No surprise here, neither side wanted a shutdown. Next time this happens, I’d like Democrats to give less away. Boehner is the one with the most to lose here.
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by DougJ| 256 Comments
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No surprise here, neither side wanted a shutdown. Next time this happens, I’d like Democrats to give less away. Boehner is the one with the most to lose here.
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Bob Loblaw
I’m still not clear on where your wishing/hoping dynamic went? That was the shortest lived philosophy I’ve ever seen.
I called no shutdown, by the way. Given the absurdity of the compromise, I’m not particularly thrilled to be proven right though.
RareSanity
First!
ETA: Crap…second…
Dexter
Weeper of the House will be crying hard when his teabagger friends find out he didn’t gut Planned Parenthood.
Amanda in the South Bay
You know this is all going to start over again when next year’s budget is presented?
ruemara
Considering that most of the comments at other sites have blamed this on the President, I’m just not sure if it’s worth it. Our spineless Democratic Congress failed to deal with the budget last year and set this whole mess up. I swear to god, these guys need smacks upside the head.
Dexter
The next question is: does Boehner has 218 GOP votes? If not I guess more circus…if he has, at least guvmint is funded till September. So we are not going to go through this every month.
Next: debt ceiling. When is that due?
Lolis
No, the people with the most to lose is the entire US public. I am sure Obama gave away too much. I think he had more to lose than Boehner in the long-term since a long shutdown could have led to a double-dip recession. Whoever has more to lose gets the worst deal. On a bright note, good to hear that there are 3 billion in defense cuts.
Yutsano
@Amanda in the South Bay: Oh it comes even sooner than that. The debt ceiling is next. And that is total uncharted territory and will make the budget dance seem like a cakewalk.
@Dexter: Some time in May. And it will be quite epic.
Comrade DougJ
@Bob Loblaw:
I was wishing the Republicans would shut it down.
Spaghetti Lee
I dunno-would we have preferred 800,000 people out of work to $78 billion in cuts? Shit sandwich either way. The best outcome is one that causes even further dissention within the tea party, given how quickly Boehner caved to teh Kenyan Usurper (and that’s what matters to most people. Budget cuts? Pfff, that’s just math.), and it splits into two factions that are suspicious of each other, but neither of which is big enough to give Obama and the Dems a fight.
Frankly, any time the Tea Party doesn’t get what they’re drooling for, I consider it a good thing.
Bob Loblaw
@Comrade DougJ:
So then how does that translate to merely hoping the Democrats “give less away” next time?
It seems like you’re all talk.
beltane
Something about pay the Danegeld, live with the Dane comes to mind. Next time the Republicans will just extort even more from the country. We’re just not the same country that ousted the Barbary pirates; the Barbary pirates rule us.
General Stuck
From your link.
You can get caught up in the shiny object of numbers of giving away too much of this or that. But in a 3 trillion dollar budget, a few billion is not that huge. I have seen no arguments made that it will devastate any particular dem constituency in particular over the next 5 month.
And the real politics of this is between Boehner and the tea party in his caucus. And they still have to vote on this agreement, and even if they go along this time, it is Boehner with the real problem politically. Dems just don’t have to give up the farm, and they didn’t here. But of course, these are the fine aires of the liberal progressive blogs, and any dem compromise must be accompanied by the native faithful spanking their monkeys in unison on how dems are worthless and failures and why they don’t act like politicians that aren’t pounded by their supposed supporters for any and all compromise.
Retards.
Dexter
On further reading it seems that there is going to be a CR for a week or so till the legislation is written. Teabaggers may not agree with this deal..so this may not be over yet.
MikeJ
What did the Dems give away that you wish they hadn’t?
Martin
@Dexter: It’s over. Boehner wouldn’t have walked out of that caucus meeting without an agreement. The meeting took an hour and a half. It’s over.
Mnemosyne
@ruemara:
I lean more towards kicking them in the ass, myself, but we don’t have to restrain ourselves to just one gesture.
On the other side of the aisle, I have to smirk because Tea Party Caucus head/insane person Michele Bachmann was forced to back down and accept the deal. That must have burned hard going down.
Omnes Omnibus
@Dexter: If Boehner actually has 218, it is done. If, however, he does not, Pelosi should try to work some concessions out of Boehner’s need to get votes from her people. Could be interesting.
patrick II
I don’t know how much Obama had to give away to avoid a shutdown, or whether it was worth it, so I am not going to complain about that. What I do mind is Obama voicing republican talking points in his “concession” speech.
How about making some liberal arguments and show some regret for the programs that were cut, the jobs that were lost, and the relative slowing of the economy instead of bragging about the largest reductions in history and being responsible for the debt now when the economy is hurting.
I’ll vote for him again over any republican I can see, but I swear the guy is half republican himself.
Bob Loblaw
@General Stuck:
Once again, you two faced fucking hacks. This is what you people were saying all of five weeks ago:
https://balloon-juice.com/2011/02/28/your-booty-makes-me-moody/
So to recap: $61B GOP cuts = calamity. $38B bipartisan cuts = meh.
A little consistency, please.
Corner Stone
We just put our ass up in the air and sprayed perfume on it.
WTF are you silly bastards thinking?
Davis X. Machina
By Christmas, there’ll be a new, non-orange Speaker.
If he can’t whip enough of his own people to produce a majority, and Pelosi graciously — and grudgingly — hands him just enough votes to pass the CR, she’s basically tatooing ‘Eunuch’ on his forehead for him.
jl
Looks like some TeaGOPper Reps will vote no, since they did not get 100 percent of what they asked for.
http://tpmdc.talkingpointsmemo.com/2011/04/house-gopers-not-all-on-board-with-budget-agreement.php?ref=fpblg
At GOS, commenters say the rightwingnutoblogosphere is pissed.
It will be interesting to see which side is more disenchanted. Not that there is any equivalence in craziness, they win it hands down. But will be interesting to see how pissed the other side is.
Lolis
Yeah, the debt ceiling fight will be epic in a bad way. I think I will have to look away when that debate starts up. There are quite a few Republicans who want to default on our loans.
Corner Stone
@Davis X. Machina: And? It’s still passed.
Church Lady
I don’t know, I think the Dems got rolled on this one.
Boehner got more in cuts than most thought he would, plus Reid agreed to allow a vote in the Senate on repeal of the health care bill (completely separate from the budget bill) and got what the Repubs wanted as to no federal funding of abortions in D.C. I’m not sure, but I think there will also be a vote on defunding Planned Parenthood, but I may have misunderstood the talking heads on that part.
What did the Democrats get?
Yutsano
@Davis X. Machina: If there’s a downside to this, I’d love to hear it. Especially since Speaker Cantor will be even worse at whipping the caucus than the Actual Orange Satan.
Davis X. Machina
@Yutsano: There’s the real possibility of a general ‘get thee to the right of me’ death spiral, through a series of leadership elections, perhaps starting with Cantor, and culminating in a Speaker Peter King and a rump of about 150-160 True Believers, just in time for the 2012 elections.
Game on, Donkey Kong, etc, etc.
Omnes Omnibus
@Lolis: There are also a lot of Republicans who don’t want to default. Who has more power in the GOP, Wall Street and big business or the teabaggers?
Spaghetti Lee
@Davis X. Machina:
If it sounds to good to be true, it probably is. The Republican Party didn’t get so dominant by being unable to keeps its members in line.
jl
Any cut is bad, bipartisan or not, since any cut pushes the economy further towards some kind of double dip recession.
I am not going to get worked up over what is happening now. What can I do other than write the pols and complain, cajole and threaten? (with paper letters, which I larned was the best thing to do right here at this miserable lefty blog)
Best to think what you want to work on in next election to move things. The die is pretty much cast with the bunch in office we have now. Obama has made his choice, informed or not, on economics of it. I think Obama is very not informed, and has given up even floundering on the economy, and will just go with whatever fate the Rubin/finance/”moderate” CEO crowd tells him, and hope for the best.
Edit: that is not calling Obama a sell out. It is calling him a confused timid leader on economics, risking defeat and an ineffective presidency.
Lolis
@patrick II:
At least he didn’t say, “The era of big government is over.”
But no, you are right, it sucks that the last two Democratic presidents feel the need to steal Reaganomics shit for their speeches.
Comrade DougJ
@MikeJ:
38 billion in cuts
Omnes Omnibus
@Church Lady: The votes on PP and the ACA will go nowhere. Federal funding for abortion is already banned. The Democrats got the Republicans to say that they didn’t care about the money but would, instead, shut down the government over meaningless gestures.
General Stuck
@Bob Loblaw:
“you people”?
You sleazy piece of shit, you accuse me of being a hack, or hypocrite, or whatever, and then link to a fucking thread I didn’t even comment in. dumbass.
