There have been a number of articles recently about how cagey and even “Machiavellian” Obama is to pick Republicans like John McHugh for his cabinet. Here’s the Times for example:
“This Machiavellian strategy is pure Rahm,” said John Feehery, a Republican strategist and former top House aide. “It is brilliant and it is painful for Republicans.”
The choice of Mr. McHugh, which was quickly followed by the selection of former Representative Jim Leach of Iowa, another Republican, as head of the National Endowment for the Humanities, is instructive.
Sensing an opportunity to get a strong candidate for one of the toughest Pentagon jobs while simultaneously sowing confusion among Republicans, the White House pursued Mr. McHugh, 60, the senior Republican on the Armed Services Committee whose district includes Fort Drum.
First of all, it’s not brilliant, it’s obvious. I have to believe that lots of presidents would have selected veteran lawmakers from the other side of the aisle if they could get these lawmakers to accept.
And that’s the point here — of course, sane Republicans are going to think hard about fleeing the party purges and ritual apologies to Rush. And, not to get all David Broder about this, but I believe that some of these guys really do want to serve the public interest and realize that putting out Pelosi Galore videos may not be the best way to do this.
In McHugh’s case, it’s worth noting that since 2004, every single respected member of the New York State delegation has left Congress (I’m speaking of Boehlert, Houghton, Reynolds, Walsh, and now McHugh). I doubt that it’s a coincidence.
LD50
When Democrats don’t appoint Republicans, they’re failing to be ‘bipartisan’. When they DO appoint Republicans, it’s ‘Machiavellian’.
Oooo, the butthurt, the butthurt!!
Yutsano
The Republicans want it to be Machiavellian because they want Rahm to be Obama’s Cheney. They refuse to believe he must might be THAT smart, because their guy was a doofus, so they project their own fantasies on Obama. Of course if Rahm suggested McHugh that automatically makes it Machiavellian to them because there HAS to be something sinister there right?
LD50
It seems to me they’re trying to imply that Rahm is Obama’s Rove.
zaine_ridling
Maybe, but I think you should reward loyal Democrats FIRST and appoint repubs late in your second term. All Obama is doing is padding their resumes when they later run against good Democrats. I say stomp on their necks with a spiked boot when you got a conservative down. Never lend them a hand. Never.
Brachiator
Let’s see, now. From the beginning, Obama has talked about being partisan. He’s openly praised Ronald Reagan, the patron saint of the GOP , much to the dismay of hard core Democrats. This doesn’t seem very Machiavellian to me.
These guys need a better dictionary.
Once again, the Villagers confuse their narrow world view with reality. Inside the Beltway, the actual state of the world or the economy doesn’t matter. The only thing that’s important is who has scored political points, whose in power and whose on the outs. If there were another 9/11 the first sentence from the vilest Villager pundit would be something how the attack now gave the Republicans some advantage over the Obama Administration.
What these people simply don’t get is that when he picks a Republican, Obama is not trying to please Republican officials; rather he is reaching over their heads and trying to appeal to Republican voters, who are citizens, and like other Americans, they just want to see problems solved and their country doing better.
Exactamundo!
Ash Can
And that’s exactly the Republicans’ problem. Like DougJ says, it’s not brilliant, it’s obvious. Or at least it should be obvious. Any management team with even a modicum of common sense wants to arm itself with all the talent it possibly can. For it to be “painful” to Republicans to have talent among its members recognized in this way tells us pretty much all we need to know about today’s GOP.
Delia
And what would happen to the sane Republicans if they stayed in Congress/Governorship/etc.? The Loony Party would have them tarred, feathered and sent off to re-education camp. These fools are just mad because Obama and Rahm rescued a few of their intended victims and scored bipartisanship points at their expense along the way.
