[lbo-talk] Why Obama doesn't suck

[Alan Rudy]

I think SA and Marv probably agree that Obama would have been way less lame
if his constituents hadn't left it to Obama and Congress to get done what
needed (from and "bourgeois politician with gumption" perspective) to be
done.
I don't think, however, that this explains why the Obama Admin didn't take
someone from the press and said: "You want to see a Death Panel?  We're
standing outside the offices of the insurance company that wrongly denied
little 8-year old Bobby Sue the treatment she need and killed her.  If the
Republicans and Tea Partiers have their way, these Death Panels will
continue to have their way.  In our plan, on the other hand, these kinds of
decisions will be legislatively illegal."  Similarly, why they haven't
aggressively fought any of the mischaracterizations of their proposals by
appealing to the good of the nation against the good of (fill in the pariah
corporation of whatever sector of the economy you'd like) all the while
assuring the "good companies" that legislation would not come after them.
Why not go to the bridge that collapsed in Minneapolis/St Paul, stand in the
rubble and say: not only with the stimulus provide for new jobs in the face
of the hemorraging trajectory we're all experiencing, it will keep future
tragedies like this from happening because government cost-cutting has
reduced inspections and increased the risk of citizen death on America's
once-great highways." This was the discourse of the campaign and the
majority of Americans voted for that language.
Yes, of course, the Republicans had a lot of arrows in their quiver but what
Obama did well throughout the campaign, what Clinton did in 1992 - and I
can't stand either one of 'em for doing it - was appropriate Republican
issues by means of placing a Democratic twist on them... just as the
Republicans have done with civil rights, individual freedoms, etc, etc,
etc.  From a mainstream Democratic re-election perspective, the fight needed
to be doubled down upon once in office rather than foregone in the name of
compromise.
It is interesting that SA is critical of Marv's use of polls in order to
defend his use of a poll but, in both cases, the circumstances within which
the poll was taken and the history of the political discourses of the two
parties are bracketed in each case.  Of course Republicans are taking a no
prisoners attitude at the moment, it's just won them a boatload of
governorships, House Seats and Senate seats, not to mention state
legislatures.  Of course, in the face of that, Democrats are looking to get
something, anything done and the only way they see to do it is by
compromise. I'd be willing to bet that the opposite was true in Dec. 2008.

On Wed, Nov 10, 2010 at 10:25 PM, SA <s11131978 at gmail.com> wrote:


>  On 11/10/2010 9:29 PM, Marv Gandall wrote:
>
>
>  If compromise is motherhood and apple pie, why are the Republicans in this
>>> poll opposed to it?
>>>
>>
>> What incentive do they have to compromise? It is the Obama administration
>> which has given way on each occasion
>>
>
>
> True, but then why do the Democrats in the poll keep favoring compromise?
>
> In nuclear strategy, Paul Nitze used to propound the doctrine of
> "escalation dominance." If a crisis escalates, and each side fires its
> weapons, the chain of escalation will eventually reach a rung where one side
> runs out of weapons. That side will find itself disarmed and lose
> catastrophically. Knowing this in advance, it will seek to avoid
> confrontation from the beginning, and will always preemptively concede. I
> think the Democrats are in the position of the side with fewer weapons. For
> example, based on the poll I cited, the population seems to contain at least
> twice as many anti-compromise Republicans as anti-compromise Democrats. In
> that situation, it may well be prudent for Democrats to concede in advance.
>
> You cite polls showing the popularity of rescinding tax cuts for the rich.
> Progressives are always citing polls that show the popularity of their
> issues. There's nothing wrong with the polls, but polls don't tell you how
> an actual political confrontation will play out. Think about the health care
> debate. All the polls showed that universal coverage was popular. Obama had
> won agreements from the lobbies not to oppose the bill. Major Republican
> politicians had already endorsed individual insurance mandates (the bill's
> least popular element) in the past. How could Obama lose?
>
> Well, the Right had more ammunition. They had flesh-and-blood human beings
> -- not telephone poll respondents -- show up to town halls and yell about
> death panels. They had propaganda outlets with millions of views and
> listeners yelling about socialism. The popularity of Obama's reform -- which
> was originally high -- plummeted in the polls. Moderate Democrats started
> wavering and demanding concessions. The concessions sparked outrage from
> numerically few but vocal liberals. The bill seemed to be in deep trouble.
> The Right smelled blood in the water and refused all compromise. Etc. In the
> end, the bill passed but health reform -- Obama's greatest "accomplishment"
> -- is now a major political liability.
>
> My real point about Obama is that it's not helpful to fulminate about the
> weakness and betrayals of politicians. The fault lies not in our stars but
> in ourselves.
>
> SA
>
>
>
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-- 
*********************************************************
Alan P. Rudy
Dept. Sociology, Anthropology and Social Work
Central Michigan University
124 Anspach Hall
Mt Pleasant, MI 48858
517-881-6319