Whose ox is gored

I chuckled a little at this in a recent Politico piece about why the House Democrats retained Nancy Pelosi as their leader:

Many House Democrats view the last two years as a permanent gain for progressive values, particularly when it comes to a health care law that ensures nearly every American will be insured. They believe it would discredit these achievements to humiliate the House leader most responsible for these gains.

Many of these Democrats believe that the gains for progressives are worth spilling blood over and they are not holding election losses against Pelosi. [snip]

"Sometimes doing the right thing will cause you to pay dearly," Clyburn argued, according to a source in the room. "What's good for the American people sometimes is not good for a few of the high and mighty."

This is a view shared by many liberals in the caucus, particularly those who represent underserved minority communities, where Pelosi has strong support.

Clyburn’s position is correct as a statement of principle: there are some causes worth sacrificing careers for (although I don’t believe Obamacare was one of them). However, the sentiment would be a lot more moving if the people expressing it were among the House Democrats who lost their seats rather than the House Democrats who retained them. And it’s worth remembering that “the high and mighty” Clyburn is so quick to dismiss include a number of Democrats who had served only one or two terms in the House - as opposed to Clyburn’s nine and soon to be ten.

Oh, gag me

Not a very tony post title, I know, but it was my first reaction when I read this letter in the New York Times (via TigerHawk):

Perhaps President Obama could benefit from becoming familiar with the recommendations for raising children and adolescents successfully. Neither authoritarian nor democratic and permissive styles of parenting are optimal ways to raise children. Rather, a third way, authoritative parenting — in which the perspective of the child is understood but the parents’ opinions and choices prevail — has been to shown to lead to successful developmental outcomes and healthy children.

Perhaps it is time for the president to learn how to be the authoritative leader that this country craves and spare the American people the chaos that so often results from democratic, permissive parenting, which may well have led to the loss of faith in his leadership that Paul Krugman laments.

I am not a child and neither are any of my fellow voters. I don’t want my President to be a parent. And I’m awfully attached to democratic parenting governance - perhaps understandable since I live in a democracy.

The funny thing (as opposed to the queasy thing) about this letter is that the “authoritative parenting” style lauded by the writer is pretty much what we’ve gotten from Obama: the perspective of the child [voter] is understood (okay, not really but Obama thinks he understands it - which I suspect is often the case with parents and children as well) but the parents’ [President’s and Congressional Democrats’] opinions and choices prevail.*

Such an authoritative style may lead to “successful developmental outcomes and healthy children” in the context of a family. In the context of a functioning democracy, however, it leads to electoral disaster.

*****

* Yes, the Democrats’ opinions and choices did prevail. Those on the Left who are disappointed with the legislation churned out over the last 22 months can scream about the Republicans all they want but the simple fact is that from January 20, 2009, until February 4, 2010, the Democrats controlled the House of Representatives, the Senate (with a filibuster-proof majority), and the Presidency. That gave them almost 13 months in which they could have passed whatever legislation they wanted. If those on the Left want to argue that Obama should have been more iron-fisted in dealing with Congressional Democrats then we’ll need a letter explaining what happens to the family when Daddy and Mommy’s opinions and choices don’t match up.

Casual racism

Writing about where we go from here, Marc Ambinder said:

Eric Cantor, who won't escape the casual racism of being referred to as the "first Jewish majority leader," will appear as the voice of policy and conciliation.

Let’s leave aside the quibble that religion and race are two different things. As far as I know, “first Jewish majority leader” will be a truthful descriptive phrase, like “first Black President” or “first female Speaker” or (vaguely remembered from many years ago) “first male national officer of the Future Homemakers of America”. Perhaps Americans’ pride or happiness or gratification when positions of authority are attained by those who have historically found them difficult or impossible to achieve is a bit too artless for Ambinder but it’s hardly racist, casually or otherwise.

Here's a thought (Updated)

There’s some chatter this morning about Republican pickups at the State level and how this is a Very Good Thing because we’ve got redistricting for House of Representative seats coming up next year. The assumption seems to be that the Republicans can thus gerrymander the redistricting to make as may seats as possible Safe For Republicans - which would presumably leave the remaining seats Safe For Democrats since herding Republicans into some districts will herd Democrats into others.

Here’s a thought. How about if the Republicans instead do non-political redistricting? One way to do this is to split a State up along logical lines - paying attention to city and county lines, for example. I believe this is what California is going to attempt to do (for State-level districts, not Federal elections) with its Citizens Redistricting Commission. The results will be interesting to watch. I’d consider it a success if the resulting districts don’t have ludicrously lopsided election results.

