain. Not to illuminate. Teddie Sorenson wasn’t an especially great speech writer… he’s just lived a long time… he’s the Democrat’s dean because of seniority, not talent or merit or intellectual prowess.

Obama inspires in his speeches. It’s why other Democrats like Reid and Pelosi fail so miserably at it no matter who writes their speeches. Obama can deliver the worst speech written and make it sound comforting, supportive, encouraging –as long as the teleprompter works. But when off-script, he returns to the professorial, droning, endlessly explaining and cautiously conditional lawyer and Harvard don he’d like to be thought of being. It’s why WH press conferences only have 4-5 questions, it seems, and 40 minute answers… and snores from the crowd.

Which is the true Obama? The one that wants to be loved and admired most; you pick. Is it his speech writers’ fault? No; no one takes them seriously when you begin moving forward on policy… the speech writer is the last person asked a policy question –except around here.

“You can either raise taxes (as liberals prefer) or cut taxes (as conservatives prefer). You can either impose regulations (as liberals prefer) or slash regulations (as conservatives prefer).”

Or, you can raise taxes on some people, and cut them for others (as Democrats actually propose). And you can impose regulations on some industries at some times, and reduce them at others (as Democrats actually propose – note particularly that Wall Street was deregulated under Clinton, and Carter championed deregulation before Reagan did).

Regardless of the reality of what Democrats ACTUALLY propose, as opposed to what conservatives THINK they propose, isn’t this a silly way to run two political parties? Wouldn’t a sane party raise or lower taxes, or increase or decrease regulations, based on the unique circumstances of the moment?

It’s pretty difficult to make an inspiring speech if you refuse to take a stand or lead. If he gave a campaign style rousing speech now, he risks boxing himself into a position where he might need to take a stand, be tough, or take a political risk.

And it was NEVER a “fake” divide.
Whenever Obama says “That’s a false choice,” watch out. It’s Obama attempting to have it both ways again.

Some things are not false choices nor fake divides. You can either raise taxes (as liberals prefer) or cut taxes (as conservatives prefer). You can either impose regulations (as liberals prefer) or slash regulations (as conservatives prefer).

Obama’s increasingly transparent attempts to paper over those differences are getting tiresome. It’s about time he came down on one side or the other.