Machiavellian, indeed.
ronin122
Well beyond what was already said above that all whines when a Dem doesn’t appoint a Republican every once in a while (though the GOP apparently is under no pressure and the media even encourages them to NEVER be “bipartisan”), I think you’re missing the point but so is the article perhaps (didn’t read it though). It isn’t that he is appointing Republicans, but people who are considered either current or perhaps soon-to-be rivals. For instance, Utah Governor (name eludes me at the moment) was considered a possible runner in 2012 or 2016. The “Machiavellian” label was also put on Obama for having his “biggest rival”–Hillary Clinton–as Secretary of State. Feel free to argue the points further but it will be meaningless without making that point on what the whole label is about in the first place.
dmsilev
Wait, you’re saying Peter King isn’t respected?
Why, compared to Michelle Bachman, he embodies respectful and bipartisan governance.
-dms
DougJ
Yup.
SGEW
@Delia: Important to remember here, and bolstering your point, is that McHugh publicly supports repealing DADT. How long before the G.O.P. would’ve run him out on a rail anyway?
DougJ
McHugh and Leach and LaHood are rivals of Obama’s?
Left Coast Tom
If Obama really wants to be bipartisan he should pick Real Republicans like Jefferson Beauregard Sessions, not these RINOs like the governor of Utah. Nothing would say bipartisan quite like picking people who Want Him To Fail.
Zifnab25
But Obama is too stupid to outwit the political geniuses in Tehran who want to get a bomb. How can he be out manuevering the GOP?
Jim
I think you’d only be Broderish if you argued that he wasn’t being bipartisany enough because the Republicans he’s appointing aren’t the most partisan ones. That garbled sentence would be crystal clear to Broder, and Cokie Roberts would steal it for her next phone in with NPR, and Davey Gregory would use it to frame what he thought was a hard-hitting, see-through-bull question for MTP. (and as I type this I see that Left Coast Tom at 13 beat me to the punch).
I suspect you’re right about the good intentions of the people picked, too. I would’ve loved to be a fly on the wall when they said whatever they said to Judd Gregg to make him not only turn down a Cabinet post, but to become one of the most obnoxious dicks in the GOP caucus. My hunch is that a lot of Republicans are sick of ordered around by people like Cheney, Rove, McConnell and Boehner, and we haven’t seen the last major party-switch of Obama’s first term.
Roger Moore
@Ash Can:
It’s not that Republicans’ talent is being recognized that’s painful. It’s that the most talented Republicans are happier in a Democratic administration than they are supporting Republican positions in Congress. It’s painful to see the rats leaving your ship because it forces you to admit that it’s sinking.
ronin122
@DougJ: I wasn’t thinking about them but whenever I hear the Machaevelli angle being played, at least at DKos, it concerns others who may be considered such. I don’t know, I didn’t say I bought into the line just where I hear it meaning.
Rey
I’m loving this car crash of the Rethug party, just loving it. Now if Sarah Palin would only get the nom in 2012- whoo hoo!! Good times.
M. Bouffant
@zaine_ridling:
Yes (Sounds good, great even) but these appointments are not of the red-meat con crowd. Giving credibility to the less insane among them may lead to more moderate Republicans in general, or to a final split of the GOP.
We’ll have to wait until after 2010, of course, & predictions are always made w/ the caveat that anything can & may happen, but the loonier Republicans aren’t going any farther than primary victories in the next couple of “cycles.” If they want to keep at least the organizational structure (RNC, etc.) of the party intact, any moderates remaining will have to step up & present a semi-rational face.
(Qualifiers mean I doubt they can, & I hope they can’t.)
M. Bouffant
If there were another 9/11 the first sentence from the vilest Villager pundit would be something how the attack now gave the Republicans some advantage over the Obama Administration.
With, of course, a slight preface that s/he just hates to bring this up in a time of nat’l. tragedy, but …
M. Bouffant
Utah Governor (name eludes me at the moment) was considered a possible runner in 2012 or 2016.
Huntsman. Who will be able to burnish his resume, get as much public attention as he can wangle from far-away Beijing, avoid the extra-crazed bullshit of Republican culture wars back home while he’s over there, & come back in a few yrs. tanned, rested & ready to kick ass in 2012 or 2016. (Better if he can wait until 2016, so as not to go against the O, & ’cause the Republicans like their decider dudes 60+.)