I have never bitched about the amount of the cuts, only that dems don’t give in to defunding core liberal programs. Now wipe the snot off your nose and apologize to my false persona. And I may give you a cookie.
Mark S.
This is gonna pass by a bunch. 188-28 so far.
FlipYrWhig
It would be nice to think that this stunt makes the next Republican threat to shut down the government much more hollow. If they’re the Boys That Cried Shutdown, that’s gonna get real old real fast. Seems like part of how this came to pass is that there was genuine ignorance about whether Boehner was even interested in making a deal. Well, he made one. Doesn’t that kind of undercut the next threat?
Davis X. Machina
Anything that makes the institutional GOP look like the Crazy Bus going into a general election, this time with a popular president at the top of the ticket, I’ll take.
Those people can’t stand prosperity — they’ll piss it away, or die trying.
I think the chances of the House flipping in 2012 went up to about one in three tonight.
Martin
@Church Lady:
A running government. That’s the problem with having one party that cares about a functioning country and one that just cares about looting it.
jl
@General Stuck: Um, what kind of cookies are you handing out? I disagreed with you recently. I apologize, I apologize!
I like chocolate chip cookies, and oatmeal with raisins.
If it’s oatmeal with choco chips, never mind, I don’t apologize, you miserable sell out scum.
Corner Stone
Historic.
Joseph Nobles
The nailbiter here is watching to see if the Republicans get 218. Right now, there’s 147 with 81 yet to vote.
Corner Stone
@Martin: And?
Mark S.
@Omnes Omnibus:
I don’t know, the Repubs got another $1 billion in cuts by using those meaningless gestures. I hate to say it, but the orange guy is looking pretty good tonight.
Omnes Omnibus
@Mark S.: This is just the vote on the temporary extension to get the deal in place, right? That should pass by a large margin.
Yutsano
@Mark S.: Any R nos yet?
@Omnes Omnibus: Oh, well that don’t matter then. Wake me when the real dance happens.
RareSanity
@FlipYrWhig:
Nope. Crazy is never predictable…
General Stuck
@FlipYrWhig:
Yes it does, it splits Boehner from his tea partiers, and there nihilistic nonsense. It is a good sign, for the country, portending a little GOP sanity, and also dissension in the GOP.
Bob Loblaw
@Lolis:
They’re just pathetic. There’s no other word for it. Who brags about cutting a “historic” amount of money from the government when unemployment is 9%?
Seriously, what is wrong with them?
@General Stuck:
Yeah, which non-core liberal programs do you think are being cut to get such a big number? The ones conveniently labeled “government fraud and waste?”
Ronc99
Barack Obama in his speech tonite said this will be painful for Americans, but it’s good for job growth.
HELLO??? This is something I would expect George W. Bush to say.
USA no longer has a Democratic party. We have the Republican party, two wings. One wing claims to be for the working class while ignoring it and selling it out, while the other wing, is out to destroy the working class.
FUCK THEM ALL!!!
General Stuck
@jl:
teehee. No need for you to apologize. I like you, disagreements are one thing, stupid poo sling is another, and you can have my cookies, when I find them.
RareSanity
@General Stuck:
I disagree.
I think this just induces the looniest of the tea partiers to throw an even bigger fit the next time and force Boehner to apease them or risk being a half term Speaker.
General Stuck
@Bob Loblaw:
Your babbling again loblaw. Now make another accusation and link to a thread I didn’t comment in. again. dumbass.
FlipYrWhig
@RareSanity:
Yeah, but they just showed they weren’t all that crazy after all. They were just haggling over price.
Midnight Marauder
I’m sorry. Since when did a handshake equate to a passed piece of legislation that was signed by the President of the United States?
Corner Stone
@Midnight Marauder: You are out of your mind.
Martin
@Corner Stone: And what? The proposed solution from both party supporters is that we should shut the government down until when? Until the shutdown costs us $39B and then give in? Until Republicans demand the members of the House give in? You heard them – they’ve been greeted at home with chants of ‘shut it down’. No government is what they want.
General Stuck
@RareSanity:
Maybe he will get the boot, or maybe not. what it means is a GOP civil war in the House, and that is good for dems, and makes it likely they (the old guard) will need dem votes to pass anything, which means they will possibly become somewhat sane. Or, it could all erupt into a cane fights, stay tuned.
Dexter
FWIW, Boner is not getting 218 GOP votes for the CR. The resolution passed because of 138 Dem votes. Boner does seem to have problems.
Mark S.
@Yutsano:
27 R’s voted no. 344-70. 206 Rs and 138 Ds voted yes.
RareSanity
@FlipYrWhig:
This time, yes.
I can’t be the only one with a sinking feeling that this is just the calm before the storm…the crazy storm, that is.
Yutsano
@Mark S.: And that was the easy vote. This sucker may indeed be toast. Going into a two week recess. Awesome.
Corner Stone
@Martin: And as long as you give them room to breathe you are a fucking hostage.
We’re gonna toss our ass in the air again and again and call it “historic”. We’ve given up. The debate is not about anything but “what” gets cut.
This is bullshit.
Martin
@Corner Stone: How can you not be a hostage when your opponent is suicidal?
RareSanity
@General Stuck:
I hear you…I’m really hoping that the best case scenario (possibly sane GOP) comes to pass. But, there just seems to be an undercurrent of unsatisfied bloodlust brewing in the tea partiers.
jl
@General Stuck:
I want some damn cookies!
With regard to the deal, I have no idea whether it is (Edit: political) win or loss. TPM says Boehner got 39 of his target 40 billion in spending cuts. That is depressing.
Church Lady
@Omnes Omnibus: Of course they won’t pass, but just having to vote on them will make some Dems up for re-election in 12 a little uncomfortable. Do you really think McCaskill, Nelson and Manchin, to name a few, all from purple states, want to have to vote again on health care?
Midnight Marauder
@Corner Stone:
For what? For acknowledging that the possibility exists that John Boehner is still going to have problems getting his entire caucus on board with this deal? For pointing out that the deal still is pretty shitty for a bunch of Republicans just like it is for Democrats?
I think the deal sucks. Especially the bullshit rider saying Washington DC cannot use its own funds to cover abortions for women who can’t afford one. That is especially galling.
John Boehner still does not have control of his caucus. I don’t really see what the big fucking deal is in pointing out that that not all Republicans are satisfied with this deal.
General Stuck
@RareSanity:
Don’t get me wrong. I think it could well, and even likely turn into a storm of the century, but this vote tonight is a little breath of sanity from the GOP. It may or may not last, but we have had precious little of it lately from those folks.
OzoneR
@Church Lady:
funding for Planned Parenthood and not gutting of the EPA. Now suddenly we’ll find those things weren’t really important at all
Bob Loblaw
@General Stuck:
I didn’t mean you individually. I meant you as a representative of a mindset. That’s why I used the word ‘people.’ People = plural. Plural means I’m talking to more than just you, Stuck.
It was the position of this blog, and a majority of its posters, that the GOP’s original budget plan of $61B in cuts was harmful to the economy and should be stopped. And now I can’t help but notice that I’m seeing an awful lot of people walking that back now that Democrats have signed onto a somewhat smaller version of that plan. If $61B was REALLY, REALLY BAD, then $39B has to still be pretty bad on its own. It can’t possibly be a “win.” Not if you’re playing straight and not being a hack.
Oh, but Planned fucking Parenthood still exists, because apparently its existence is debatable now, so I guess that means Democrats = teh awesomez.
Waratah
Have to agree with Yutsano on Cantor. Much as I dislike Boehner, I do not think I could stand sneaky slimy Cantor.
Also agree with Omnes Omnibus, the Republicans handed that wrapped with a pretty ribbon.
General Stuck
@jl:
I think it is 39 bill out of 60 target for Boehner, for the remainder of the year.
General Stuck
@Bob Loblaw:
I haven’t said it was a win for dems. I said it just wasn’t a loss per reasonable compromise. I did say the fact that the wingnuts backed off their trajectory to shut down the government, which the tea party caucus most certainly wanted, was a pol win for dems. And the fact that the government didn’t shut down, should be for sane folks, a win for us all.
OzoneR
@Bob Loblaw:
Well Planned Parenthood was never going to NOT exist, it was just not going to get federal funding.
Funny because this afternoon, Planned Parenthood was the most important thing in the world.
Personally I would have thrown PP under the bus for less cuts, but then we’d probably hear about how we threw women under the bus to fund wars or whatever.
In the end, unless we get everything, Democrats are failures.
LIBERALS- BECAUSE NOTHING YOU DO WILL EVER BE GOOD ENOUGH
Sarah, Proud and Tall
Gloria Vanderbilt once invited Megan McArdle to a dinner party. I told Van I couldn’t imagine why she was inviting that, and she said, “Well, dear, Andrew Sullivan is coming as well, and we have to give him the opportunity to be smarter than someone at the table.”