Another way to do this is mechanically. Start in the upper left (northwest) corner of a State and move south and north until you’ve encompassed enough people. Then move east from there until you’ve got another chunk of people the right size. If you hit the eastern State line, start at the southernmost point and move west and south, mirroring the way you started the whole process.

I’d like to see Republicans lead the way on this. Maybe it would be suicidal but maybe it would indicate that they’re serious about making government more responsive.

UPDATE: I’m behind the curve here. Take a look at “Two Big Losers: Obama and Gerrymandering“ over at Contentions.

Poughkeepsie

It did not, in fact, rain in Poughkeepsie yesterday.

The cat in the machine

[Strong language warning.]

On the talk shows yesterday I heard various talking heads opining about how many seats the Republicans would take in the House and Senate. The same opining is going on across the blogosphere. In general, those who lean Right - both officials and pundits - are predicting big Republican gains; actual Democratic officials are predicting smaller Republican gains (what else can they do?); and non-officials who lean Left are attempting to explain that big Republican gains would not be so very big in context or explain that big gains would not really be a result of general unhappiness with the direction of the current Administration and Congress.

Whatever.

I listen to all these predictions and I think that anyone trying to predict tomorrow’s outcome is nuts. I have this sense of a large mass of people who are unhappy with everyone in government. Not unhappy in a “poor me, I’m so put upon” way; unhappy in a “what the heck has happened around here” way. Trying to predict which way that cat will jump seems fraught with peril.

Take me, for instance. I’m going to vote straight Republican tomorrow. But what I really want is a Big Red Button ( hereinafter “BRB”) that says, “I’m voting for Republicans but I’m not really voting Republican, mostly because I have no clue what you guys are going to do if you get elected and, frankly, I don’t have much faith you’ll do anything I approve of.” I’m still voting Republican, though, because to me what’s important is getting the party in power out of power tomorrow - and doing it again in two years if the Republicans don’t get the message. If there are a lot of people who’d like that same BRB and think the way I do then maybe the huge Republican wave is even bigger than anticipated.

Or maybe a lot of BRB people decide what’s important is not getting rid of the party in power but getting rid of the people in power and so vote against incumbents regardless of their party. That would still mean a Republican gain but not such a big one.

On the other hand, maybe there are people who want that same BRB, hear about the huge Republican wave, and decide to stay home or vote for a third party candidate or even vote Democratic so the Republicans don’t get the idea we actually want them in office. We just want the other guys out. So maybe some of the BRB people decide to make the Republican wave smaller lest the Republicans get delusions of grandeur - or even grudging acceptance.

The sentiment underlying the desire for a BRB was expressed quite forcefully in the comments to a post at the Confluence. Blue Lyon reproduced it on her site and I reproduce it here:

Whatever anyone says about “concern” that the public is merely “lashing out” and “aren’t thinking this through” is just so much noise. The public is indeed thinking. They are thinking that we can’t even DISCUSS policy direction until we yank our politicians up by the shorthairs enough that they get it through their thick entitled heads that it isn’t about them, or about parties, or which one gets the next turn to grab the keys and go joyriding with their lobbyist buddies. It’s about US.

It’s a very simple message, actually. The message is “We can yank those keys out of your damn hand anytime we please. We can give them to a hairdresser, or a certified loon, or Sam the not-so-bright yard guy. And we will if you keep this shit up. So both parties need to STOP FUCKING WITH US.”

In my conversations with people all across the political spectrum, once you cut through the static, most are viewing this election as a “Who’s in charge here – you or us?” to both parties. The various issues, whether left or right, do need to be discussed and debated. The differences are real. But it seems that the people want to have both sides of that debate come from US, not be shaped and molded and controlled by THEM.

I can argue my liberal point of view with my conservative or moderate neighbor, as they can with me. There’s no arguing with a machine, whether it has a D or an R stamped on it. Yes, there are scary ideologues involved this year. But I think they are misjudging as much as the sell-out Dems are. This is in large part rage against the machine, and it ain’t over in 2010.

Vote tomorrow. And in the absence of a Big Red Button, don’t forget your monkey wrench.

So what?

