The Self-Destructing GOP
This has been implicit in what a lot of folks have said, but it’s worth observing that the congressional conservatives who spiked the bailout deal yesterday have, among other things, dealt a devastating blow to their own party’s electoral prospects. Not only does John McCain look foolish in a news cycle sense, but economic dislocation plays strongly in the Democrats’ favor at both the presidential and the congressional levels. They would never say so in public, of course, but serious economic problems are the best shot folks like Jeff Merkley, Kay Hagin, Al Franken, and Ronnie Musgrove have. Over the summer, the prospects for a huge Democratic Senate sweep started looking bad, but if things get worse the better those odds look. I’m less familiar with the House situation, but this is like shooting Chris Shays in the back of the head.
Meanwhile, the GOP’s decision to spend the past 24 hours fighting a spin war against the Democrats on cable is bizarre. It’s an extension of John McCain’s preference for winning the news cycle over winning the election. But good though the right-wing spinmeisters may be, you can’t un-spin the vote count — it was a Republican administration that mislaunched the rescue package and it was congressional Republicans that killed the modified package. What the GOP leaders need to do is convince enough of their members to change positions, as quickly as possible, so as to minimize the amount of time this story dominates the news and to minimize the economic fallout. That’s not just the right thing to do it’s in their self-interest.
46 Responses to “The Self-Destructing GOP”
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September 30th, 2008 at 4:34 pm
The plan’s failure was not entirely a Republican thing. Pelosi’s highly partisian speech didn’t help.
September 30th, 2008 at 4:39 pm
Plus, if the Repubs muster enough votes to pass the bill on the next go-round, they have lost any ability to run against it in the general. It will be the conventional wisdom that they opposed it to try to score politically and ended up backing it to save their sorry, self-defeating asses. Also, someone needs to whisper in Peter’s ear that “Pelosi made me do it” is yesterday’s talking point (and that “partisian” is not a word).
September 30th, 2008 at 4:43 pm
Matt: I don’t get it. The bail-out is hugely unpopular with everyone. The Republicans voted with their constituents. How is this self-destruction? Remember when you were predicting that the Republicans wanted to be able to vote against the plan so they can demagogue it? Mission accomplished. The point about economic distress helping Dems is true, but this bail-out’s trickle-down process wasn’t going to produce any pocketbook benefits for main street any time soon. The only way voting for the plan might have helped them is if it had gotten this thing out of the news, but that’s the whole news cycle perspective that you disdain. You’re usually very logical, but this doesn’t make sense to me.
September 30th, 2008 at 4:44 pm
Yeah, republicans really look like they’re in a “damned if they do, damned if they don’t” situation, which would explain why the ideologues are running the show. There’s no practical and beneficial path to choose, so they instead rail against the unfairness of Pelosi speaking politically in the Hallowed House.
September 30th, 2008 at 4:45 pm
Peter: Seriously? “Mean ole Nancy hurt my feelings” is a reason for red-blooded American men in the GOP to vote against something? What would Reagan think? If they can’t handle Nancy Pelosi, how can they handle _____ (Iran, Russia, al Qaeda, etc.)?
September 30th, 2008 at 4:57 pm
McCain is not getting ridiculed nearly as much as he should.
September 30th, 2008 at 4:57 pm
It’s “Hagan.”
September 30th, 2008 at 4:59 pm
DCreader,
Your correct, this doesn’t play badly with Republican constituents now. But we haven’t seen the worst of this crisis yet.
As you probably have heard, voters can be fickle people. Just wait until things really start to fall apart and people lose their jobs…That’s when their constituents will punish them (at least some of them).
Actually…And I don’t mean to promote what has been an abysmal website…but look over at RedState. The guys over there have figured out (a first!) that this is not going to help the party. Rather amazing to see them finally getting something right after pushing for the trillions of dollars that went to Iraq without question or concern.
What will be interesting to see is if this filters out to the nutty members of the party. I think over the past 24 hours, you’ve seen a bit of fear in the eyes of the Republicans as they begin to figure out that they’re taking the blame for that meltdown yesterday. Personally, I think that they are so nuts that it’s going to take a catastrophe for them to wake up and smell the coffee, but perhaps not. Things seem to be moving on this new bill…and maybe we’ll have something tomorrow. The rumors I’m hearing are that there have been some defections from the crazy camp in light of the bad press…and their constituents starting to get squeezed. But then again, when have the facts ever gotten in the way of a really good idea?
September 30th, 2008 at 5:01 pm
Yeah, Pelosi gave a partisan speech. That was a huge mistake because Republicans never do that. Expect for the RNC-funded commercial delivered for broadcast around the country that crows about McCain’s key role in the passage of “his” bailout bill (oopsy! had to pull THAT ad out of rotation!) that said the problem was really Bill Clinton’s fault. The same day they released the ad implying that Clinton endorsed McCain. After McCain had mocked Obama’s role. A couple of hours before he asked that everyone put partisan politics aside. The day before he went on CNN to blame Obama.
They really are shameless liars.