On the night, McArdle arrived half an hour early, which would be unforgivable enough had she not come toting a bottle of Vin de Footsquasher 2007 and a bunch of half-dead gerberas. Van’s wonderful old butler, Thomas, stuck her in the waiting room for 45 minutes, so by the time he went and got her we were all already sitting down, onto our first glass and our second line, and hoeing into the sevruga.
Anyhow, when Thomas fetched Megan, she trundled after him, clutching her flowers and bottle. As they made their way along the corridor, she started to let out a little whine, which gradually got more high pitched and then burst out into a litany of complaints against poor Thomas. It was a little like this: “mmmmmmmmmmmoooooooooooooeeeeeeeeeEEEEEEEEEEEE. Why? Why did you make me sit there all alone. Do you know who I am? I sat there without a drink for aaaaaaaages. Blah. Blah. Whinycakes.”
Thomas ignored her and kept going. He rounded the corner, flung open the door, and because McMegan was so wrapped up in her whinge, she had flung the words “It’s just not good enough!” at the butler before she realized that she was in the dining room and twenty people were staring at her.
Anderson couldn’t help but let out a guffaw, but everyone else was just staring at her open-mouthed. Jonathan Franzen started whispering to me to try to find out who the hell “that lank haired harridan” was.
Gloria stood up like the perfect hostess, although even I will admit she was swaying a bit, and managed to focus her eyes on McArdle. She reached out and graciously took the bottle that Megan was clutching, peered at it, and said “No, it’s really not good enough to show up with a bottle of cat piss, but don’t beat yourself up too much.”
Then she walked back to the table, but over her shoulder she said, “And we don’t talk to the servants like they are dogs, dear, not unless we want them to shit in the soup.”
From memory Megan sat at the table the rest of the night and didn’t say a word. She did, however, mange to bogart the joint, then ran from the room looking green, and spent the rest of the night vomiting in the spare bathroom.
It was a dud of an evening for the most part. Andrew Sullivan had a discussion with Congressman Paul Ryan about the congressman’s proposal that all gays had to wear a pink triangle, be branded on the forehead, and eventually be shipped off to camps in Alaska.
Andrew kept saying that he thought it was a bracing idea and evidence that the debate on gay marriage could move on to more earnest grounds, but that he wondered whether he might get an exemption, being a “conservative” and all.
Ryan laughed at him and told him that “conservative” gays were the worst of all, and there would be compulsory castration for them as well, at which point Andrew threw his support behind the idea entirely as “being in the true spirit of Oakeshottianism”.
We managed to get rid of Sullivan and McArdle fairly early, thank god. There was no way the wife-swapping section of the evening was going to work with those two in the room.
J.W. Hamner
I find it fairly typical that the Firebagger wing likes to talk about how terrible 38 billion dollars in cuts will be for the working class… yet fails to mention how terrible a government shutdown would have been.
We need better idiots.
Yutsano
@J.W. Hamner: I knew there was going to be poutrage over this. I didn’t expect the firebagger brigade to lose their shit like this.
dogwood
@Yutsano:
I don’t think the deal is “toast”. I could be wrong, but the votes to pass a budget have been there for quite awhile. The Speaker just refused to move until he had 218 Republican votes. Democratic votes aren’t real votes you know, just like they aren’t real Americans. But if he brings this budget to the floor next week it will pass even without the teaparty coalition. The only way it doesn’t pass is if he doesn’t hold the vote. That would be the end of his political career.
Bob Loblaw
@J.W. Hamner:
What is a better position to be in? A temporary shutdown with a Republican House that will go from zero to despised in record time as soon as they have to get out on television explaining what they want, or a Democratic President going on tv to brag about cutting the size of government?
Sam
Yeah, guys, freak out! They’re only doing the exact same thing over at Hot Air
Defunding PP will get laughed out of the Senate. No, it’s not a clean win, but it’s way better than a shutdown, and the way Democrats have failed to frame anything and everything over the course of the past two-and-a-half years, you just know the compliant media elite would have pinned one on “stubborn” Democrats.
OzoneR
@Bob Loblaw:
When the deal was announced, Jake Tapper went on TV and said “Had this deal not been made, it would have been a terrible blow to President Obama who would have had to handle the question of his failure to change the culture of Washington”
Republicans were not getting the blame for this shutdown, and even if they did, they still hold power until 2013 at the earliest, and since they’re gerrymander the fuck out of the Midwest, South and Arizona, probably beyond that. What do they care if they’re despised?
jcricket
Look, this sucks. In a better world we would have had non-pussified Dems that passed healthcare, immigration reform, financial reform and a fucking Dem budget in the first two years. But no, we didn’t.
Politically speaking this is better than what I actually expected, but worse than I actually wanted. I frankly thought a shutdown would have actually helped the Dems (long-term) but I thought it would cause a lot of pain short-term, so my emotions were mixed.
We need more, and better Democrats, that’s clear. The embrace of the austerity meme is so deep that it’s ruining our chances of really reshaping this country.
So this is what I’d call “eking out a win” rather than a win by itself.
Elia Isquire
As I said in the other thread I don’t think Obama really had much room to maneuver and so determining whether he “won” or “lost” on this one is very dependent upon what one determines his best-case scenario to have been. I think he could’ve gotten a little more if he’d been willing to say some of the things Reid was saying today, all apocalyptic-like, but I’m not sure, really, and I doubt it would’ve made a huge difference.
It’s just disheartening, though, to see him so relentlessly focused on triangulating (and the term is BS but it’s helpful BS and I don’t think one could seriously argue that The Only Adult in the Room isn’t triangulation 2.0). I get that they’ve determined this to be the way he wins in 2012, but I’m always left feeling like he’s cashing in a lot of rhetorical chips for that end-point…and then what? Well, the answer is So Bad Shit Happens Slower and Less Often Than It Would Under President Bachmann. And that’s true and worth fighting for…but, ugh, it’s so depressing to think of that as the great goal. And what’s more I worry that it’s no way to run a political operation; in the long run, people need something more to believe in than Better Than The Other Guy.
OzoneR
@Sam: From Hot Air
Sounds familiar.
Corner Stone
@J.W. Hamner: Yeah, you stupid fucking douchebag. This is an easy middleground we can all agree to.
Mnemosyne
@Bob Loblaw:
Here’s a metaphor for you, Bob: You can either have your entire left leg amputated, or you can have it amputated just to the knee. Do you choose to have the whole leg taken off because keeping part of it would still mean you lost something?
The “win” was getting rid of the riders. I know you couldn’t care less about women, but some of us do, what with being uterus owners and all. Heck, some of us have even used Planned Parenthood’s services when we didn’t have health insurance but still needed contraception, and we’d kinda like other women in the same situation to be able to do the same thing.
J.W. Hamner
@Bob Loblaw:
Gotta break a few eggs to make an omelet, eh?
If you want to argue that the short term pain on the middle class caused by a government shutdown was worth the possibility of a long term political gain… fine. Then do that… but don’t cry me crocodile tears about the pain caused by $38 billion in cuts if a shutdown was your preferred strategy.
I honestly find it hard to believe that any deal we would have gotten after a shutdown would offset the damage done by said shutdown… but obviously your miles vary. So how many unicorns and ponies, exactly, do you think they would have sent to Planned Parenthood after we humbled them with our manly resolve?
Corner Stone
@OzoneR: Oh goddamn. We’re using Jake Tapper now?
Davis X. Machina
@General Stuck:
I’ve got a federal civilian DoD brother, my two kids in college with federal financial aid, and work-study issues, and exams coming up they can’t take if their accounts aren’t current, a wife flying overseas on business who’s going to have to at a minimum clear customs on re-entry, and perhaps deal with a consulate while abroad, and a Korean-War vet father whose health care is pretty much all VA at this point…so yeah, I’m being selfish.
There’s got to be a few tens of millions of other people more or less similarly situated. Some of them would see the big picture — but some would not.
The wholly notional ‘uncertainty’ that’s holding the recovery back would become, in short order, pretty non-notional, too. I actually expect the debt ceiling increase battle to throttle the recovery in Q3 if at all prolonged, due to knock-on effects.
Corner Stone
@J.W. Hamner: It’s $79B less you innumerate Sully fucking clown.
J.W. Hamner
@Corner Stone:
Oh you’re so sexy when you talk dirty. Can you articulate an actual argument, or are you so liquored up you can’t even see the keys?
OzoneR
@Elia Isquire:
The fact that that’s true exposes a flaw in our society, not in the President or the Democrats or Pelosi or whoever.
Since the half country already likes the other guy, and most of the other half thinks the other guy is pretty reasonable if disagreeable, I’m not sure people want something more to believe in.
