What do you know. Ezra Klein finally gets it. Better late than never, though as long as it took it’s not very impressive.
On Sunday, John Boehner and Mitch McConnell responded to Barack Obama’s summit invitation by demanding Obama scrap the health-care reform bill entirely. This is the context for that demand. What they want isn’t a bill that incorporates their ideas. They’ve already got that. What they want is no bill at all. And that’s a hard position for the White House to compromise with.
Regardless of the obvious, Pres. Obama is going to re-engage by inviting Republicans to come into the room with their ideas on health care, with Kathleen Sebelius offering the following assessment, via HuffPo’s Sam Stein:
Sebelius said that the president views the bipartisan meeting as a needed pivot to move reform forward. Asked if he will expedite the legislative process following his various sit-downs with congressional Republicans, she replied: “I certainly think so. I think he sees this as a step to actually accelerating the process forward. He wants to move forward. He wants a bill at his desk and he sees this as kind of closing the loop and let’s go.” …
Once again, Obama’s people are assuming Republicans want to play along. That Pres. Obama has the clout or they care enough about his charm to join in. It’s certainly not his power to punish that bothers them.
Let’s come at this from another direction. What’s in it for Republicans if they do play the bipartisan game?
You got it. Nothing. They see it as handing Obama and the Democrats a win that goes into the FDR column of big domestic policies that have wedded people to Democrats through these issues. So, seriously, why would Republicans do anything that offers a headline like Obama’s bipartisan summit worked?
The only way Republicans will sign on is if Obama let’s them walk away with talking points they can use with the base, including but not exclusively Tea Partiers, who is eating them alive in a district near you.
Any bill out of that deliberation wouldn’t be worth having, which has been the Republican goal all along.
Everyone on the same scorecard now?
Why not, as a starter to getting something meaningful done, end the anti-trust exemption for the health insurance industry? Would the Republicans dare fight that?
Obama has said he won’t start from scratch, with Rep. saying they won’t accept the health care bill as it now exists. Impasse, which was always the goal on the right.
Wonder if this can get the Chicago Gang’s attention:
President Obama’s approval rating continues to slump, according to a new Marist University poll out on Monday.
The poll showed that 44 percent of registered voters approve of the job Obama is doing as president, while 47 percent disapprove.
According to the polling Web site, Pollster.com, that is the president’s worst showing since he took office last year.
The Hill notes that “the most noted shift may be among independents, of whom 57 percent said they disapprove of Obama’s job performance and 29 percent say they approve. Those numbers are virtually the inverse of independents’ view of the president in Marist’s April 8, 2009 poll, which found independents approving of Obama, 53-28.”
“If attracting Independents and bipartisanship are the aim, then the president clearly has a lot of ground to cover in year two,” Lee M. Miringoff, director of the Marist Institute for Public Opinion, said in a statement.
‘President Obama’s approval rating continues to slump, according to a new Marist University poll out on Monday.
The poll showed that 44 percent of registered voters approve of the job Obama is doing as president, while 47 percent disapprove.
According to the polling Web site, Pollster.com, that is the president’s worst showing since he took office last year.
The Hill notes that “the most noted shift may be among independents, of whom 57 percent said they disapprove of Obama’s job performance and 29 percent say they approve. Those numbers are virtually the inverse of independents’ view of the president in Marist’s April 8, 2009 poll, which found independents approving of Obama, 53-28.”
“If attracting Independents and bipartisanship are the aim, then the president clearly has a lot of ground to cover in year two,” Lee M. Miringoff, director of the Marist Institute for Public Opinion, said in a statement.’
Wonder what Dr(I don’t have cable) Dean and Donna Brazile think of this new Democratic Party they thrust upon us?
djjl says:
Wonder what Dr(I don’t have cable) Dean and Donna Brazile think of this new Democratic Party they thrust upon us?
To mention Howard Dean and Donna Brazile in the same breath means you really don’t understand Democratic Party Politics. Donna Brazile in an insider who has a long track record of failure and is a poster child for what is wrong with the Democratic Party in Washington. Howard Dean dug the Democratic Party out of the trash can and with his 50 state policy, which both Rahm Emanuel and the entire Clinton Camp opposed, helped to put it on top. The first thing that happened when Obama got elected was to trash Howard Dean and replace him with the homophobic Democratic Governor of Virginia Tim Kaine who is a total waste of time and is establishing his own bona fide with the Democratic elites by being yet another total and complete failure.
Re: Taylor’s post – I agree. The Republicans have taken Obama for a ride and he has let them do it. In the process of “out politicking” Obama the Republicans have also shown him to be a total coward and a failure. Because of Obama’s incompetence and stupid fascination with something he calls bipartisan politics we are being setup for a complete route of the Democrats this Fall. What’s left of the Dems will be wiped out in 2012.
I agree with your assessments of both Brazile and Dean.