Slate Asks the Right Question

[Annie]

but suggesting the Republicans will choose the wrong answer:

Print Story: Analysis: Will a Republican Congress follow Tea Party ideas or move to the center? - Yahoo! News

Analysis: Will a Republican Congress follow Tea Party ideas or move to the center?
By Slate slate Tue Nov 2, 2:12 am ET

By Jacob Weisberg
Slate

In the likely event that Republicans capture control of one or both houses of Congress next week, the new leaders will face a strategic question. Should they pursue the agenda of the Tea Party movement that brought them to power? Or should they try to mollify their party's base with gestures and symbols, without taking its radical ideology too seriously? While they'll never discuss this problem honestly, indications point in the latter direction. That is, the GOP's congressional leadership will feint right while legislating closer to the center.

The choice is between a Ronald Reagan strategy and a Newt Gingrich strategy. Reagan, who first rode a new conservative movement to the presidency in 1980, was a master of the right fake. After one brief and disastrous attempt to reduce Social Security spending in 1981, Reagan never seriously challenged federal spending again. But Reagan sounded so convincing in his rhetorical flights that most conservatives and liberals walk around today thinking that he cut government. Reagan was just as slippery with the religious right, embracing them while wasting little political capital on issues like abortion or school prayer. President George W. Bush followed this same model, humoring the base while letting government expand...

 

[editec]

Is there really any difference bwtween what the TEA PARTY wants and the RNC wants?

What is the difference, exactly?

I don't see any.

 

[The Rabbi]

The House and Senate are not the presidency. So the comparison is flawed from the get go.

If the GOP does anything other than oppose the Obama agenda wholesale they will find themselves in the dustheap of history. They got elected precisely to oppose and defeat the Democratic agenda. If they compromise on it, they are toast. This is their mandate.

 

[tinydancer]

but suggesting the Republicans will choose the wrong answer:

Print Story: Analysis: Will a Republican Congress follow Tea Party ideas or move to the center? - Yahoo! News

Analysis: Will a Republican Congress follow Tea Party ideas or move to the center?
By Slate slate Tue Nov 2, 2:12 am ET

By Jacob Weisberg
Slate

In the likely event that Republicans capture control of one or both houses of Congress next week, the new leaders will face a strategic question. Should they pursue the agenda of the Tea Party movement that brought them to power? Or should they try to mollify their party's base with gestures and symbols, without taking its radical ideology too seriously? While they'll never discuss this problem honestly, indications point in the latter direction. That is, the GOP's congressional leadership will feint right while legislating closer to the center.

The choice is between a Ronald Reagan strategy and a Newt Gingrich strategy. Reagan, who first rode a new conservative movement to the presidency in 1980, was a master of the right fake. After one brief and disastrous attempt to reduce Social Security spending in 1981, Reagan never seriously challenged federal spending again. But Reagan sounded so convincing in his rhetorical flights that most conservatives and liberals walk around today thinking that he cut government. Reagan was just as slippery with the religious right, embracing them while wasting little political capital on issues like abortion or school prayer. President George W. Bush followed this same model, humoring the base while letting government expand...

Thanks for posting this article. A perfect example of lib think. Reagan had a Democrat Congress and Senate and to accomplish anything he had to make compromises.

Bush on the other hand (although I was seriously disappointed that he did not exercise more vetoes) had no option but to expand government spending when faced with 9/11 and the necessary retributions in the middle east aka war on terror.

And what was Bush to do? Not spend Federal money to help New York City and New Orleans rebuild after both major centers had been crushed by two very different catastrophes, but both needed serious monies nonetheless.

To think that Bush was "humoring the base" while letting government expand to handle these extraordinary situations of a terror attack on American soil and a Hurricane of epic proportions is to fail miserably in understanding how George W. had to deal with these issues.

Where the author of this piece really fails to get it, is this election is about the House and the Senate. These newly elected members are being sent to Washington with a full understanding that they are freaking toast if they play nice in the sandbox with the left wing loons on Capitol Hill.

It just shows the left still doesn't get it. They still think it's all a game. The way they play their base.

 

[Bfgrn]

The House and Senate are not the presidency. So the comparison is flawed from the get go.

If the GOP does anything other than oppose the Obama agenda wholesale they will find themselves in the dustheap of history. They got elected precisely to oppose and defeat the Democratic agenda. If they compromise on it, they are toast. This is their mandate.

That is what the Republicans have been doing the last 2 years, they call it insurgency. So there is no such thing as a loyal opposition anymore. It doesn't matter who the American people elect, or what they want, it will be the right's way or no way. But Democrats are the nazis/commies/totalitarians.