Davis X. Machina
@jcricket:
Thank you for a succinct formulation of what I was thinking, and not saying remotely as clearly.
Corner Stone
People depend on the government. We all know this.
And that’s what the fucking hostage takers are counting on.
God damn people. What about this isn’t getting through? We just tossed our ass into the air.
Sam
@OzoneR:
I know, right? Ctrl-f “cave” and it starts looking like the comments on any Balloon Juice post about Obama since, well, the tax cut deal.
I mean, the tax cut deal sucked, and compromising with assholes really sucks, but let’s at least vary the terminology here, folks.
General Stuck
@jcricket:
Well, stated
I think the reason the “austerity Meme” gets traction with the public, and it does to swing voters, in particular, is because of the general dismal prolonged economic conditions the public is feeling, especially with the lack of jobs produced, that is looking up. I just don’t think a few bill in relation to the overall budget is more of a threat to the economic recovery, than having the government shut down right now, which the biggest effect of that would be psychological, as well as substantial harm, if it went on for any period of time. Once we start getting a better job market, I think the austerity meme will fall away to it’s usual public not caring about deficits.
Corner Stone
@J.W. Hamner: Keys? Yeah, I likes me some Alicia Keys! She be hot and shizzz….
Parallel 5ths (Jewish Steel)
@Yutsano: I am celebrating your continuing employment by presenting you with this online Tenori-On style sequencer:
http://biancavirina.tumblr.com/post/2665295375/click-the-squares-the-whole-world-needs-to
Use it wisely.
@Sarah, Proud and Tall: How come I never get invited to these parties? Maybe my invitation is getting lost in the mail?
Mike
@Elia Isquire: ” And what’s more I worry that it’s no way to run a political operation; in the long run, people need something more to believe in than Better Than The Other Guy.”
Democrats have been forced to vote for “Better than the Other Guy” for over a generation. The reason why Obama did so well in 2008 is that for the first time in decades, he was actually someone to vote FOR instead of voting against someone else, and yet he pissed it all away… very disappointing. He has such political talent, and yet absolutely refuses to use it… like he feels that he must hoard it for some reason. I just don’t understand it at all…
Elia Isquire
@OzoneR: 1. I’m not saying otherwise.
2. You’re right if the goal is simply to elect democrats. That’s not my primary goal.
OzoneR
@J.W. Hamner: So that’s who this Nick person is, Corner’s drunken apparition?
Bob Loblaw
@OzoneR:
Fuck that shit. Obama is popular. Republicans are not. Do the math.
Republicans thrive when they’re allowed to stay in the shadows. Because the public is stupid and forgetful. But put Republicans in daylight and they shrivel right up. They’re vile little creatures who always, always self destruct. I’m so tired of Democratic mendacity. Go try and win for a change. They did on the final stages of health insurance reform and what did they get? Only their biggest accomplishment in forty years…
OzoneR
@Elia Isquire:
What is your primary goal?
Corner Stone
@OzoneR: That’s fairly sad Nick. Even for you.
Chuck Butcher
@J.W. Hamner:
If we’d started with your sort 30 yrs ago we’d be in a bit better situation today … but you’ll never understand that.
Sarah, Proud and Tall
@Parallel 5ths (Jewish Steel):
Anderson blacklisted you. I have no idea why.
OzoneR
@Bob Loblaw:
That doesn’t guarantee anything. Healthcare reform was popular before it wasn’t. Scott Walker was popular and Democrats in Wisconsin were not until something happened.
A good “Obama is an unreasonable failure” in the midst of a government shutdown is all he needs to see his poll numbers tank.
Just judging by the growing reaction around me, I think it would have ended up a “pox on both houses” situation.
and here I thought it was a giant giveaway to insurance companies
MattR
@Mnemosyne:
Using this metpahor for a different topic, I am watching Andrew Sullivan on Bill Maher. I honestly think that Sullivan would applaud doctors who suggested amputation of the leg as a solution for Restless Leg Syndrom because at least they have the courage to try and tackle the problem.
Mike
@Sarah, Proud and Tall: OMG, that post was brilliant! I’m still on the floor laughing!
OzoneR
@Mike:
Tell that to the Hillary voters who voted for him because of Sarah Palin.
Elia Isquire
@OzoneR: Movement Liberalism.
Look: again, not blaming Obama for the state of the nation or for how this turned out.
But I get the sense that you feel like this is a right-wing country by nature and there’s no reason to want or expect anything to the left of Obama… (And I apologize if you don’t because then some straw-manning is about to follow)
And while I don’t think the first point is empirically true, I’m *certain* that it’s not a useful mindset for someone engaged in political activism.
When I look back 20 or 30 years — ever since the Democrats made the logical decision that they needed to be more “business friendly” — it doesn’t seem to me like things have gotten better. Obviously the Bush years were a disaster, but if you compare things in 1990 to 2000, I’d argue they weren’t much better then, either. They were better than they would’ve been with a Republican President throughout…but still pretty bad.
I just don’t see the point in doing this whole politics thing unless your goal is to have the country drifting in a positive direction. And after Citizens United and whatever horrors the SCOTUS has coming for us, it seems even more clear to me that it’s folly to waste your time and energy vociferously defending a politician who — though it’s probably not his fault — simply sucks less.
Rihilism
@Sarah, Proud and Tall: Dearest Sarah,
Highlarious!
Regards,
R
danimal
All in all, a bad deal, but better than a shutdown. I’ll never understand why the Dems didn’t pass a budget last year; that was a colossal screw-up.
That said, this isn’t done until the bill passes the House. I kinda doubt there will be more than token Dem “yes” votes; it will be interesting if Boehner can keep his caucus together. I suspect this week will be more interesting than expected.
FlipYrWhig
I don’t like this, and I also had been thinking that an actual shutdown would be rather bad for Republicans (meaning that, role-playing as Boehner, I would definitely want to strike a deal), but then I think about what would have to happen to _end_ the shutdown if one had come to pass. What would that be?
I find it really easy to imagine a couple of weeks of bad press for Republicans, but they gut it out… followed by frustration at both sides for how long it’s dragging on, and all the while there’s federal money not being spent, people out of work, services not being done… how do you get out of that once it begins, knowing that a lot of the Republicans in the Congress don’t particularly care if we _ever_ get out of it? What if the hostage-taker doesn’t really care if he dies? It kind of messes up your grid of options.
Uncle Clarence Thomas
@Corner Stone:
.
.
And let me be clear – FIERCE!
.
.
Davis X. Machina
@Corner Stone:
Our ass went into the air on the 4th of January of this year, on an ongoing basis, until 4 January 2013, and then only if we’re very good, and very lucky. It’s all damage control, until further notice.
The Queen’s not going to dissolve Parliament and issue writs for a new election for any date in between.
Overtaxed
So…the “fiscal conservatives” Republicans are going to cave and offer $39 billion in cuts which is NOWHERE NEAR the $100 billion they promised in the campaign, and continue to fund NPR, AND continue to fund Planned Parenthood (even after the O’Keffe investigation) that will kill 100s of thousands of unborn children next year?
Mr. Speaker, tonight the Tea Party is declaring war on the Republican establishment. Total, all-out, war!
FlipYrWhig
@danimal:
Dems who got nervous about reelection were concerned about providing additional fodder for negative ads, IIRC. So they figured, we’ll just wait until after the election. And then they got whomped in the election, and they just figured, well, who the fuck cares now? And here we are.
Vibrant Pantload, fka Studly Pantload
@Sarah, Proud and Tall:
Golfer’s. Fucking. Clap.
I raise my can of store brand seltzer water.
Corner Stone
@FlipYrWhig: And the cuts that will be agreed to? Long term? Short/mid term?
Historic.
MobiusKlein
@FlipYrWhig: and filibuster in the senate too.
Uncle Clarence Thomas
@Corner Stone:
.
.
Corner For The Thread Win!
Balloonbaggers – wave your ass in the air like you just don’t care!
.
.
danimal
@MobiusKlein: I’m not sure that a budget bill can be filibustered. I think it’s one of the exceptions.
Corner Stone
@Uncle Clarence Thomas: Uncle Clarence Thomas, would you say this deal is fiercely historic?
Or maybe even historically fierceful?
OzoneR
@Elia Isquire:
politically, this is a schizo country who can’t make up its mind and prefers to just slug along without any major changes, wave flags at parades and sing God Bless America.
Oh, I completely disagree. 2000 was MUCH better than 1990. On that I cannot agree, I’m sorry.
Now 2000 to maybe 1960, you have a point.
I think it makes it more important to defend a politician who simply sucks less. When you’re stuck in that reality, you grab any ounce of progressive you can and run with it.
Mike
@OzoneR: “Tell that to the Hillary voters who voted for him because of Sarah Palin.”
