You have to love the position that Obama has the Republicans in right now. First, this:
The labor-backed, pro-stimulus group Americans United for Change and the public workers’ union AFSCME are going up with a national cable spot, also airing in Washington D.C., with the sharpest attack yet on Republican leaders in the House and Senate.
“Our economy in crisis. Millions out of work. That’s why 80 percent of Americans support a plan like President Obama’s to create jobs. But Republican leaders? They’re ‘just saying no,'” says the ad’s narrator. “No to changing the failed economic policies of the past 8 years. We’re in an economic crisis and Republican leaders are playing politics instead of doing what’s right. Call the Republican Leadership – Tell them NO is not an option.”
The group is also airing regional radio spots targeting 18 House members of both parties and three GOP senators and offering them “second chance” to vote for the plan. Its targets include House Minority Whip Eric Cantor and Blue Dog Tennessee Democrat Jim Cooper.
And then there is this:
An influential conservative political action committee is pledging to support primary challenges to any Republican senator who backs the economic stimulus package — the latest public show of dissatisfaction from the right over the massive measure before Congress.
GOP Sens. Arlen Specter and Susan Collins are two of the three Republicans who voted for the stimulus bill.Three GOP senators voted for the $838 billion compromise version of the package that the Senate approved Tuesday, but all three have said they might not vote for the final version.
“The American people don’t want this trillion-dollar political payoff that will just line the pockets of non-governmental organizations who supported [President Barack] Obama in the election,” said Scott Wheeler, the executive director of The National Republican Trust PAC, an organization that calls for less government spending and lower taxes.
Not a good time to be a Republican.
Zach
And they’re saving the best ammunition for the end of the battle next year; Republicans just tried to stop one of the biggest middle-class tax cuts in history from passing. For the middle class the stimulus cut was just as big as the 2001 Bush cuts.
sgwhiteinfla
I still say the best framing of all, and one they should RUN with, is the one put forth by Barney Frank on MTP.
Don’t forget that while teachers are normally Dem backers, cops and firefighters are usually more to the right. Yet President Obama got the backing of most of the national police officer unions. If the Republicans lose the support those blue collar workers for good, its over. I would love for every Democratic Congressperson to go on Tee Vee and just repeat that phrase over and over. They spend half their time responding to Republican attacks and trying to defend the bill, instead its time to attack attack attack. If a Republican says something about the bill, don’t try to defend it, just go right back at them. Thats how you win on talking head shows.
bago
You gotta time these comments to post throughout the night so us west coasters don’t get flooded with stuff when you wake up.
Yeah, it IS 5:0 here, but at 2 AM (PST) I could have used something. Insomnia sucks.
matt
Oops.
headpan
Those ads are pure gold. More, please.
kommrade reproductive vigor
Other things the NRTPAC believes in:
No taxes, smear the kw33r. How … original.
Oh please God, let there be more Alan Keyes.
I must note that the influential NRTPAC’s enormous staff consists of a staggering two people. I’m also wondering exactly how long they’ve been around.
OK, basically I’m wondering if CNN is full of shit, which is a waste of time. Sorry.
OK, slightly OT: We talk about the Democrat’s lack of sack all the time, but what about all the Repubs who knew their party was morphing from a big tent to a clown car and said nothing?
matt
Oh, that’s beautiful!
Napoleon
In the 3 weeks that Obama has been president the Republicans have said and done so many stupid things the just based on that the Dems, if they have the balls to do it, and run some of the most hard hitting ads next election cycle that you have ever seen.
headpan
Poor repubes indeed! Caught in their own web of greed now. The web has grown too large, too complex, and will soon be sagging under the weight of their husked-out corpses.
Napoleon
By the way I would love to see Democrat Jim Cooper knocked off in a primary. I forget where I read it in the last week but it was an anonymous quote from someone who served in the Clinton administration who said something to the effect that the silver lining to the blood bath the Dems took in 1994 was that Jim Cooper lost his seat to a Republican in it (he won it back later).
joe from Lowell
I like the way that screaming "ACORN! ACORN!" failed again.