Insurgency

Friday, February 6, 2009

Texas Republican Congressman Pete Sessions compares GOP strategy to Taliban insurgency

"Insurgency, we understand perhaps a little bit more because of the Taliban, and that is that they went about systematically understanding how to disrupt and change a person's entire processes. And these Taliban -- I'm not trying to say the Republican Party is the Taliban. No, that's not what we're saying. I'm saying an example of how you go about [sic] is to change a person from their messaging to their operations to their frontline message. And we need to understand that insurgency may be required when the other side, the House leadership, does not follow the same commands, which we entered the game with."


Paragraph from hotlineoncall.nationaljournal.com.


http://capitolannex.com/2009/02/05/congressman-pete-sessions-compares-house-republicans-to-taliban/

 

[tinydancer]

Is there really any difference bwtween what the TEA PARTY wants and the RNC wants?

What is the difference, exactly?

I don't see any.

No difference between the Tea Party and Rockefeller Republicans aka RINOs?

With all due respect, when did you come out of the coma?

 

[tinydancer]

The House and Senate are not the presidency. So the comparison is flawed from the get go.

If the GOP does anything other than oppose the Obama agenda wholesale they will find themselves in the dustheap of history. They got elected precisely to oppose and defeat the Democratic agenda. If they compromise on it, they are toast. This is their mandate.

I think where we are really going to witness some very interesting battles is between the old guard and the young guard.

Boehner is one to watch. I've heard him more than a few times on Billy Cunningham and he really seems to "get it".

The old guard in the Senate like McCain and Graham are going to face a new breed of seriously conservative outside the beltway newcomers all over Capitol Hill.

I think they are going to get the shock of their lives that they will not be able to pull the strings anymore.

It's going to be a Royal Rmble. And I can't wait to see some of those old S>O>B's that played that "Gang of 14" shit get chair shots and Van Daminated in Washington 2011.

 

[The Rabbi]

The House and Senate are not the presidency. So the comparison is flawed from the get go.

If the GOP does anything other than oppose the Obama agenda wholesale they will find themselves in the dustheap of history. They got elected precisely to oppose and defeat the Democratic agenda. If they compromise on it, they are toast. This is their mandate.

That is what the Republicans have been doing the last 2 years, they call it insurgency. So there is no such thing as a loyal opposition anymore. It doesn't matter who the American people elect, or what they want, it will be the right's way or no way. But Democrats are the nazis/commies/totalitarians.


Insurgency

Friday, February 6, 2009

Texas Republican Congressman Pete Sessions compares GOP strategy to Taliban insurgency



"Insurgency, we understand perhaps a little bit more because of the Taliban, and that is that they went about systematically understanding how to disrupt and change a person's entire processes. And these Taliban -- I'm not trying to say the Republican Party is the Taliban. No, that's not what we're saying. I'm saying an example of how you go about [sic] is to change a person from their messaging to their operations to their frontline message. And we need to understand that insurgency may be required when the other side, the House leadership, does not follow the same commands, which we entered the game with."


Paragraph from hotlineoncall.nationaljournal.com.


http://capitolannex.com/2009/02/05/congressman-pete-sessions-compares-house-republicans-to-taliban/

I didnt realize that Pete Sessions represented the whole fo the GOP. News to me.
In any case, what did the Democrats do when they were in the minority? Do judicial appointments mean anything to you?
And when the Republic is threatened by the leftist goons that have taken over the Democratic Party and the US government, what else can you do but wage insurgency?

 

[Bfgrn]

The House and Senate are not the presidency. So the comparison is flawed from the get go.

If the GOP does anything other than oppose the Obama agenda wholesale they will find themselves in the dustheap of history. They got elected precisely to oppose and defeat the Democratic agenda. If they compromise on it, they are toast. This is their mandate.

That is what the Republicans have been doing the last 2 years, they call it insurgency. So there is no such thing as a loyal opposition anymore. It doesn't matter who the American people elect, or what they want, it will be the right's way or no way. But Democrats are the nazis/commies/totalitarians.


Insurgency

Friday, February 6, 2009

Texas Republican Congressman Pete Sessions compares GOP strategy to Taliban insurgency



"Insurgency, we understand perhaps a little bit more because of the Taliban, and that is that they went about systematically understanding how to disrupt and change a person's entire processes. And these Taliban -- I'm not trying to say the Republican Party is the Taliban. No, that's not what we're saying. I'm saying an example of how you go about [sic] is to change a person from their messaging to their operations to their frontline message. And we need to understand that insurgency may be required when the other side, the House leadership, does not follow the same commands, which we entered the game with."