Heh… Fair point… I must admit, I have buyers remorse now… I doubt she would have been any more progressive, but Hillary wouldn’t have been begging the GOP’s favor on every issue and certainly would have known that they were out to destroy her and not bargaining in good faith. Obama STILL hasn’t learned that lesson, as evidenced by a recent news report that he was shocked and frustrated that Boehner moved the goalposts once again after agreeing to a deal. Really? C’mon!! You really were surprised at that, Mr. President? Honestly?
The Hillary voters were right about the experience thing. But, you think that by now he would have learned the simple fact that the GOP will bargain fairly with a Dem… ever… How many times do you have to be hit over the head until you learn that simple lesson?
LosGatosCA
Obama truly is a political appeaser. If he was so damn smart he actually would have not taken an out with the cash cut for Planned Parenthood exemption. Instead he would have let a shut down happen, blamed it on the social, not fiscal, issues of the Teabaggers and Obama would have inoculated himself against any blame right now and more importantly, would have taken subsequent shutdowns off the table since the Teabaggers would be seen as serially bargaining in bad faith.
Now, shutdown threats remain in play with every negotiation in the future. Obama will likely get re-elected, including my vote, but it doesn’t mean he’s doing a good job. He’s just not ruthless enough.
So far, the Republicans have kept his appointees to judgeships and the Fed bottled up, conned him into the precedent of a payroll tax holiday, got him to appoint the catfood commission, bullied him into reappointing Bernanke, delayed the health care bill for 6 months longer and watered down from what it should have been, and arbitrarily reduced and then hijacked a huge part of the stimulus for tax cuts.
It’s a pretty sorry record, even if you consider that half of these results were the best possible, getting rolled on the rest without ever taking a firm stand. He’s the master of taking the half or quarter loaf without ever even fighting for the full loaf.
Sure you have to pick your battles, but pick A battle once in a while.
Linda Binda
*reads UCT’s post*
*decides to shake her booty*
YAAAY.
I think the hardest question now isn’t about 2012 anymore; it’s about 2016.
Who’s the most exciting person the Democrats can put up for a vote that year? Does the Democratic party have enough of a Political Leader Factory™ that would produce enough interesting, viable candidates to run for president without Obama around anymore? This is something I’ve been worrying about for some time.
(And I will be 32, then. Eeew.)
robertdsc-PowerBook
I hate that the President said “the largest spending cut in history”. That’s not something to be proud of. It’s a fucking joke.
That said, I’m glad there’s no shutdown. I can go to work at my federal contracting job with one less thing to worry about.
Spaghetti Lee
@Linda Binda:
Hmmm…David Norris?
gwangung
I tend to think of it of as not abandoning a handhold until you’ve got the next handhold securely in your grasp. Certainly, Ella, Cornerstone and other folks is right in that these cuts suck and are, in the total picture, way less than satisfactory.
But getting from Point A to Point B is more than a matter of declaring that you want to do so. Defending a position or politician come hell or high water is not that palatable when the position is what we’re seeing now. But abandoning it for something that doesn’t have a solid basis and machine isn’t that wise either–you;re likely to lose everything (in my estimation).
General Stuck
And so is the danger for getting hit in the head with a meteorite, or run over by an ice cream truck, or a republican telling the truth. These things can happen, and so can republicans threatening to do anything that enters their pea brains. You just deal with one disaster at a time, because there is always another one going to happen. It’s called life.
Davis X. Machina
@robertdsc-PowerBook:
Enough people like hearing things like that to elect a government, however.
Corner Stone
We’ve given up everything. It no longer matters what is cut or what is not cut. As eventually it will all be tossed to the side.
The important part is where we gave up all ground on the debate.
It’s historic that we just cut spending.
We are so fucked and it doesn’t seem to register here.
Suffern ACE
@Linda Binda: When i start having those thoughts, they inevitably lead to “Evan Bayh.” Then I have trouble sleeping.
FlipYrWhig
@LosGatosCA:
That’s what I was thinking too. Then I started wondering about what it would take to _end_ a shutdown once it started. What do you think?
Let’s say the Tea Party gets the blame for starting it. They get a bunch of bad press. What happens after that? What makes them stop? What leads Boehner to cross them?
My Grand Unified Theory on what I think has completely warped politics is that I’m no longer sure the prospect of public backlash actually changes politicians’ minds. Democrats still act as if it does. Pundits still act as if it does. I don’t think it does. Republicans know they can do whatever they feel like and still get strong support just for being Republicans. If they lose their next election, oh well. I don’t think they have the same fear of reprisal that politicians are supposed to have. It’s kind of creepy. Creepier than the typical Republican, which is creepy enough as it is.
General Stuck
@Corner Stone:
You’re just disappointed that Obama is still president, and will be tomorrow too. And so will you pretend that you actually care about anything else but that fact.
dogwood
@Bob Loblaw: You’re right. Obama is popular. And the reason he is popular is because of how he handles shit like this. I was actually pleased that he took credit for the largest budget cuts in history. Americans love the idea of budget cuts, they just don’t like the effects. Democrats should act like they’re thrilled with this deal, and when the hankering starts on the next budget they can remind Americans they already cut to the bone. One advantage that Clinton had in his shutdown fight that Obama didn’t have was the fact that Medicare cuts were on the table in the 1996 deal. Planned Parenthood is important, but it doesn’t have the sweeping effect of Medicare. When the showdown on the next budget comes up Medicare and Medicaid will be the showpiece and that will give Democrats much more bargaining power. It will also be much closer to election time.
Corner Stone
@General Stuck: There’s always Lily Ledbetter, I guess.
Elia Isquire
@gwangung: I think that’s right but it’s a balance. The President is helped more in my estimation if he has a left that will keep him in office but will simultaneously constantly be carping at him for not doing enough. Where Obama and co. concern me is the efforts we’ve heard of since 2009 by them to corral the left and have complete authority over the so-called Professional Left. It’s a control freakery that is not surprising but is frustrating. I mean, surely Obama knows the famous FDR anecdote: I agree with you, now go and make me do it — right? Why doesn’t he want people making him do it?
Davis X. Machina
@Linda Binda: Someone we’re not even talking about now will surface. Obama’s election made for a deeper bench — more and different kinds of people are thinkable candidates now.
I think you won’t get another Evan Bayh again, ever.
FlipYrWhig
@Linda Binda:
At one point the smart money would have been on Brian Schweitzer. I don’t know if he’s still held in the same high regard. Mark Warner had a lot of buzz but has been invisible in the senate and is both ideologically and temperamentally lukewarm.
Mnemosyne
@Elia Isquire:
I don’t know that this is a right-wing country by nature, exactly, but I do think it’s a right-wing country by habit. I think that if you can present progressive goals as being “actually” conservative (health care reform helps business! gay people just want to live in the suburbs with their spouses!), it makes the pill go down easier for most Americans.
You know, that whole “moving the Overton Window” thing that people talk about. If we successfully move the window, then single-payer healthcare would be a centrist position, if not center-right. Either way, it wouldn’t be progressive anymore, the same way that the 40-hour work week isn’t considered progressive, just normal life.
Spaghetti Lee
@FlipYrWhig:
Look, Republicans are venal, stubborn, stupid, and hateful for the most part, but they’re not invincible, and it does us and our political movements a disservice to pretend that they are.
That said, I can’t name any reasonably sure leverage that the Democrats could use against them. It’s kind of like, hope the public really registers what’s going on, hope they actually blame the Republicans, hope they get mad enough to do something about it, and then you get to hoping that the Republicans actually care.
But still, they’re not invincible. If Boehner truly didn’t give a shit about public backlash, he wouldn’t have compromised. He was in the House in ’95, he knows how it works. There are definitely cracks in the armor.
Parallel 5ths (Jewish Steel)
@Sarah, Proud and Tall: An innocent jest during a foxhunt about his gelding!
That was 20 years ago. Talk about drama queens.
Uncle Clarence Thomas
@Corner Stone:
.
.
Perhaps we should simply call it Fistorical… All I can say for certain is that in all my days, I have never seen the Fierceometer pegged to O for so long.
.
.
Davis X. Machina
This actually impacts about 300 people. Most of whom are ineffectual by choice, and invite being ignored. It’s a tribute to them if they’re corraled.
The Party is women, people of color, union households, folks who make less than about $40k a year, the young ‘uns, and the GBLT community. For most of them ‘the left’ is the turn you make on the green arrow, on the drive to work.
The internets, and a quarter, will get you a ride on the subway. Don’t take it from me. Ask President Dean.
Mike
@Linda Binda: Kirsten Gillibrand is going to be a great president when she gets elected in 2016, mark my words.