It failed in October/November, and now it failed in January/February. Guess what, wingnuts? Nobody cares.
Is there any chance we can get them to talk about tire gauges again?
PaulW
Calling all 80 percent of the American people who support Obama’s stimulus package: let’s get a lawyer and sue Wheeler for misrepresentation.
matt
I could maybe understand if Obama lost, say, Ohio and Virginia, but still managed to squeak out a victory, but the guy is insanely popular, and that popularity reaches into places like Ohio and Virgina. The realignment is happening, and you would think the last thing Republicans would want to do is accelerate its pace.
Laura W
I found myself looking to verify that Obama was wearing a flag pin Monday night.
I was ashamed.
southpaw
It’s a small point, but let’s just pause to note that the influential conservative PAC is the Club for Growth.
The Club for . . . Growth . . . is against trying to use a fiscal expansion to reverse the decline in GDP.
It’s like the Club for Assholes mounting a petition drive to get Sean Hannity off the air.
Rick Taylor
And it couldn’t happen to a more deserving bunch.
Face
You’re assuming that Obama won’t be impeached next week.
Zandar
Congressional Republicans can stay inside the wingnut orgy tent and get decapitated at any time for failing to genuflect quickly enough at the feet of Emperor
XerxesRush Limbaugh, or step outside only to get crushed by the oncoming train with "The Right Side Of History" plastered all over it.Either way there won’t be a whole lot of them left in a few years.
Bring mops. There will be blood, oh yes.
dmsilev
The GOP is caught in a positive feedback loop, where the more wingnutty they act, the more fervent their supporters become (but the more repelled the non-supporters become). Hence, you end up with a party that plays to the base 100% of the time, and only plays to the base. They’re going to have a hard time pulling out of that spiral; it’ll either take a long steady slog of electing vaguely moderate politicians who can put a sane face on the national party (unlikely, given current trends), or the Democrats screwing things up so badly that the GOP, insanity and all, seems like the preferred alternative.
-dms
Conservatively Liberal
I like it. Put their nuts in a vise and crank until they pop, then crank some more.
I am watching Washington-Journal and Rep. Tom Price((R) GA) was on as the first guest. He was nonstop TAX CUTS!!! all the time, cranked to 11. The callers were lively in taking him to task but the last two calls were interesting:
The first of the two was a man asking Price if ‘he could guarantee that the businesses who got the TAX CUTS!!! would create jobs’. Price said that he could not guarantee that the businesses would create jobs but that he just "knew" that if they were given the TAX CUTS!!! that the businesses would create jobs because they have the money to do so!
And we are derided for supporting the MUP? Talk about faith based governing. Ah trust you to create jawbs. Sounds convincing.
The last caller stated that when he used to shop the stores were stocked with American goods, but since we signed all of these trade deals with China the stores are full of stuff from China with few products manufactured in America to be found. The caller pointed out that those products used to be made by American workers who paid taxes, mortgages and supported the economy. Also that since everything is made overseas, any stimulus is going to send the money that way which will weaken any stimulus.
Price responded to the caller saying that American jobs were sent overseas and the stores being full of Chinese goods by basically saying ‘I’m not sure the two are associated’ and then off with the "but" and into the TAX CUTS!!! cheer.
As a final laugh, Price said that he is a member of the Republican Study Committee, a group of "principled fiscal conservatives" (I would love to see that short list!) who are against "the actions of the last year", whatever the fuck that means.
I am starting to become concerned about the health of the Rushublicans. Do you think it is possible that the party is coming down with Tourette Syndrome? The way they have been spastically yelping TAX CUTS!!! might be a clue.
The Rushublicans want businesses to create the jobs first, then have these people go out and spend their money to support these jobs. IOW, the demand is not there but still create the jobs to support that nonexistent demand and hope that the money injected with the job creation is then spent on the goods that are already there and somehow the day is saved?
These nuts want to put the cart in front of the horse and they are convinced that this will solve everything.
The Grand Panjandrum
It just late last week that had most of the establishment media punditry saying the weak dick Republicans had Obama on the ropes. Clinton had him on the ropes, McCain had him on the ropes, and now the Republican minority has him on the ropes. Obama’s right where he wants to be, getting ready to knock their punk asses out.
