What to Fear
Starting Wednesday I think we can expect a boom market for op-eds and television commentary darkly warning that if Democrats take advantage of winning the election to implement the agenda they outlined during the campaign, they’ll be punished, punished, punished at the polls. And not just from Republicans, but from loathesome creatures like Bob Kerrey and now Doug Schoen:
If the Democrats govern as if there is no Republican Party, they are likely headed to the kind of reaction that Bill Clinton faced when he made the same misjudgment after the 1992 election victory, following a meeting in Little Rock, Ark., with then Senate Majority Leader George Mitchell and House Speaker Tom Foley.
This is a pretty odd view of what Clinton did in 1993-94 (NAFTA, anyone?) but that aside, I just think it’s pretty blinkered to act as if the electorate has a deep commitment (or lack of commitment) to bipartisanship or some finely nuanced conception of moderation. Rather, voters tend to re-elect incumbents when things seem to be working out okay whereas they tend to punish incumbents — and those closely associated with incumbents — when things seem to be going poorly. What Democrats need to do if they want to prosper in 2010 and 2012 is deliver the goods. In other words, return the economy to prosperity, avoid terrible foreign affairs calamities, etc.
People will disagree, naturally, about the best way to do that. But the point is to try to get it right. If ex post conditions in the country look bad in 2010, then it’s not going to matter at all whether or not Obama’s decisions in early 2009 were ex ante popular. Conversely, taking some ex ante unpopular votes in 2009 that pay off in terms of making things much better by election day will be rewarded. Spending your days pondering what, exactly, the election constitutes a mandate for isn’t going to get anyone anywhere.
27 Responses to “What to Fear”
Register
RSSLogin
Topic Cloud
ArchivesBlog RollAbout Matt YglesiasContact Me
Donate
November 3rd, 2008 at 8:46 am
The public wants an end to Iraq, and end to the disgrace that the use of torture has brought us, and end to the belief that a president can do what he likes, and we want a health care system that doesn’t consign us to bankruptcy in a calamity or chain us to a job we hate but can’t leave because of the cost of going it alone to purchase insurance.
November 3rd, 2008 at 8:49 am
I would lower the bar even more and say the most important thing is to actually pass the bills you propose. I will always believe that the 1994 election blow-out was because Clinton failed to pass his health care reform package, not because he proposed it.
November 3rd, 2008 at 8:57 am
Very True. I also don’t understand the argument that a so called “one party rule” will be dangerous for the country. In other words, Americans should’nt elect the people they think will do the best job, and instead elect people who have done a poor job/think will do a poor job, simply to ensure that things they want to get done will happen with less ease in the name of balancing power. I.E. http://www.thomaspmbarnett.com/weblog/2008/11/single_part_dynamic.html
November 3rd, 2008 at 9:00 am
The way for Democrats to inoculate themselves against at least some media criticism is give Republicans a seat at legislative negotiations, which opens up the possibility that a a few votes can be picked off for political cover. That is, however, unless they adopt the same strategy they did when Clinton passed the 1993 budget without even one Republican vote. If Obama wins with a sufficient majority (including turning some red states blue), I suspect that such an extreme oppositional strategy is less likely.
November 3rd, 2008 at 9:11 am
Doug Schoen is a giant wanker.
He was writing in The Politico less than a week ago ‘What John McCain needs to do to win’.
Hey Doug, why not just title all your op-eds ‘What government needs to do for my paying clients against the will of the people’.
Why the frack anybody ever hires Mark Penn or Doug Schoen I do not know. Wile E. Coyote gets better results from Acme products than these hacks. If you want rehashed 1990s market expertise in 2008 get Billy Ray Cyrus. At least he knows enough not to push the same tired old product out there. Doug Schoen is a political mullet.
And if anyone thinks this is harsh here is Doug Schoen arguing in April ‘08 that Hillary Clinton should argue that Obama (he of the 62% favorables and likely 350+ EVs) is out of touch with voters and Hillary Clinton should argue he’s “ill-equipped” and “out of step”.
Who’s out of step now, poll boy?