Vibrant Pantload, fka Studly Pantload
@dogwood:
My thoughts, too. Obama singing praises of budget cuts now puts him in position to advise caution in cuts that are too deep going forward. May not play especially well to the base (and, yes, I do think budget cuts during times of high, stubborn unemployment is whacked), but further burnishes his “post-partisan” cred with the mods/indies. Obama has plenty he can still play-up to the base stemming from the efforts of the Pelosi-led house.
I’d like to think that just enough people were paying attention to the petulant demands of the House’s ‘baggers that the Republicans only hurt themselves with mainstream America this go-round. That their base is reportedly riled over this deal is syrup on the waffle.
FlipYrWhig
@Spaghetti Lee: I’m not saying there’s no solution, I’m saying I don’t know what the solution is. Boehner gives a shit, sure. But he’s one guy. He also has a couple dozen Scott Walkers in his caucus who feel like making grand gestures because it is their destiny, for whom howls of outrage only make them more convinced they’re doing The Right Thing.
Sarah, Proud and Tall
@Parallel 5ths (Jewish Steel):
He is a Vanderbilt, dear.
I’ll speak to Gloria and see if we can’t work something out.
How do you feel about grovelling public apologies?
ETA: Let me rephrase – “How do you feel about giving grovelling public apologies?”
Mnemosyne
@LosGatosCA:
Did you miss the part where teabagger queen Michele Bachmann was forced to back down and urge her fellow Republicans in the Tea Party Caucus to vote for this deal when she’s been screeching for a shutdown for weeks?
The Republicans folded. They got pushed to the wall, they got a whole lot of bad publicity for being willing to shut down the government over condoms, and they folded. They gave in. They surrendered under Democratic pressure.
For two years, the Republicans have been an implacable monolith, and tonight they crumbled and made a deal with the Kenyan usurper. That’s going to piss off a lot of teabaggers, and it’s not going to give the Republicans a better bargaining position next time now that we know they can be had.
Elia Isquire
@Davis X. Machina: What? You’re conflating arguments. I’m not saying the prof left is the base. I’m saying they’re the elite of the political left wing movement in the US. If you dont think elites matter greatly in our political system — one way or another — youre kidding yourself.
Morbo
Looks like a big shit sandwich from here.
Martin
@Linda Binda:
Franken or Weiner.
Elia Isquire
@Mike: I live in her former district. This would shock me — her being good more than being President.
Davis X. Machina
@Mnemosyne: On the far more important debt ceiling vote, Boehner now has a.) far less credibility left, and b.) his presumptively orange balls are in the bankers’ pockets.
This is, to quote Churchill, not the end. It is not even the beginning of the end. But it is the end of the beginning.
Tissue Thin Pseudonym (JMN)
@danimal: The details are complicated, but you basically get to pass one bill a year through reconciliation. It’s called reconciliation, because it’s meant to reconcile the differences that the normal budgetary process didn’t take care of. Everything in it must have something directly to do with either taxation or spending.
You can filibuster any other bill, whether it’s budget related or not. It’s way too early in the year to go to reconciliation now, unless it’s for something like HCR. Reid needs to save it for when he’s trying to get the whole 2012 budget passed.
Martin
@Mike: Yeah, another good choice. The Dems have a pretty deep bench, overall.
Elia Isquire
@dogwood: This was really interesting and a way I hadn’t thought of it. The only worry is that the cuts depress the recovery but as long as that doesnt happen, you very well may be onto something.
Yutsano
@Mike: This. This. This. This. This!
FlipYrWhig
@Elia Isquire:
I think that qualifies as “damning with faint praise.”
Spaghetti Lee
@Martin:
Oh, either one of them would be glorious. Or else Feingold or Sherrod Brown or Bernie (eh, maybe he’s too old.)
I can dream, can’t I?
Elia Isquire
@FlipYrWhig: abso-fucking-lutely. But it is what it is.
Davis X. Machina
@Elia Isquire: Elites do matter — just not those elites.
I remember being at the ’04 caucus for a small Maine town, and on the first pass — before thresholds and switching take effect — everyone –everyone — standing in the Kerry corner was a town or state elected official, had been a town or state elected official, or was running for town or state office in the fall.
That’s when I knew Dean’s goose was cooked — and I was a Dean delegate.
I’ve been a card-carrying Democratic Socialist since Michael Harrington/DSOC days. I have no illusions about the power of ideas, even very good, very right ideas.
Mike
@Spaghetti Lee: Sherrod Brown is not as crazy as it sounds… He has rural populist appeal despite being very progressive. He’d also likely win his key home state of Ohio. Still, Wall Street would never allow him to get the nomination.
Comrade Luke
In Seattle, they just showed us poll results for the question “Who would you hold most responsible for a shutdown?”
– 26% say Republicans
– 27% say Democrats
– 46% say both
Good times.
Elia Isquire
@Davis X. Machina: Again Im not talking about winning elections. Dont you see how important it is to have a radical wing in your bloc? the GOP has had an enormous amount of success this past generation and much of it is b/c there are some fucking OUT THERE people in their constituency and among their elites. and it can be dicey at times for them sure but it allows them to seem more reasonable than they are. im saying that i dont understand why obama doesnt basically do the opposite of what he does: behind the scenes let the Unreasonable Leftists do their thing while in public act like they’re not his worry. He seems to get pouty when they complain about him and tries to keep them on a short leash behind the scenes…I don’t get it.
Martin
@Mike: And in order to win the general, all of these candidates including Brown will need to move a bit to the right, and half the people here will lose their shit, call them sellouts to the base, and we’ll do this all again.
The only one that wouldn’t would be Sanders, and that’s because he’s not a Dem and wouldn’t run as one.
Davis X. Machina
I’ve been a card-carrying Democratic Socia1ist since Michael Harrington/DSOC days. I have no illusions about the power of ideas, even very good, very right ideas.
Bob Loblaw
@dogwood:
Well then I hope none of those effects show up. Because that would be just like a real bummer, man.
@Mnemosyne:
They crumbled all the way to getting 2/3 of what they wanted. Of a budget, that when passed without a single Democratic vote in the House and then completely laughed at by the Senate, was considered absolutely insane. Man, what a travesty for them! I hope they hold Planned Parenthood hostage all the time now, because it turns out it’s a real loser politically…
Can we stop the obsession with worrying about which partisan side won, and pay a little more attention to the fact that the American people collectively and categorically lost again instead? This country is an embarrassment right now.
wasabi gasp
Ten billion extra, just to keep the baby killing place open, is a lot of scratch. Make it worth it. Chop-chop.
Mnemosyne
@Davis X. Machina:
And the bankers are not going to stand for having the US default on its debt. There will be a whole lot of meetings like the one Ned Beatty had with Peter Finch in Network if those pissant teabaggers think they can thumb their noses at the big money boys.
The popcorn moment will be if the teabaggers decide they don’t have to listen to the bankers. Then the shit will really hit the fan.
And, as I said, the Democrats now know that the Republicans will crumble under pressure after all.
What can I say — I had a yummy cupcake (literally) and the sugar is making me optimistic again. Tomorrow I may not be as sanguine. But I do think this moment is important — the moment the Republicans capitulated.
Davis X. Machina
@Elia Isquire:
In this regard he’s a very pale imitation of LBJ, for example, and that’s a president whose leadership skills and persuasive ability come in for very high praise here on a regular basis.
Presidents do this. Have since at least the days of Lincoln. Unfortunate, but necessary, part of coalition politics.
My official party is so small — 5800 members nationally — that it doesn’t even nominate candidates, and it’s still a herd of cats. Getting anything done with 70 million voters is a job I can’t begin to imagine doing.
AkaDad
@Mnemosyne:
Every country has national health care, if we want to compete with them, we need to remove the burden of health care from American businesses. Single-payer = pro-business.
Tissue Thin Pseudonym (JMN)
@Elia Isquire: Yes, it’s important to have a radical wing in your bloc. Critically important. But, and this is key, they need to be focusing their shrillness at the other side. They also need to be working to organize and help push the Democrats to the left. Complaining that they hate the Democratic Party and that they are seriously considering not voting for it isn’t helpful. The Republicans didn’t benefit from that set of radicals in their midst. They were nothing but a counter-productive pain in the ass. It was the ones who spent their time listening to talk radio and then argued with liberals and talking to moderates about how great they were that were valuable to building their success.
Mnemosyne
@Elia Isquire:
They’ve had an enormous amount of electoral success while driving the country off a cliff politically and economically. I really don’t think that doing the same thing from the left is a terrific idea.
Uncle Clarence Thomas
@Comrade Luke:
.
.
There is no way that’s an accurate poll.
.
.
Yutsano
@Comrade Luke: There’s that damn number again.
Comrade Luke
@Davis X. Machina: Where can I go to read more on your party?
Tissue Thin Pseudonym (JMN)
@AkaDad:
As soon as you can convince business of that, you’ll be on to something.