Who’s Machiavellian now?
DougJ
It would be irresponsible not to.
Marc
I think Huntsman’s genuinely out of the game, at least for 2012. The hustling on the hustings is already underway, and there’s no way he can do the local retail politicking needed for a primary run from overseas.
Down the line, sure. But there’s no way he gets the nomination with the Romney, Palin, Huckabee and Gingrich camps already jockeying for position in Iowa.
Ripley
Let me see if I have this right:
If Republican: Brilliant equals Painful, and Obvious equals Painful, but Brilliant does not equal Obvious though both equal Painful. If Swamp-Fevered Villager: Brilliant equals Republican (minus Being Elected) and Being Elected equals Obvious plus Brilliant minus Painful (if Democrat), and Not Being Elected equals simultaneously Brilliant, Obvious, and Painful (if Republican).
Soooo: If R, B=P+O=P, but B≠O though B+O=P; If SFV, B=R(-WIN)+WIN=B(-P[if D])+(-WIN)=B+O+P if R.
Can I haz alkohol now?
Silver Owl
Fancy that a sane, qualified republican getting hired for a job.
I do like this move because it gives sane republicans exposure that they can not get from their bat shit crazy counterparts and a chance to get around the drama addicted traditional media.
Here’s hoping the sane republicans get enough voter attention to start a new party. That I would like to see.
kid bitzer
hey doug–in this:
“since 2004, every single respected member of the New York State delegation has left Congress”
did you mean “every single respected **republican** member”?
or did you mean dems and reps alike?
BruceFromOhio
Walsh was no ‘coincidence,’ neither was the disrespected Kuhl. Each faced fierce competition in 2006 from grass-roots Democrats (Massa, Maffei) that leveraged lesser Act Blue dollars against deep national Republican funding. The overlap of blue counties against R+ multi-county districts gave each a shot at ousting the incumbents and a platform to ride Obama’s coattails. Walsh saw the writing after a single-digit victory in ’06 – after 5 terms in the House in mostly rural NY-25, it wasn’t fun anymore, it was work. Kuhl missed the memo, and ran on the same batshit loony-tunes platform that got him a single-digit victory in ’06 in NY-29: Eric Massa squeaked by in what would’ve been a similar story for Walsh against Maffei in the 25th, had he stayed in.
Rural NY had had enough of Bush Doctrine, and it showed at the ballot box in 2008. The smart Republicans have bailed, and the stupid ones have been (mostly) voted out. This was reiterated in NY-20, Gillibrands’ old seat. What will be interesting to watch is if these newly Democratic seats stay blue, or do the rural Republicans come away from the fringe and get those single-digit victories to come back the other way? We’ll know more in 2010 and 2012: if Chris Lee gets a real challenger in NY-26, and if NY-20, – 25 and -29 stay in Democratic hands, it will bode even more poorly for NY Republicans who bet on the heady days of Bush lasting forever.
Jay C
There’s probably also a lot of projection going on in Republican attitudes towards Obama’s bipartisan selections. With the exception of, I think, one Cabinet post (??Labor? Energy?) the Bush Administration not only kept Democrats out – and marginalized them in Congress – but even tried to cull out Republicans who didn’t meet their rigid loyalty/ideology standards. The notion that President Obama might actually want to get the best person for the job, or look beyond blinkered partisan advantage in staffing his Administration seems to be an alien notion to them (or evidence of sinister intent, hence the “Machiavellian” murmurs) – it seems like base political hackery is all they can understand. Which says a lot more about them than it does about Obama.
Marc
It was Transportation, with Norm Mineta filling the spot.
As far as Cabinet posts go, it’s usually about as low on the totem pole as it gets. Obama has a Republican there now, Ray LaHood, but given the stimulus package’s stress on transportation projects as a source of government spending, it’s not as low profile right now.
Left Coast Tom
Transportation. Norm Mineta (D-San Jose).