Stuck
Maybe they should enlist their Captains of Industry pals to perfect a procedure for cloning Jim Demint /solid wingnut choice. And change their name to the Southern Dufus Party.
Punchy
Completely OT:
Are all the dot.blogspot.com blogs down? Atrios is down, CR is down, etc…..anyone know?
Napoleon
@Punchy:
They are not working for me, so they must be.
dr. bloor
I look forward to endless ads in Maine and Pennsylvania letting the folks back home exactly how much money Spectre and Collins turned down for the schools, infrastructure and working poor in their respective states.
Conservatively Liberal
New link.
Rick Taylor
I found an informative interview of James Galbraith via Digby. John should like him, because unlike Krugman he’s careful to say the stimulus bill is a very good bill and should be passed, even as he explains it’s not sufficient on its own.
Walker
Club for Growth = Club for People Whose Idea of Making Money is Refusing to Pay for Services They Use
Brian J
I have a few different thoughts on this:
(a) So what if these people are challenged in primaries? Each side is going to bitch when the other side’s moderates are challenged, because it means that there are fewer people to use as bipartisan cover. But that’s the point of a primary: to let the voters select the candidate who best reflects their interests. If the Republicans want to pick a Club for Growth-style loon, then let them. They aren’t doing anything illegal or immoral, and consider that this move could make it easier for a Democrat to be elected and/or the fall from power by embracing the far right to happen much sooner, thus giving momentum to a move towards the center.
(b) There’s a legitimate case to be made against the stimulus. It’s not as if it’s a guaranteed plan for success. There are lots of questions about what works and what doesn’t, even amongst strong supporters. If the Republicans who were interested in doing something, which to be fair, probably includes most of them, as opposed to some who want to let the country burn, simply proposed something like that Greg Mankiw had proposed (a reduction in payroll taxes with a simultaneous increase in the gas tax, payroll tax cuts taken as state aid to let state government decide how to use it, and evaluate projects over the long term to make sure money isn’t wasted), they’d have a reason to be at the table. Instead, they have offered up this bizarre mish mash of proposals to slash taxes on anything that has ever appeared before their eyes, leaving a $3 trillion hole in the budget without necessarily helping the economy.
(c) There’s probably no way to enforce this, but as the guys at the RBC, among others, have suggested, why not propose that any legislator who voted against the money has his or her district or state go without getting it? In other words, why not stop people from getting some money, which is bound to happen, if they offered nothing substantive and took a position based mostly on politics? Even if it’s impossible, why not start a deluge of angry letters and calls from their constituents who think they are going to miss out? I’d love to see this, if for no other reason than it would really make of these idiots squirm.
**BTW, last night, in case it wasn’t clear, I was not calling TimF or DougJ an idiot. I used that word a few times in a post, but I was referring to House Republicans, not the great posters here. I just wanted to make sure nobody was confused.
Conservatively Liberal
What the Democrats should do is introduce a measure that would allow representatives who vote against a bill to check off a box saying that they will refuse any money sent their way from the bill.
Let’s see how that works. This would expose them for the hypocrites they are when they still accept the money after voting against it.
I like the idea. It essentially says You want a piece of the pie? Quit being stupid, sit down and negotiate in good faith.
zzyzx
Actually the Republicans who are left are (for the most part) fine. Specter will be gone in 2010 and ME will be a D state soon, but the remaining 37 or so R’s will be free to have losing vote after losing vote. We don’t have national elections so it only matters so much what the rest of the country thinks of you.
Brian J
@Conservatively Liberal:
I’m not really sure whether it matters if the money is spent on goods produced in China or some other place. This is a global problem, and if the Chinese are doing better, we’re going to be doing better because they will be buying stuff from us. And of course, if the money is being spent on infrastructure or something like that, it would put people to work here, even if the goods and materials came from another country.
As for your other comment about checking off boxes and rejecting money, that’s exactly what I suggested. Let these assholes refuse the money if they are that set against it. Either they will be rewards by their constituents for taking a principled stance, or they will be soundly rejected next time there’s an election. Either way, they will held accountable for their actions. Wouldn’t that be nice for a change?