September 30th, 2008 at 5:03 pm
DCreader, you can’t just blame Pelosi’s shockingly partisan speech. You also need to blame feminism for emasculating the Republican Congressmen so that their feelings were so easily hurt.
If we have to blame just one person, I pick Susan B. Anthony.
September 30th, 2008 at 5:06 pm
Perhaps Pelosi allies should complain about the vicious and sexist attacks directed against her. Oh wait, she is actually qualified for her job, and she’s not a Republican.
September 30th, 2008 at 5:08 pm
Their constitutents hate it, especially on the extreme paranoid right. If you’re in a gerrymandered deep-red district your voters are very opposed. It’s pretty similar to what these hard-right Republicans did over immigration–embarrass their party nationally by carrying out exactly what their own voters wanted.
But even nationally, they probably feel like they’re at rock bottom, and that (to mix metaphors) muddying the water in any way possible, performing political stunts, etc. just like the McCain camp is doing, can only help them or at worst have no effect. Ross Douthat thinks they can go much lower, but I’m inclined to agree more with congressional Republicans. The RNC apparently has an ad up today blasting the bailout. Looks like they were planning on using it politically all along.
September 30th, 2008 at 5:12 pm
The market gyrations may change the meme, DCReader, and make constituents nervous for their retirement funds.
Anyone else see the Wall St. Journal today? Nowhere on the front page does it mention the GOP responsibility for the plan’s failure! Instead it talks about leadership failures on both sides.
Murdoch effect?
September 30th, 2008 at 5:15 pm
The GOP Know-Nothings wanted to vote against the bill, but they wanted the bill to pass with majority Dem support so they could demonize the bill and the Dems.
Now, they bear responsibility for the bill’s failure and have to answer to the Chamber of Commerce and Wall St.
September 30th, 2008 at 5:46 pm
Bob,
I thought the editorial in the Wall Street Journal was quite good (although they should have mentioned that the Republicans are in a leadership fight).
Let’s be honest here, there’s plenty of blame to go around. Pelosi never should have brought that bill to the floor (assuming that she wanted it to pass and help the country). The Republicans are just, well, morons. Paulson is an arrogant SOB that couldn’t sell water in the desert, and the President used up all of his political capitol on a war that we’ve lost. Bernake is basically a nice guy who’s in over his head.
Granted, I blame the Republicans more than anyone else because most of their members voted against this (and as a Republican myself, I expect them to know better), but there’s plenty of blame to go around here. You can’t excuse Pelosi for not getting this done…She’s the Speaker of the House and the leader of her party…Again, assuming that she wanted this bill to pass, that’s pathetic.
Bottom line though, and I’ve said this before…the Republicans (and McCain) are the one’s that will pay for this. Whether people like that or not, that’s the reality.
September 30th, 2008 at 5:57 pm
I thought Pelosi delivered the votes she promised, and was relying on Boehner’s promise to deliver a substantial Republican vote. (You don’t bring something like this to a vote after all those negotiations without some promise to get cross-aisle support.)
Boehner didn’t deliver and the bill was too toxic (somewhat less toxic than Paulsen’s original proposal but still not a good bill) for the Democrats to want to push through unless the Republicans showed support too.
It looks like Gingrich was the one who actually punk’d Boehner, and Pelosi was either smart enough or lucky enough to bail so the Democrats didn’t wind up passing a stinker all on their own AND the initial reaction blames the Republicans. Cool.
September 30th, 2008 at 6:01 pm
“it’s worth observing that the congressional conservatives who spiked the bailout deal yesterday have, among other things, dealt a devastating blow to their own party’s electoral prospects. Not only does John McCain look foolish in a news cycle sense, but economic dislocation plays strongly in the Democrats’ favor at both the presidential and the congressional levels. They would never say so in public, of course, but serious economic problems are the best shot folks like Jeff Merkley, Kay Hagin, Al Franken, and Ronnie Musgrove have. Over the summer, the prospects for a huge Democratic Senate sweep started looking bad, but if things get worse the better those odds look.”
This is incredibly fucking true.
58 seats is looking a helluva lot more realistic than it has all year.
—–
Fun Fact!
If the Democrats pick up at least 4 Senate seats this year, which seems highly likely, it’ll mark the first time a party has picked up 4+ Senate seats in two elections in a row since 1934 and 1936.
September 30th, 2008 at 7:09 pm
The Pelosi, Reed, Frank, (paulsonbush) bill was and will be worse for Democrats in the end. It will probably pass and every Republican will immediately disown it, call it the Democratic bill. Then the market will crash. Everyone will remember the Democrats passed it over GOP angst.
Paulson will have his Leviathan Hedge Fund and new trillions will soon be demanded to insure deposits, the real thing that needs to be done.
http://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2008/09/why-bailout-bill-will-not-solve-credit.html#links
September 30th, 2008 at 7:10 pm
I’m just real glad right now that Democrats only voted in numbers enough to allow the Republicans to kill it, and not play their little game (as proven by the ads they distributed to TV stations before the vote was even held) of assuming the bailout would pass (satisfying Wall Street) but then blaming Democrats for giving the taxpayers’ money to Wall Street. Ha, ha, ha.