Much is being written about disillusioned Obama supporters in the media. The references turn up in a lot of places but Jennifer Rubin has thoughtfully collected what seems to be a fairly complete list*: Chris Buckley, Maureen Dowd, David Brooks, David Gergen, Marty Peretz, and Jim Cramer. Now neoneocon has posted a graph showing that although Obama’s “Strongly Approve” ratings are dropping little if at all, Obama’s “Strongly Disapprove” ratings are moving up fairly sharply. She provides an interesting and I think convincing explanation for this and says that she hopes she is spotting a trend.

My reaction to all this is, “So what?” Obama supporters in the media can be disillusioned from here to Kingdom Come, his rank and file supporters can disapprove as strongly as possible, and it won’t for one second change the fact that he is President until at least 2013 (or 2012 if his successor makes him as marginal as he made Bush). So long as the Congress is controlled by Democrats and the Democrats are willing to approve Obama’s policies - and he is willing to approve theirs - it doesn’t make a darn bit of difference how low his approval ratings go, how high his disapproval ratings go, or how many media pundits withdraw their support.

I imagine those who think Obama Disillusionment will stop his policies in their tracks are counting on Congress to react to that disillusionment and provide the stopping power. I think they’re dreaming at least in the short term. As I said at neoneocon:

... I’m not sure what will change even if Obama’s approval drops like a rock. He’s President until 2012 so if he’s as willing as Bush was to ignore his numbers then the fact that fewer and fewer people approve of him won’t change what policies he pursues. What could change the outcome is for him to lose Congress. It seems to me there are two ways this could happen and I don’t think worsening approval ratings for Obama are enough to cause either although they may contribute.

First, Democrats in the House and Senate could become sufficiently disenchanted with Obama to begin opposing his policies. This will probably happen if the economy continues to worsen although I think Obama has until the beginning of 2010 before Democrats start jumping ship.

Second, the 2010 elections could cause a significant change in the composition of the House and bring Democrats far enough below 60 votes so they can’t do as they please without significant (rather than minimal) Republican buy-in. The Democrats have a substantial margin in the House and an awful lot of Senate seats seem as safe as houses (although that may not be the best analogy right now) so I’m not hopeful about this - unless the economy in October 2010 is as bad as or worse than it is right now. (And even with my burning desire to say “I told you so” I can’t really hope for that.)

Republicans would have to pick up 40 seats to control the House.

As for the Senate, according to Wikipedia:

There are 16 currently Democratic Senate seats that are considered safe (10), likely (5), or leaning (1) Democratic in 2010.

There are 14 currently Republican Senate seats that are considered safe (9), likely (2), or leaning (3) Republican in 2010

There are 1 Democratic and 5 Republican Senate seats that are considered toss-ups.

In other words, I don’t think we’re going to get a reprieve from Obama’s policies until at least the beginning of next year however bad his approval ratings get.

Perhaps I was channeling my blog’s namesake when I wrote that comment because this morning at The Corner I found a link to “Administration Backers Plead for Patience on Economic Recovery Efforts”. Here’s one Senator’s timeline (emphasis mine):

"It does take some time before things -- before people realize that the substance is actually getting better. My guess is that'll start later this year or the first part of next year, and we're moving aggressively to make sure that it does," said Sen. Evan Bayh, D-Ind.

Yup, the beginning of next year.

I don’t think this is unreasonable by the way. The Obama administration inherited an unholy mess and however convinced I may be that they’re doing nothing right and much wrong in fixing it, they seem perfectly within their rights to argue they can’t clean up in less than two months a disaster that was years in the making. What it means, however, is that everyone who is gratified those who supported Obama are starting to see the error of their ways will have to forego their hopes for substantive change and do what I’m doing: look forward to saying “I told you so” as the disillusionment trickles down to friends and relatives.

-----

*Rubin even includes “that gynecological sleuth and blogger Andrew Sullivan” among the disillusioned but I don’t buy it. In a June post entitled, “Obama vs The Successful”, Sullivan made it clear he knew that Obama planned to soak the rich to shore up Social Security and explained why the poor man had no choice:

[Obama’s] plans for social security amount to essentially a massive new tax on the successful to keep FDR's system afloat [snip]

There's no point in disguising this: Obama will punish those who succeed in order to funnel benefits to those who haven't. Yes: he's a liberal. But Bush never dealt with the fiscal reality - preferring to borrow the money from the Chinese. In that sense, these hikes are Bush's hikes as well.

I’m sure Sullivan will quickly collect himself together and recycle the same “Bush made him do it” logic to excuse Obama’s current “massive increase in government spending and power with the only fiscal balance being wringing much more money from the successful.”