Conservatively Liberal
@Brian J:
Yes, it would be a nice change. While we are looking for ways to save money, how about this suggestion: One of my biggest gripes with our pols was when they ‘fixed’ the pay raise process for themselves by making it so they would have to vote against it or else it automatically takes effect. How about canceling that provision and suspending pay raises until the crisis is over?
Hey, everyone is hurting. Time for them to share in the pain, right?
As as aside, I wonder if wingnut ‘scientists’ have ever tried TAX CUTS on AIDS patients? I shouldn’t say that because some wingnut will probably see this and run with it, putting more lives at risk with their insane ideas.
KCinDC
The National Republican Trust PAC was the group blanketing the airwaves with those ridiculous Jeremiah Wright ads (which McCain pretended to disown) in the runup to the election, running them even during Rachel Maddow (a very effective use of their funds, I’m sure).
Mike in NC
Today’s paper was graced with a column from the evangelical wingnut Cal Thomas (been an asshole since the Nixon administration, I think), complaining that any government spending on the economy now constitutes "rushing towards Socialism" blah blah blah, and he then cites some expert at the Heritage Foundation (!) to back up his insane comments. This is the same unhinged moron who wrote several pieces on how "America is falling in love with Sarah Palin" only a few short months ago. How’d that work out for you, Cal?
Nannergrrl
The economy is falling apart, martial law was discussed back in September as a possibility if the attempts to stem the money markets run failed and Republicans used it as an opportunity to make political hay. And they still are. They KNOW how deep this pile of shit is and they are not acting as representatives of the populace. How is this not an action against country?
Someone needs to get out the Traitor Stick and leave some red welts on these jackasses.
Dave
The GOP is being marginalized and framed as obstructionist and they don’t even know it. Obama is the Sun Tzu of politics.
Brian J
I might be getting ahead of myself here, but looking at the list of seats up for grabs in 2010, like this one provided by Nate Silver, I think people are underestimating the ways the Republicans could be screwing themselves. It’d certainly require the complete implosion of the Republicans and/or very good luck by the Democrats and/or the economy being in such a state as to help the Democrats, but it’s definitely possibly for the Democrats to get to 67 seats or very close to it. Right now, assuming Franken is seated and people like Lieberman, Burris, and Gillibrand are reelected or replaced with another Democrat, we’d start with 59 seats, including people like Bernie Sanders. So we’d need eight seats. Let’s start off by assuming that we win in New Hampshire, Missouri, Ohio, Kentucky, Florida, North Carolina, and Pennslyvania. We’d need just one more seat. With the right candidates and good allocation of resources, is it really out of the question to win in just one state out of Texas, Kansas, Iowa, Louisiana, Georgia, Arizona, or Alaska? Perhaps, with some luck, there could even be some competitive races in South Carolina or Oklahoma.
Okay, I’ll be honest. I’d be surprised if the Democrats had such success. But the next election looks to be fought on terrain that favors the Democrats. Looking at the list I provided above, I’m not sure where they are supposed to avoid losses, let alone make gains. Even if they earned only half of the necessary seats to get to 67, it’d put the Republicans in such a hole that it’s hard to describe. Absent two wipe outs like we saw in 2006 and 2008, they wouldn’t control the Senate for several years.
Left Coast Tom
Actually the Republicans who are left are (for the most part) fine. Specter will be gone in 2010 and ME will be a D state soon, but the remaining 37 or so R’s will be free to have losing vote after losing vote.
One of those Rs is in Nevada, which is trending blue. Two of them are in Arizona, which is looking more competitive over time. One’s from Iowa, which is now blue.
Brian J
Interesting enough, using some government money for AIDS prevention can save taxpayers a lot of money because the cost of treating the disease for each patient infected is massive. No word yet on whether tax cuts are just as effective.
zzyzx
…and meanwhile the political geniuses on Daily Kos think that the Republicans are providing an example to follow:
(Hopefully all of that will BQ correctly…)
I don’t understand why either the most conservative 20% or the most liberal 20% think that the other 80% of the country will be fine if they enact all of their policies.