Paragraph from hotlineoncall.nationaljournal.com.


http://capitolannex.com/2009/02/05/congressman-pete-sessions-compares-house-republicans-to-taliban/

I didnt realize that Pete Sessions represented the whole fo the GOP. News to me.
In any case, what did the Democrats do when they were in the minority? Do judicial appointments mean anything to you?
And when the Republic is threatened by the leftist goons that have taken over the Democratic Party and the US government, what else can you do but wage insurgency?

Pete Sessions does pretty much represent the whole GOP. So you learned something today. Senator Jim DeMint said back in July: "If we’re able to stop Obama on this (health care reform) it will be his Waterloo. It will break him." David Frum was fired by the conservative American Enterprise Institute for telling the truth and he even compliments Democrats for being loyal opposition during the debate on Bush's tax cuts: "At the beginning of this process we made a strategic decision: unlike, say, Democrats in 2001 when President Bush proposed his first tax cut, we would make no deal with the administration. No negotiations, no compromise, nothing. We were going for all the marbles. This would be Obama’s Waterloo – just as healthcare was Clinton’s in 1994."

When the Democrats were the minority, they were a loyal opposition. Bush was able to get his judicial appointments. Harriet Miers was opposed by more than just Democrats. Opposition from both sides of the political spectrum led President Bush to withdraw the nomination at Miers' request.

The Republic is NOT threatened by the leftist goons that have taken over the Democratic Party and the US government. I know Fox News and Limbaugh keep feeding you that propaganda 24/7, but saying it over and over does not make it true. I heard a retired CIA agent whose expertise was the old Soviet Union and Eastern Bloc countries say the propaganda out of Fox news is the same as the propaganda put out by Pravda. The only difference I see is that the Russian people knew Pravda was propaganda. The truth is the Republicans party has reacted to defeat by moving much farther to the right and becoming much more radical.

You right wingers love to accuse liberals and Democrats of wanting to control every aspect of our lives, but when YOU do it, and ignore the will of the people, you twist it into some noble form of patriotism... it's NOT; it is insurgency, a form of terrorism!


"Mark my word, if and when these preachers get control of the Republican party, and they're sure trying to do so, it's going to be a terrible damn problem. Frankly, these people frighten me. Politics and governing demand compromise. But these Christians believe they are acting in the name of God, so they can't and won't compromise. I know, I've tried to deal with them."
Barry Goldwater

 

[The Rabbi]

Merely asserting something doesn't make it true. Your post is one big mere assertion. None of it is true. And you smell funny.

 

[saveliberty]

The right question is: If Obamacare is such an important and great achievement, then why are so few Democrats using it as a campaign rallying point?

Alternative: If Obama has achieved 70% of his goals, then why are Democrats having such poor election propects?

 

[Truthmatters]

They will please the tea party.

They will do nothing but obstruct.

 

[Bfgrn]

Merely asserting something doesn't make it true. Your post is one big mere assertion. None of it is true. And you smell funny.

I am not 'merely asserting something', I provide links that prove those Republicans said what I claim. David Frum was George W. Bush's speechwriter. He was fired because he spoke the truth. The Republicans made a collective decisions to obstruct anything Obama and that Democrats did to destroy Obama and gain back power. The health care bill the Democrats passed is almost a carbon copy of the 1993/94 Republican health care proposal. That includes a BIG Republican idea...THE INDIVIDUAL MANDATE

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Waterloo

by David Frum - former speechwriter for George W. Bush

At the beginning of this process we made a strategic decision: unlike, say, Democrats in 2001 when President Bush proposed his first tax cut, we would make no deal with the administration. No negotiations, no compromise, nothing. We were going for all the marbles. This would be Obama’s Waterloo – just as healthcare was Clinton’s in 1994.

Only, the hardliners overlooked a few key facts: Obama was elected with 53% of the vote, not Clinton’s 42%. The liberal block within the Democratic congressional caucus is bigger and stronger than it was in 1993-94. And of course the Democrats also remember their history, and also remember the consequences of their 1994 failure.

This time, when we went for all the marbles, we ended with none.

Could a deal have been reached? Who knows? But we do know that the gap between this plan and traditional Republican ideas is not very big. The Obama plan has a broad family resemblance to Mitt Romney’s Massachusetts plan. It builds on ideas developed at the Heritage Foundation in the early 1990s that formed the basis for Republican counter-proposals to Clintoncare in 1993-1994.