Elia Isquire
@Davis X. Machina: I’d give you this more willingly if he was also as cutthroat as LBJ (or even a pale version) with his opponents. I think in some ways Obama is a good example of why you want your president to be kind of a terrible human being…
Also I dont think the left has had much institutional power behind its ideas, so I wouldnt agree with being so dismissive of their worth. I just dont think liberals are going to see policies they honestly are happy with until they start focusing their energies outside of the conventional party/electoral structure. And im not saying third party — im saying treat national elections as 2nd or 3rd tier concerns. And not all liberals, obviously — but the ones who are content with spending their lives building the framework that hopefully someone else can use to great effect.
Martin
@Tissue Thin Pseudonym (JMN): The GOP has 3 radical wings. Democrats had more at one point. Those radical wings fractured and destroyed the Dems for a while. The GOP is straining to not do the same themselves right now.
Suck It Up!
http://politicalticker.blogs.cnn.com/2011/03/31/american-sauce-beware-biden%E2%80%99s-math/
Mnemosyne
@Bob Loblaw:
Every other time, they’ve gotten 100 percent of what they wanted, or pretty darn near. This time, they had to settle for 2/3rds. Next time, we don’t have to go down to 2/3rds, because we know they’ll crumble eventually, so we can hold out longer than when we thought they would never compromise.
The righty blogs that are losing their shit over this are correct when they say that this showed weakness on the part of the Republicans, and it’s a weakness we hadn’t seen in them for the previous two years. It puts the Democrats in a better negotiating position for both the debt ceiling fight and the FY2012 fight.
Davis X. Machina
@Elia Isquire:
Well, that’s why I’m active in DSA/USA. I no more expect social democracy from the Democratic Party than I expect my ice cream sundae to be hot.
Comrade Luke
@AkaDad:
I totally agree, and it’s why I’ve been saying for…oh, probably almost two years now…that my biggest nightmare is that Republicans somehow manage to use this argument to take the lead in passing health care “reform” themselves.
And we all know how that would turn out.
Elia Isquire
@Tissue Thin Pseudonym (JMN): No disagreements about the idea that those who just sit around and bitch aren’t useful. And I agree that they should focus far more firepower on the other side. But I think it’s important that a distance is maintained — even just superficially — between them and the party’s leadership.
OzoneR
@Mike:
and she still would’ve compromised with them anyway because that’s how you govern a damn country.
Mnemosyne
BTW, the AP can go fuck itself:
I missed when the constitution was amended to require a supermajority for Senate votes. Assholes.
Elia Isquire
@Davis X. Machina: agreed and well put.
AkaDad
@Tissue Thin Pseudonym (JMN):
I never hear anyone making that argument. If everyone on the left started to make that argument, it could convince them.
dogwood
Republicans have a built-in electoral advantage that isn’t about the ideological nature of the country. It’s not about numbers; it’s about intensity. That’s why they can hold out longer than Democrats. Republican voters are reliable. They’ll crawl over hot coals to vote. Democrats don’t have that luxury. I live in a county that is pretty even in terms of the party id of registered voters, but Republicans win every state and local election. A minority of voters in Wisconsin approve of Scott Walker, but that minority was still able to keep his right wing compadre on the Supreme Court. I’m glad Planned Parenthood was saved. I wish more of the women who used those vital services voted, but sadly they don’t.
Parallel 5ths (Jewish Steel)
@Sarah, Proud and Tall: Never!
Besides, I already have my invitation to the Potomac Hunt Ball. The Du Ponts, at least, appreciate my finer points. And with that, I shall have to be content until certain sniffy young scions can come down off their high stallions.
Tissue Thin Pseudonym (JMN)
@Martin: Right now, the GOP reminds me a lot of the British Labour Party around 1980. The nature of our political institutions has prevented them from paying the price for it, but I suspect that that’s a temporary situation.
OzoneR
@Mnemosyne:
and after that when we finally achieve single payer, the left will call it a huge sellout because it’s centrist.
Good times.
Suck It Up!
Possible 2016 Dem candidates?
Gillibrand? – eh. I like her but she is missing something that I see in Debbie Wasserman Schultz (DNC).
Weiner, Franken, Sanders, Kucinich? Hell No, Sadly No, Hell No and Fuck No.
Why is no one looking at the governor from Maryland?
http://www.gov.state.md.us/ – Martin O’Malley
Yutsano
@dogwood:
Minor point of order: that matter isn’t settled yet. And it’s gonna be fought out for quite some time before it all comes to pass.
AkaDad
@Comrade Luke:
I don’t think they would, since they’re so ideologically opposed to single-payer.
Mnemosyne
@Elia Isquire:
I almost hate to mention this, but this is the exact same conclusion a lot of liberals came to after the disastrous Democratic Convention of 1968. Withdrawing from electoral politics was a huge mistake that left a vacuum for the Republicans to fill and we’ve been dealing with the consequences ever since.
Vibrant Pantload, fka Studly Pantload
@Martin:
I love me some Weiner, but dunno if contemporary America is ready for another Truman. Yet I don’t know that House member is the best and highest use of his talents.
The times will shape the field as much as who wants to participate, so’s I do think it’s a bit early for handicapping. Gotta think too that the Obama administration will do its own assessing and maneuvering to set up its heir apparent, relegating our own prognostications to — well, so much blathering on the internets.
Elia Isquire
@Suck It Up!: Carcetti!
AkaDad
@OzoneR:
LOL
Blue Carolinian
@Suck It Up!
Carcetti ’16!
Mike
@dogwood: “Republican voters are reliable. They’ll crawl over hot coals to vote. ”
Mabye because Republicans actually deliver to their base. I’d be excited to vote, too, if the guy whom I voted for actually did what I wanted. That happens all too rarely with Demcoratic voters. They have to pick someone who might do 20% of what they want and badmouth the rest. No wonder they tend to stay home.
Mnemosyne
@Vibrant Pantload, fka Studly Pantload:
That’s what she said.
Okay, it may be time for me to start getting ready for bed.
Davis X. Machina
But I liked the British Labour party around 1980. Anthony Wedgwood-Benn, and Michael Foot, and Billy Bragg singing The Internationale, and Clause Four….
Don’t take my youth from me!
Sniff…. (Wipes something from eye…)
Tissue Thin Pseudonym (JMN)
@Vibrant Pantload, fka Studly Pantload:
I suspect that it is. To me, everything about him screams that he would make a terrible, terrible executive. In the House, he plays a very valuable role just being sarcastic and witty.
Mike
@OzoneR: Of course she would have. But, she might have taken a stand or two along the way, instead of immediately capitulating as an opening move. She might have even won a few of those battles by taking a stand.
Linda Binda
Thanks to all who’ve responded to my post. :)
Sometimes, I feel the Democratic machine is broken. For one thing, I think it’s folly to keep having to bank on Ohio and Florida to win elections, just because almost all of the South and a good chunk of the Midwest is nonviable. I don’t think that’s right.
I live in Atlanta. Georgia is very Republican now. The last time a Democrat took my state, I was 8 in 1992 with Clinton. :P Back in 2008, McCain took my state by about 5% more than Obama, and it forced the Senate race to an admittedly pointless runoff.
I’m of many minds, the foremost being, I don’t think there’s a real reward in this city, this state, or this country, for being a black, pro-gay rights, atheist liberal. None at all. The only reason I vote anymore, not that I’m a voting veteran (I’m 27, y’all), is in hopes that Clayton County (yeah, I live THERE! Working class black people — eew!) gets out of its funk, because voting statewide for anything now is pointless.
Yeah, Obama compromises too much and pisses off a chunk of his base, but you know what? Who is the alternative right now, especially considering the next four years? Who is the party gonna come up with who is electable outside of the east and west coasts? That’s my question. I also wonder whether there are enough people participating in the system enough for anything to matter, or if participation even does anything. I wish I could do something, but I’m broke, I don’t drive, I don’t have a lot of friends, and I’m unemployed, so.. :P
I’d run, but no one knows who I am, only my [long-dead] grandfather was rich back in Nigeria, I’m a democratic soshulist who doesn’t care for limitations on abortions (I really, really don’t), and I’ve got a funky African last name. I’ll probably be called an anchor baby (especially since my parents had been in the States at least 5 years before my birth) and an anti-colonialist or whatever, too. Yay. Especially since I’m Igbo, I’ll also be suspected of wanting to form secessionist movements based on oil, my tribe, and religion! My family’s Christian, but they’re *Adventists!* Oops! (CULT!)