Personally I’d rather be the governing party that gets 60-70% of what we want by allying with the moderates than the purists who sit on the sidelines and bitch.
joe from Lowell
Don’t all of these "Republicans are screwed in 2010 and 2012" theories rely on the economy not being the toilet by then?
inkadu
This is a global problem, and if the Chinese are doing better, we’re going to be doing better because they will be buying stuff from us.
Obama, at his press conference:
The only thing America makes any more is debt.
John PM
This post perfectly illustrates the approaches of the two parties:
Democrats = More and better Democrats
Republicans = Fewer but wackier Republicans
Napoleon
@joe from Lowell:
Depends – you can come up with examples of the economy still being in pretty bad shape but the leader/leading party hangs on (FDR in 34 and 36, Reagen) or not (English Labour party in the great depression).
Brian J
@joe from Lowell:
Kind of. Obviously, if the economy continues to worsen, even getting to some ludicrously high level of unemployment that we’ve seen since, well, you know, it makes it hard for the Democrats to campaign on success. But if you look at the states in play and consider the relatively stupidity of the current crop of Republicans in Washington, it’s hard to see how they are going to avoid at least a few loses, if not massive ones, let alone mount a comeback. At the very least, the Democrats should continue to look like the party of grown ups, while the Republicans look like the party of Limbaugh, Joe the Plumber, Larry Kudlow, and Sarah Palin.
Cyrus
Call me a killjoy, but weren’t we all mad just a day or two ago about all the stimulus removed from the stimulus bill and tax cuts added into their place? All the damage done by Bill Nelson and Susan Collins for no explicable reason other than looking more centrist? But people here seem to be OK with the bill being less likely to be effective as long as Republicans will take the blame for it? Odd.
Calouste
@southpaw:
You make the mistake of assuming the "Growth" in Club for Growth stands for economic growth. It doesn’t. It stands for growth of the income gap between the rich and the poor.
kay
@Cyrus:
I’m mad on aid to states. I think cutting that was plain stupid, and purely and rigidly ideological.
They’re going further Right, you know. I was checking in periodically in the nineties (I was insanely busy that whole decade) and conservatives were arguing that states needed latitude on how to administer federal funds. They won. States have wide latitude on how to administer federal funds. It’s one of the "states rights" positions on the Right I agreed with.
Now the "moderate" Republican position is that states can’t have federal funds, under any circumstances, for anything. That’s a sea-change.
Brian J
@Cyrus:
I don’t think anyone is happy that the stimulus is not as good as it could be. I think people are pleased that if has to be that way, it’s Republicans who could very well suffer, because they are the ones that refused to contribute anything substantive even after repeated attempts at reaching out by President Obama.
Brian J
@inkadu:
I don’t think what he said means what you think it means.
inkadu
I don’t think what he said means what you think it means.
Inconceivable!
I’m only an armchair economist, but I’ve been hearing about the United States losing it’s manufacturing base, being a primarily service economy, trade deficit, loans from China, etc. So I read Obama in that context. What do you think it means?
Geeno
@Dave:
Politics is war by other means.
Evinfuilt
At least the Democratic Circular Firing Squad is a metaphor. I’m afraid some of these republicans will end up dead for going against Rush.
Chris Johnson
Can we have massive tax cuts and subsidies for anyone making stuff for export? :)
I do that, which means strangely enough me being at work brings money into the country, where it is often spent locally. You’d think somebody would notice or care ;)
Cyrus
@Brian J:
That makes sense. And come to think of it, I wish I had rephrased my comment; the way I said it ("seem to be OK with") was kind of like imputing bad faith to the happy people. It’s just that the mood swing seemed extreme.
Rome Again
@southpaw:
The Club for Growth is only about growing conservative’s bank accounts.
TenguPhule
You forgot to mention the part where they sawed the horse’s legs off andleft it on cinder blocks.
TenguPhule
You forgot to mention the part where they sawed the horse’s legs off and left it on cinder blocks.