Cat Lady
@DougJ:
Fixt.
BruceFromOhio
@M. Bouffant:
Kick ass against … whom? He took a job with a popular Democratic president working as lead diplomat to the most populous country on the planet that happens to hold much of our national debt. Should he fare well and the relationship between our countries improve, that’s a big fat feather to hold out to ANYone, not just the right. And at a time when the right likes to rattle its saber as soon as think about anything rational, he’s got an interesting opportunity to Do The Right (Correct) Thing: Make Business, Not War. It could be that a pol like Huntsman makes the perfect followup to a pol like Obama. Being obligated to his boss for getting the pick, the platform and the bona fides upon which to ‘burnish’ and ‘kick ass’ may just make him an unusual 21st Century Republican: an experienced foreign negotiator without the forced fealty to the loonies, who arrived on merit rather than RNC dollars.
He could also get caught with a dead Shanghai hooker, and that would be the end of him. Just sayin’ …
Marc
That sounds like something that’ll happen to Neil Bush, not Huntsman.
BruceFromOhio
@Marc:
Sorry, I didn’t intend to malign Huntsman, rather I meant “something stupid that no one foresees that fucks up everything that comes after,” ala former NY guv Spitzer.
Cat Lady
I don’t think Obama cares if he wins a second term – he said right off the bat about the stimulus that if it didn’t work, the country would probably pick another president. He meant it, because it’s true. The only credible Republican that independents would go for would be someone like Huntsman, and I really think Obama would probably not mind handing off duties to Huntsman in 4 years if that’s how it went. Huntsman would never make it through the primaries though. That’s the Republican binary dilemma.
Yutsano
I never thought I’d say this, but now Huntsman being a Mormon might end up being a good thing. Or a bad thing since Mitt couldn’t exactly overcome that particular hurdle.
Jackmormon
Yep. Romney’s run made it fairly clear that the republican base wasn’t quite ready to embrace a Mormon. If Romney had run a less heinous campaign, he probably should have cleared that hurdle, but there was a good deal of ugliness, which I wasn’t entirely prepared for. A lot of it was concern-trolling from our side, though. Matthew Yglesias’s armchair theology was particularly annoying. Christ, I hope Huntsman doesn’t run.
BruceFromOhio
@Yutsano:
Mitts’ hurdling skills had a helluva lot more challenge than him simply being a Mormon. Like Mitch McConnell, Mitt needed better scripts for the muppeteers working his head and jaws.
kommrade reproductive vigor
Shorter Feehery: Waaah! When the president engages in bipartisanship we can’t complain that he’s not being bipartisan.
Jackass.
New rule: Anyone who uses the term Machiavellian without knowing what the fuck it means gets the jumper-cables-and-car-battery treatment.
kommrade reproductive vigor
The last quote is the best:
And once they start paying attention to politics instead of smoking hash at all night abortion orgies they’ll join with the zillions of angry Clinton supporters and vote Republican!
Christ, Republican statergery at its finest.
KG
If someone is truly being Machiavellian, you don’t know that he is.
KG
So looks like conservatives are winning in the EU elections. Except in Greece, where there was a conservative government at the national level, and the liberal parties are winning. Now, someone who was smart, would look at this and say “this is just a sign that voters are not happy with incumbents or the status quo, much like here in the US the last couple of cycles.” My guess for the Wingularity is that they are going to say that Europeans know that big government is the problem. Or something equally stupid. Anyone want to bet on that?
Yutsano
Do we bother to mention that a European conservative is nothing like an American one? Nah we should just let them figure out that juicy little nugget on their own.
burnspbesq
Sandy Levinson has been smoking the local Austin ditch-weed re New York politics.
http://balkin.blogspot.com/2009/06/president-sotomayor.html
burnspbesq
@Yutsano:
The Republicans will love David Cameron … until he opens his mouth and starts talking policy. Then they will say he’s a TINO (Tory in Name Only) and throw him under an articulated lorry.
Mwangangi
I think I may have finally caught up. Those 300-500 post threads were killing me.