Barack Obama badly wanted Republican votes for his plan. Could we have leveraged his desire to align the plan more closely with conservative views? To finance it without redistributive taxes on productive enterprise – without weighing so heavily on small business – without expanding Medicaid? Too late now. They are all the law.
Waterloo | FrumForum

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

The health care bill the Democrats passed is almost a carbon copy of the 1993/94 Republican health care proposal. That includes a BIG Republican idea...THE INDIVIDUAL MANDATE

Chart: Comparing Health Reform Bills: Democrats and Republicans 2009, Republicans 1993 - Kaiser Health News

Republican support for the individual mandate policy goes back further than this health care reform discussion. Earlier this month, Julie Rovner profiled a history of the policy dating back to the 1980′s

In fact, says Len Nichols of the New America Foundation, the individual mandate was originally a Republican idea. “It was invented by Mark Pauly to give to George Bush Sr. back in the day, as a competition to the employer mandate focus of the Democrats at the time.”…

“We called this responsible national health insurance,” says Pauly. “There was a kind of an ethical and moral support for the notion that people shouldn’t be allowed to free-ride on the charity of fellow citizens.”

The policy was originally included in many Republican proposals including the proposals during the Clinton administration. The leading GOP alternative plan known as the 1994 Consumer Choice Health Security Act included the requirement to purchase insurance. Further, this proposal was based off of a 1990 Heritage Foundation proposal outlined a quality health system where “government would require, by law every head of household to acquire at least a basic health plan for his or her family.”

The Thirty Year History Of Republicans Supporting the Individual Mandate DC Progressive


Republican obstruction in the US Senate

 

[Dr.Traveler]

Thanks for posting this article. A perfect example of lib think. Reagan had a Democrat Congress and Senate and to accomplish anything he had to make compromises.

Reagan had veto power as President. If he really saw government as the evil he claimed it was, he could have vetoed and stood his ground.

Reagan didn't. Part of that is because despite what Con's think, Reagan was a centrist who realized compromise is necessary. He was a pretty amazing guy, and I'm getting really tired of the Con's that have tried to repaint his legacy to fit their ideology.

Bush on the other hand (although I was seriously disappointed that he did not exercise more vetoes) had no option but to expand government spending when faced with 9/11 and the necessary retributions in the middle east aka war on terror.

Iraq was completely unnecessary. The Medicare prescription plan was unnecessary. Stop pretending that Bush only expanded the government in response to 9/11. Bush expanded the government because his advisors favored a much stronger Presidency. As such, you handed Obama one of the most powerful Executives in recorded US history. The sheer scope of what the Executive can now do thanks to Bush's precedent should terrify you.

And what was Bush to do? Not spend Federal money to help New York City and New Orleans rebuild after both major centers had been crushed by two very different catastrophes, but both needed serious monies nonetheless.

New Orleans is still not rebuilt.

To think that Bush was "humoring the base" while letting government expand to handle these extraordinary situations of a terror attack on American soil and a Hurricane of epic proportions is to fail miserably in understanding how George W. had to deal with these issues.

DeLay/Frist/Bush pushed the K-Street agenda and massive non-War on Terror spending, backing it up with borrowing to pay for it. Again, stop claiming that Bush spent and expanded only in response to disaster. That's a clear falsehood.

Where the author of this piece really fails to get it, is this election is about the House and the Senate. These newly elected members are being sent to Washington with a full understanding that they are freaking toast if they play nice in the sandbox with the left wing loons on Capitol Hill.

They're being sent because Moderates and Indepedents are unhappy with the results of the Democratic Congress, just as in 2006 they were unhappy with the GOP. Folks forget, repeatedly, that if you fail to make Moderates and Independents happy, you just go home.

There is no "move to the right" in 2010 any more than 2006 or 2008 represented a "move to the left." In both cases the moderates rejected the party in power and punished them. Go to Washington this year thinking that 2010 is any different than 2006 and you'll see a repeat of this again in a few years. The Moderates that sent the new class to Washington can and will send them back home if they fail to produce results.

It just shows the left still doesn't get it. They still think it's all a game. The way they play their base.

The mistake they (the Left) made was indeed playing to their base. The mistake the GOP is again on the verge of making is the exact same mistake the DNC made this, and the GOP themselves made in 2006, i.e. playing to their base.

It all boils down to this: Talking tough is fine if you're in the entertainment industry, but if you want to get elected and keep your office, you'll have to learn to work with people and get stuff done.

 

[The Rabbi]

Thanks for posting this article. A perfect example of lib think. Reagan had a Democrat Congress and Senate and to accomplish anything he had to make compromises.

Reagan had veto power as President. If he really saw government as the evil he claimed it was, he could have vetoed and stood his ground.

Reagan didn't. Part of that is because despite what Con's think, Reagan was a centrist who realized compromise is necessary. He was a pretty amazing guy, and I'm getting really tired of the Con's that have tried to repaint his legacy to fit their ideology.

Reagan was a centrist? Who knew?
I remember during the campaign when he was constantly portrayed by the media as a whack-o cowboy who would lead us into war with the Soviet Union and dismantle government.
Pretty much what they still say about any conservative.