So, Here's the Deal

Since I'm currently unemployed anyway, and I just talked with Andy, which always makes me feel lazier than usual; I've decided to start updating this thing much more often. Probably at least 3-4 times a week. Today's installment: Democrats vs. Republicans!

I've been seeing and hearing a lot of talk amongst the chattering classes to the effect that the Republicans are poised to make significant gains in the November elections. Fair enough, the minority party generally does make up some ground in the mid-terms and the Dems have picked off a fair number of traditionally Republican seats the last two cycles. It doesn't seem outrageous to suggest that a few of those seats might flip back this year. But I've even heard some relatively bold souls whispering that the Reptards might actually take back the Senate come November. Again, not completely impossible, especially in a year which has already seen a Reptard win one of Massachusetts' traditionally Democratic Senate seats.

But let's be clear here. The Senate currently stands 59-41 for the Democrats. Dick Cheney is not Vice-President anymore, Joe Biden is. That means The Republicans have to pick up 10 seats this year. They have to get to 51 votes to take over the chamber. And if I'm remembering what I've read correctly, each party has 18 seats at risk this year. That means they have to win 28 out of 36 races. I haven't done any in-depth research on all of these races, but I do know that 6 Republican Senators are retiring this year, compared with 4 Democrats. And at least one Democratic retirement actually helps their chances, as Chris Dodd's re-election was looking increasingly iffy before he decided to retire. His retirement actually clears the way for a more popular contender.

If the Democrats were more competent, I'd say that the stage is set for them to actually increase their total back over 60, rather than worry about Republicans taking back control. Assuming that 10-12 out of each party's 18 seats at risk are relatively safe would mean that we're looking mostly at the 10 retirement states with a few stragglers.

Unfortunately the Democrats have worked long and hard since Obama's election to make it clear that they are anything but competent. And those "stragglers" now include Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid in Nevada among others. And the situation in the House is, if anything, worse. The good news is that it's only February. The Democrats still have time to figure out what they have to do to get this ship righted and show the country that they have what it takes to govern. It kind of makes you sick to think how many awful, awful things the Reptards accomplished with a much smaller majority and essentially no mandate at all; while the Democrats don't even seem to understand that Newtie's Reptards changed the rules in 1994 and they have to start playing if they want to win.

It's probably too late for Obama to accomplish everything that he could have accomplished, but if he starts playing for keeps he should still be able to accomplish something. If that's what he actually wants. His first, and probably biggest, mistake was failing to realize and take advantage of the fact that 2009 had the potential to be a watershed year. A year along the lines of 1933 or 1965 when forceful presidents imposed their wills on the mediocre figures in Congress to get huge piles of legislation passed into law.

He needed to replicate Roosevelt's first 100 days but he counted too much on Congress to shape his signature legislation, on their schedule. What he needed to do was write his own health care bill, make it part of the stimulus package and then dare anyone to vote against it. He should have laughed in the face of anyone that squealed about the deficit, especially any Republican squealers. The deficit is, after all, entirely their own creation. The stimulus package should have been bigger, should have gotten the country working again.

He learned the wrong lesson from the wrong President. Not Roosevelt in 1933, but Clinton in 1993. They put together their own health care bill and sent it to Congress and Congress yawned and said thanks but not thanks. And then a lot of them got sent home the next year by Newt's Army. But 2009 wasn't 1993. In 2009 things were going from very bad to how can it get worse? The country was scared, the economy was in danger of collapsing, there was even talk of nationalizing the banks. This was a climate in which a savvy president, with a solid congressional majority and a brand new mandate having won 53% of the vote the previous November (the highest percentage since George H.W. Bush) could have and should have pushed hard and fast for the big changes that the country needs. Instead they squeaked through a band-aid of a stimulus bill with vague promises of a follow-up bill "if necessary" and turned to health care with this same kind of "do the minimum" philosophy. They even tried to get Republican support! Which is all the proof anyone should need of the delusions they apparently labor under.

Because the second mistake Obama made, and still seems to be making, was/is to treat the Republicans as good-faith partners in government. They aren't and they don't want to be. They don't believe in government. They believe in giving our Wall Street friends a free hand. The Republican Party, as a whole, became an enemy of the United States Government right around the time of Reagan's first inauguration.

They want to starve the government of funds, so they cut taxes. They want to limit government's scope, so they deregulate anything they can think of. But they want to get re-elected so they increase spending to pay for projects in their districts. And they're terrified of everyone poorer than they are (everyone) which means they want the biggest military on earth, so they increase the defense budget. This is where deficits come from. This is the real Republican agenda, stripped to its essence: tax cuts for our (wealthy) buddies, deregulation to get the government (us) out of those same buddies' hair, huge military budgets to protect their buddies' incredible fortunes, more spending in their districts to buy votes, borrow the money to pay for it all in ever more mind-bending quantities and spout a lot of talk about Jesus and Judeo-Christian values to draw in the rubes.

The ironic thing about all this 2010 election talk is not that it's so premature, although it is. The ironic thing about all the 2010 chatter is that in the long run it may not matter. The Republican Party is an entity at war with itself and on the wrong side of too many issues to continue any longer as it has. I'll try and discuss this in my next post, since this one is already absurdly long. Until the next time true-believers!