I suppose I’ll have to read this cat’s history to find out how ‘outraged’ I should be as a ‘liberal’.
Bill E Pilgrim
There used to be these widespread myths about how cats would suck the life out of infants. Many people believed them. That’s what the GOP is acting like at this point, they’re dying and they’re inventing wild ideas about how others like Obama are the cause, when in fact mostly they’re just driving themselves into irrelevancy.
They think that Obama is Machivellian because he refuses to turn out to be the ultra-partisan Leftist extremist that they always claim he is.
Bill E Pilgrim
@KG:
European governments, not to mention populations, are often very conservative, despite the cartoon characters that American right wingers imagine them to be.
It’s just that being conservative in Europe doesn’t generally include being a throwback-to-the-13th-century science-denying religious fanatic, or having insane ideas about how having virtually no government would somehow be a good way to go.
That’s a largely Wingnut American invention. I keep wondering why they don’t all move to Somalia. I guess they’d have to get the Christian thing started, but the small-as-possible-government part is well underway.
And now, I must go reload with hyphens, I think my keyboard has run out.
C Nelson Reilly
If Obama thinks and acts like a one term President he’ll be fine.
T Paine
@Bill E Pilgrim:
“They think that Obama is Machiavellian because he refuses to turn out to be the ultra-partisan Leftist extremist that they always claim he is.”
WIN
The Main Gauche of Mild Reason
@Bill E Pilgrim:
I’ve said this a million times, but on the absolute ideological spectrum, and despite the ridiculous rhetoric they use, the Tories have a lot more in common with American Democrats than they do with Republicans policywise. However, for some reason, international party equivalence (what parties FEEL closer together) has to do with the relative position of parties in their countries. In a mythical country where all these parties coexisted, Labor would be left, Democrats are center-to-center-left, Tories would be center, and Republicans would be right-wing comic relief.
steve s
Nothing would be better for America than Palin, Huckabee, or Gingrich to get the 2012 GOP nomination, and then inevitably losing 64-35 to Obama. That would even be good for the republican party. But I don’t think it’s going to happen. In my lifetime, the GOP has nominated
Ford
Reagan
GHW Bush
Dole
GW Bush
John McCain
at the same time, running in the primaries but failing to earn the nomination were
Pat Robertson
Alan Keyes
Mike Huckabee
Pat Buchanan
Phill Gramm
Bob Dornan
Gary Bauer
Tom Tancredo
Sam Brownback
Notice something? Notice that the wingnuts never get the nomination? If history is any guide, in 2012, the GOP will nominate a conservative but reasonable-sounding former governor.
BTW, I’ve been pretty psyched about the GOP implosion, like many of you have been. When I saw the National Review cover, my first thought was “At long last….” But when I read today that many economists are expecting >10% unemployment through 2010, and I couple that with the fact that new presidents usually lose congressional ground in the next election…well…I still think the GOP will lose, but I’m not as certain as I was yesterday.
KG
Huntsman won’t get the nomination because it isn’t his turn. That’s the way the GOP nomination process works. Ford was the sitting president in ’76. Reagan had run in ’76 and served two terms as governor. GHW Bush had run in 80 and served two terms as VP, Dole spent a lifetime in the Senate, McCain had a lifetime in the Senate, and ran in 2000. GW Bush was the outlier. Nope, in 2012, it’ll be Gingrich, Romney, or Huckabee. Maybe Palin. But it’d be one of those four, because it will be one of their turns. I’d put early money on Gingrich.
Anne Laurie
That would be conclusive proof that Obama’s luck surpasses human understanding, even if unemployment goes to 12% and we’re staring at the brink of a worldwide Great Depression Two. Newt, Mitt, Mike & Sarah (the Rethuglican version of the Wiggles!) share the rare gift of Political Anti-charisma, where the longer voters are exposed to them the lower their approval ratings. They also (with the possible exception of Huckabee) absolutely hate and despise each other, individually & collectively — I’m not sure you could get any three of the four on the same stage without a fistfight breaking out.