November 3rd, 2008 at 9:13 am
“deliver the goods. In other words, return the economy to prosperity, avoid terrible foreign affairs calamities, etc.”
i agree.
however, it’s worth noting that it is much harder to ‘deliver the goods’ on foreign affairs, for structural reasons.
americans are all experts on our own economic welfare, and relatively unwilling to be bullied by opinion leaders who want to tell us that we are really badly off when we are feeling flush, or who tell us we’re merely whiners when we are feeling pinched. (thanks, phil!)
but we know a lot less about the world, and tend to rely a lot too much on (alleged) experts there. furthermore, the world is simply full of calamities. there is always some damned tragedy or atrocity happening somewhere in this wretched world. by picking a photogenic one and drawing relentless attention to it, and insisting that it is somehow our fault (by action or omission), right-wingers can always insist that our foreign policy is a failure.
i mean, look at the clinton era: it ought to be viewed as a brilliant success from the foreign policy perspective. the u.s. did not start any major wars, and only a few minor ones, and we did not directly kill or displace millions of people. the american people should have been pleased that, for the most part, we left the armed forces unused (yes, kosovo, but the scale made that a footnote).
but i don’t think the u.s. people spent 1999 saying ‘you know, we should reward the dems for their foreign policy successes!’ they certainly didn’t spend ‘92-2000 saying that. and so they were primed for the neo-cons to come in and say that our mere inaction in not saving the world for democracy was a calamity and a moral catastrophe.
i think it’s just harder for people to know when they are well-off on the foreign affairs front. (that’s part of why they sometimes revert to the utterly corrupt metric of whether we are *winning* the needless wars we started).
combine that with the continuing dominance of right-wingers in the foreign policy community.
i just worry that even if obama delivers the goods on the foreign policy front, the american people will never know it.
November 3rd, 2008 at 9:31 am
There’s every reason to think he’ll govern as he’s campaigned, with clear goals in mind, not intent on winning news cycles or press adulation, but on securing wins for his agenda.
November 3rd, 2008 at 9:36 am
I’m a pretty full-throated liberal, but you have to understand that conservatism, the temperment, is not exactly the opposite of liberalism the philosophy. I want liberal policies, too, but I’m tempermentally conservative. In practice, that means I want to see liberal policies enacted slowly, cautiously, incrementally. Not too slowly, not too cautiously, but cautiously nonetheless.
The risk, obviously, is not that Democrats will mistakenly give voters what they told them they would give them. The risk is in moving too quickly. I want universal healthcare but I don’t want it done in a weekend. A liberal philosophy married to a fairly conservative institutional temperment will endure; a Democratic majority that rushes will not.
November 3rd, 2008 at 9:40 am
I agree with TH@8:49 — the key is passing some legislation that actually has a good effect on people’s lives. I have no doubt that the Obama administration can propose good legislation and that the Pelosi House will pass it. The key will be getting it through the Senate, past the GOP filibuster. Will the Senate Dem caucus hold together? And can enough GOP moderates be persuaded to peel off and vote with the Administration? Won’t 5-6 Moderate Republicans and Conservative Dems have balance of power?
The battle will be ideological — Administration proposals will be vilified as socialist and unAmerican by the GOP propaganda machine, in order to make it hard for Red State Dems to vote for them.
The danger is the 1993 danger — more conservative Dems get enticed by Mod GOP senators to pursue a middle-bi-partisan path, which disappears because mod GOP solons revert to their caucus in the end.
November 3rd, 2008 at 9:42 am
Couldn’t agree more with this. I’ve seen threads on other blogs talking about mandates, but we’re in dire straits now, and addressing the crises that are facing our nation (our broken economy, our broken foreign policy) will fully occupy the first two years of the next administration.
The good thing is that Obama actually has a well thought-out and well articulated plan for addressing these issues. But it all comes down to execution. We’ll see where we are in 2010. That election can be a “mandate” election…and Obama will get his mandate if and only if he’s able to execute over the next two years.
November 3rd, 2008 at 10:00 am
Bravo. Good government ( however defined ) is good politics.