Maybe someone could now move on the DeFazio bill.
September 30th, 2008 at 7:22 pm
On Sunday the Treasury held a conference call with the Securities Industry and Financial Markets Association. The public, congress or the press were not invited.
Among other things they discussed that the metering out of the $700B total would not be adhered to. They intend to spend it as fast as they want, law or no law. The Treasury will pay whatever they want to whoever they want to buy up the junk. The Friends of Hank will get the good prices. The supposed pay off in 5 years if money is made is as they say “a long way off”.
Some general backslapping with a Treasury guy saying to the SIFMA guys we got all we wanted. “We” meaning them.
and so on. It’s hard to wade thourgh and there is a computer generated reading of the transcript which is hard to deciper. If you like to hear conspiracy as it’s made however this is priceless
http://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2008/09/mussolini-style-corporatism-in-action.html
September 30th, 2008 at 7:45 pm
Fun fact to follow Petey: The last time the House, Senate, and White House passed from one party to the other within one four-year cycle was when the Korean war wiped out the Truman Dems, and Ike and the GOP took over. 56 years ago.
And from her witty invocation of Susan B. Anthony, one wonders if one of America’s leading essayist/polemicists whose name starts with “Bar” has joined the party. Welcome, whoever you are; I’m generally too pissed off to be that arch these days.
On the other hand: The bailout disaster is nothing less than an existential threat to the GOP. Its entire premise goes counter the the core philosophy of the Republican Party. I don’t know how a party today woulld go the way of the Whigs–but I’d love to watch.
September 30th, 2008 at 9:25 pm
I’m amused that Matt still seems to think “the GOP leaders” are actually in charge of their members.
September 30th, 2008 at 9:55 pm
I caught a nice little bit on Hannity the other day: he started off by excoriating the liberal media for reporting that Republicans had killed the bill when really Democrats could’ve passed it if they’d gotten all their votes in line and/or not made the Republicans cry with their mean speech. It’s the Democrats’ fault it failed, not the good guys. Then he switched right from his copy of the GOP talking points to his printout of the House Republican Study Group talking points and began explaining why it shouldn’t have passed anyways.
He wound up in just a muddle with Pelosi getting the blame for not getting enough votes to pass the bill and the House Republicans being heroes for standing up and making sure that there weren’t enough votes to pass the bill. Not that pure irrational partisanship is unusual for him, but it usually isn’t quite so stark.
Then I just felt bad for him having to peddle this nonsense and turned it off.
October 1st, 2008 at 1:04 am
I don’t blame Pelosi at all. Boehner didn’t come up 12 short of what he promised. He was about 30 short. That’s nuts. He is no longer the House Republican leader. You just can’t assume that a party leader is that far off on a compromise bill, or you can never have compromise bills.
If Pelosi wanted a purely Democratic bill, this wouldn’t be it.
October 1st, 2008 at 2:11 am
Matt, haven’t you been arguing these past several days that the possible “economic dislocation” and “economic fallout” was being overstated by the proponents of the bailout? What made you change your tune, besides the usual flailing between your traditional dispassionate analysis and amateurish attempts at Democratic spin since you moved here to TP?
As for Shays, if he loses in November, it will be because he voted for the bailout rather than against it. Or do you think fellow Connecticut rep Chris Murphy (D) is in hot water because he voted nay?
October 1st, 2008 at 7:30 am
If “the economy is tanking” dominates headlines and media attention for the next 30 days, GOP incumbents are in major trouble. The bailout bill, regardless of its long or medium term effect on the economy, offers a decent chance of partly changing the subject. Even if the new subject is “Sarah Palin said something stupid”, it’s far preferable to GOP incumbents than “the economy is tanking”.
The post is right, and not in tension with what he’s said before.
October 1st, 2008 at 7:48 am
P Snowden: The severity of the crisis isn’t something we’ll know in 30 days.
October 1st, 2008 at 8:19 am
I think that congressional republicans (and a large percentage of the base) would just as soon McCain didn’t win.
Most likely things are going to get a lot worse before they start getting better (if they do) and it makes a certain amount of sense to want the other guys in the hot seat when that happens.
I think they’re gambling on Obama as a one-term ordeal to get through for the longterm prospects of the party.
October 1st, 2008 at 8:25 am
I interpreted it as a major gambit on the part of the GOP: they wanted the bill to pass, but with minority Republican support.
That way, if the bailout works, they can take some credit; if it doesn’t work (or if the economic news remains bad, which it will regardless) they can freely attack Democrats on it.
The thing is, Boehner fucked up the math. Now that it’s been stopped AND there was a stock market crash, the GOP looks like they caused the crash (which they did).
October 1st, 2008 at 8:30 am
You’re usually a pretty perceptive guy, but this post is ridiculous. In case you hadn’t noticed, the game isn’t over yet — they’re still working on the legislation. Wait until the end of the game before you criticize tactics employed during the game.
December 8th, 2008 at 2:18 am
Was President-elect Barack Obama’s meeting with Sen. John McCain a
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