Bill E Pilgrim
@The Main Gauche of Mild Reason:
It’s actually more out of step than that. If you look at Nicolas Sarkozy for example, who is very much on the right (not extreme right, they have those too, but definitely right) his positions would include the following:
-In favor of universal health care without reservation. He wouldn’t dream of questioning it.
-Unequivocally devoted to an absolute separation of church and state.
-Absolutely opposed to the death penalty.
Those positions alone would place the right wing Sarkozy considerably to the left of the mainstream Democratic Party. Consider that Bill Clinton was and is pro-death penalty, for instance, which would be an extreme right wing position pretty much anywhere in Europe.
Sarkozy is considered on the right here because of his stands on things like abolishing the 35-hour work week and other issues around Socialism vs Capitalism, plus being seen as racist and belligerent and other issues. And rightly so, in this spectrum. But some of his positions, and this is true of many Tories also, would make him a DF hippie in the US spectrum.
I do agree with your last point in any case, our Wingnuts are already nothing but comic relief anywhere outside their own little mirrored fun-box imaginations.
Wile E. Quixote
@Left Coast Tom
I hear that the ambassadorship to Freedonia is available. Sessions would be a perfect candidate for this vital and important position.
bob h
Obama and Rahm are also making it easier for on-the-fence Republicans uneasy with the degeneration of their Party to justify to themselves jumping ship to the Dems.
matoko_chan
It will be Palin.
Run. Sarah. Run.
The base gets to choose.
;)
matoko_chan
The GOP leadership is desperately trying to get away from her, but the base will insist. A delicious banquet of shadenfruede for the rest of us.
;)
She can’t win, but they can’t stop her from running.
The Grand Panjandrum
@Bill E Pilgrim:
It’s just that being conservative in Europe doesn’t generally include being a throwback-to-the-13th-century science-denying religious fanatic, or having insane ideas about how having virtually no government would somehow be a good way to go.
Unless of course you mean this kind of conservative.
« Previous | Main
March of the right
Mark Mardell | 11:31 AM, Monday, 8 June 2009
[snip]
Those are some talking points that could have been ripped from the mouth of Newt Gingrich or Tom Tancredo. But the BNP is a very small party. (Hey maybe this is where our COP will end up. Just a marginalized collection of Sovereign Citizens, Middle Aged Militia Men, and various other WATB’s!) Sure the Tories are well to the left of our current GOP. You have to go to Italy where the conservatives (Berlusconi, et. al.) still consort with former Fascists (and they were once real-live fascists) to find conservatives who even resemble the current edition of the GOP.
Bill E Pilgrim
@The Grand Panjandrum:
Yeah those aren’t “conservatives ” ;) I very much didn’t mean that kind of party, but yes they exist. And very small, as you point out. See my post above re Sarko, I mean there is the FN led by a real piece of work here in France too named Jean-Marie Le Pen, but Sarkozy is actually the President.
Reports by the way that le Pen “almost won” a few years back were blown way out of proportion by the time they reached Stateside. It was scary as hell and a bad sign, but there’s no way he came anywhere near winning, Chirac won with over 80 percent once the shock of le Pen placing in the primaries sunk in, but he only got 16%. It’s partly a quirk of the two stage voting method they use, which is a long story.
Our extreme right wing nut cases actually took control for a while, that’s the real difference. The 20% they’re down to now is actually closer to how it is everywhere else. Well in Europe anyway.
IndieTarheel
@Left Coast Tom:
That’s Jefferson Beauregard Nathan Bedford F*cking Forrest to you, pal.
asiangrrlMN
Good grief. Talk about your tortured logic. “Oh noes! Obama iz in yur House, steelin’ yur ‘Publicans!” Damn it, he said he would be bipartisan, and he meant it. End of story.
JB Sheehy
You forgot to add Jack Quinn to the that list of respected Republican members of the New York State delegation to leave the house since 2004
Full disclosure: he was my 8th Grade English teacher way back in the mid 80’s & yes he was a great teacher.