“Bipartisanship” is – at best – insider backscratching and more likely evidence of lack of serious intent to deal with issues.
This is different from working with – say – those Republicans who do have genuine civil libertarian objections to War on Terror techniques or from co-opting those Republican tactics or programs which seem to work.
It also means that talk about civil rights or civil liberties or the environment or the economy is just that – talk unless it is firmly backed by nuts-and-bolts programs that actually and credibly serve to achieve such ends. If Democratic rule simply means a BS bonanza for trial lawyers, bureaucrats, and the like backed up by some sort of ad homenum “are you a racist” attack on those who challenge the merits of their proposals – then punishment will come swiftly and will be deserved.
November 3rd, 2008 at 10:31 am
We Democrats lost the Congress in 1994 because of the corruption our long, nearly-uninterrupted, control had encourages, our identification with all that were wrong in Washington that long period made reasonqble to think, and our _failure_ to pass a national health insurance plan (thanks, Pat).
Let’s avoid that again; in particular, no ‘K Street Project’-like excrescences, and no letting abortion scuttling health-care.
November 3rd, 2008 at 10:48 am
The problem in passing a progressive agenda will not be the Republican Party; the problem will be Blue Dog Democrats, the blind adherents to a rhetorical bipartisanship in the media, and DINOs like the ever-more despicable Bob Kerrey. These groups need to be marginalized and/or ignored as much as possible; Snowe and Collins of Maine will be more reliable “Yea” votes than Nelson in Nebraksa.
November 3rd, 2008 at 11:07 am
The thing that will be hard is to avoid controversy, because the traditional media is ready to spring on any mis-step. But I’m reminded of the time during the Bush I presidency where there was a big fight between the administration and Congress over a single word in a bill. Granted, a single word can have consequences, but both versions of the bill did the same thing. And the republicans were screaming about how un-American the Democrats were for not compromising over this one word.
November 3rd, 2008 at 11:13 am
i think it’s just harder for people to know when they are well-off on the foreign affairs front. (that’s part of why they sometimes revert to the utterly corrupt metric of whether we are *winning* the needless wars we started).
People think they’re well-off on the foreign affairs front when the party they most identify with is at the helm, and that they’re doing poorly otherwise.
Only a catastrophe like Iraq can build a broad consensus about whether things are going well.
Can a big victory create such a consensus? Doubt it. Look at WW2. The Cold War began on VE day, and the right was never happy with Truman’s deft handling of the Soviet Union or his realpolitik in China.
November 3rd, 2008 at 11:39 am
I think the Democrats owed to the country to be just as bipartisan as the republicans were from 2000-2006. Additionally I think the newt congress would be a good model for legislative initiative. Maybe a contract with America we can believe in?
December 13th, 2008 at 9:33 am
Microsoft’s Major Nelson says online piracy crackdown is essential for both community and games companies Microsoft director of programming for Xbox Live Larry Hryb – also known as community voice Major Nelson
March 1st, 2009 at 5:01 am
viagra
I bookmarked this site. Thank you for good job!
March 9th, 2009 at 12:25 pm
Hay,I like your posting friend and i would like to link exchange with your blog if you want.this is my blog Car Body Kit And also dont forget to come.i will happy if you come .Good bye friend
March 11th, 2009 at 4:12 am
I bookmarked this site. Thank you for good job!
March 17th, 2009 at 2:19 am
Very interesting site. Hope it will always be alive!
tramadol
March 22nd, 2009 at 5:51 am
tramadol
If you have to do it, you might as well do it right
March 23rd, 2009 at 4:20 am
viagra
If you have to do it, you might as well do it right
April 9th, 2009 at 4:42 am
I rarely comment on blogs but yours I had to stop and say Great Blog!! viagra
April 9th, 2009 at 9:03 am
I can tell that this is not the first time at all that you mention the topic. Why have you chosen it again?
April 16th, 2009 at 9:21 pm
Please, can you PM me and tell me few more thinks about this, I am really fan of your blog…gets solved properly asap.
April 20th, 2009 at 12:20 am
Idk whether to laugh or cry…