@Planned Parenthood Oh, no, the babies! We’re still funding baby-killing centers! Why? That’s wrong! We need *more* pregnant teens and neglected, lost, abandoned children in the foster care system! We need more adopted kids who are made to be extensions of their parents’ inflated egos to save their broken marriages! More unwanted, badly raised, abused children! MORE! We have seven billion people on Earth, and we’re undergoing an impending environmental disaster within in the next few decades! MORE PEOPLE, MORE!! WE HAVE A SHORTAGE!
Davis X. Machina
@Mike: Which is why abortion’s been illegal since Reagan’s second term, right after the US invasion of Nicaragua.
A political party not composed largely of inveterate cock-teasers can’t swing an election.
Sarah, Proud and Tall
@Parallel 5ths (Jewish Steel):
Dear old Elise and Pierre. How are they both?
I haven’t seen them since that unfortunate Black and White Ball where Megan McArdle soiled herself in the buffet line.
Elia Isquire
@Tissue Thin Pseudonym (JMN): he’s running for nyc mayor next in any event.
Tissue Thin Pseudonym (JMN)
@Davis X. Machina:
Remember the war against Franco?
That’s the kind where each of us belongs.
Though he may have won all the battles,
We had all the good songs.
Mike
@AkaDad: “Single-payer = pro-business.”
In theory, yes, but the Galtian overlords of those businesses don’t want to have to share their boutique doctors with the lowly peons and will continue to fight it, even if it is good for their business’ bottom line.
Spaghetti Lee
@Davis X. Machina:
I didn’t recognize any of those names, so I did some research:
Benn, second only to John Parker as Labour’s longest serving Member of Parliament, has come top in several polls as one the most popular politicians in Britain.
That sounds like a guy who had a successful career. Of course, if the parallel holds, that means Bachmann will be in office until 2053 and eventually become one of the most popular politicians in history.
Martin
@Mike:
Really? Roe v Wade has been abolished? That constitutional amendment banning gay marriage? DADT? Opposing civil rights? Social Security privatized?
Long term, the GOP has lost every single policy battle except for taxation. Every one.
Davis X. Machina
@Tissue Thin Pseudonym (JMN): A transparent rip-off:
God bless the Irish — for He hath made them mad.
All their wars are merry — and all their songs are sad.
Tissue Thin Pseudonym (JMN)
@Elia Isquire:
Pardon me. I’m having Ed Koch flashbacks.
Bob Loblaw
We are a deeply silly nation. Perhaps we just need more cooperation with the people who wanted to defund the EPA. That’ll probably do the trick…
Mike
@Mnemosyne: “And the bankers are not going to stand for having the US default on its debt. There will be a whole lot of meetings like the one Ned Beatty had with Peter Finch in Network if those pissant teabaggers think they can thumb their noses at the big money boys.”
Maybe. But, if those bankers knew about it beforehand, they could sure make a ton of dough shorting the inevitable financial chaos that would result.
dogwood
@Yutsano:
Sorry, even if she ekes out a win, the her percentage of victory will in no way reflect Republican approval numbers in Wisconsin. The people who love Walker got out and voted. A large swathe who don’t approve didn’t bother to vote.
Tissue Thin Pseudonym (JMN)
@Davis X. Machina: Don’t be dissing Tom Lehrer, or we’re going to have problems here.
Davis X. Machina
@Spaghetti Lee: Foot’s widespread popularity came post-Thatcher, when he was marginalized, and eccentric, and old, and cute. Back in the day, he was hated, and feared, and loved, in equal measure — and not just by Tories. Blairism and New Labour was a reaction against the Labour world that Foot and his generation made, and that made them.
Think of all the bullshit eulogizing by GOP heavy hitters for the dying Teddy Kennedy, and you’ve got the idea.
Mike
@Martin: Well, the sure don’t co-opt talking points from their opposition and belittle their base voters like so many Democrats do. If anything, they go to the other extreme! No wonder the GOP base gets fired up! Meanwhile, we’ve got Dems saying how great that we made major cuts to their voters’ favorite programs! That will get Dem voters walking over hot coals to vote!
Davis X. Machina
@Tissue Thin Pseudonym (JMN): No dis of Lehrer, nay rather praise, for as T.S. Eliot said, “Mere artists have ‘influences’. Geniuses steal“.
Comrade Luke
@dogwood:
How, after everything that’s been going on in Wisconsin, could those people not bother to vote?
Comrade Luke
I think it’s hilarious that we have two conversations going on right now: one stating that the Democrats don’t do enough for their base, which means that people won’t go out and vote, and another talking about how after everything that’s been going on in Wisconsin, people still couldn’t be bothered to vote.
Vibrant Pantload, fka Studly Pantload
@Martin:
Seconded. Make no mistake – when Republicans attain positions of power, they’re pretty damn good at getting every thing they, *personally* want – see, also, graft, cronyism, et al. But their base – lots of sizzle, but damn little steak (well, beyond localities and states, anyhoo).
Tissue Thin Pseudonym (JMN)
@Mike: I don’t think you understand what the Democrats’ base actually is.
Tissue Thin Pseudonym (JMN)
@Comrade Luke:
Except that they did. For a springtime election for the Wisconsin Supreme Court, the turnout was enormous, on both sides. Check out the history of those elections: incumbent justices have been defeated exactly three times in 160 years. Even making it close was an upset. A moral victory doesn’t help a lot, but as an indication of the tide turning, it’s pretty impressive.
Villago Delenda Est
@Mike:
If the GOP actually delivered to their base (the bible thumping ignorant twits, in particular) then Keith Ellison would never have been allowed to sit in the House, Roe v. Wade would have been overturned long ago, and our children would be praying to the asshole deity of a bunch of goat herders in the Middle East in school every day.
They can’t deliver to their base. They have to keep them agitated. So they’ll never deliver on the really big things. They will deliver tax cuts to the parasite overclass, though, who pay the actual bills.
Mnemosyne
@Mike:
Some of them could, if only a few people knew about it. And, frankly, our banksters probably are stupid enough to think that they’ll automatically profit while their competitors go begging. Meanwhile, all of their competitors have the same information and are thinking the same thing.
But someone needs to remind them that if you collapse the system, you may as well start using your cash as toilet paper, because it’s not going to be worth a thing anymore.
dogwood
@Mike:
I don’t agree. A large part of the Democratic base are poor, many of them minorities. It’s important to note that middle class and upper middle class minorities actually vote at a higher rate than their white counterparts. Voting is a class based, not a race based activity. These people don’t fail to vote because they are only getting 20% of what they want. They don’t vote because it isn’t part of their culture. Their parents don’t vote. They don’t see the relationship between their live and public policy. That’s why it’s so easy for Republicans to screw these people and why advocating for the poor pays so little dividend at the ballot box for Democrats.
dogwood
@Villago Delenda Est:
Perfectly said. They deliver to their corporate base. But the foot soldiers, not so much.
Yutsano
@dogwood:
Okay now you’re making stuff up. Poor minorities tend to not vote because there are structural barriers that keep them from voting. And they do indeed have long memories, not to mention oral and written traditions of their recent forefathers who risked literally everything to get them the right to vote. But if the rich white election handlers make the precinct so far away or in a spot not easily served by public transportation, it’s hard to get away from the meager job just to vote.
Parallel 5ths (Jewish Steel)
@Sarah, Proud and Tall: It’s a pity about Pierre. To see him waddling around, his adult diapers clearly chafing him beneath his khakis, would be enough to break your heart.
Sadder still, the fortunes of “Joe Fucking Biden” (as he mutters to himself bemusedly in quieter moments)seems to have driven him positively doolally. I guess the fact that JFB is a mere heartbeat from the prize he once coveted is what finally broke his mind.
Despite his advanced senility Pierre still able to pursue his hobbies. Happily, not the merest pretext of sanity is required for his monthly Outside The Box column for the WSJ.
Yutsano
@Parallel 5ths (Jewish Steel): This call and response has great potential to turn into high performance art. Mind if I make popcorn?
Sly
If he ran for the nomination, there is no way that the perpetually dissatisfied internet left would ever abandon Anthony Wiener over his ultra-hawkish views on Israel/Palestine. Ditto for Alan Grayson. Because they’re True Progressives™.
Vibrant Pantload, fka Studly Pantload
@Yutsano:
Here and there, yes. And the Republicans sure are working on expanding these hurdles. But far and wide? I don’t see evidence of this. Instead, I sense that what happens is there is a feeling of disconnection between this constituency and whatever-the-hell is happening in DC (or the state capitol). There are ways to address this, but overall, when you’re fighting and scraping for food and shelter, always looking over your shoulder, talk of capital gains taxes and whatnot amongst moneyed politicos may as well be happening in a cartoon parallel universe.
Mnemosyne
@Yutsano:
I think that’s kind of what Mike is saying, though. Quick example from my white, suburban childhood: my mom used to take me into the booth with her on Election Day to “help” her vote and explain to me why voting and being politically active was important. I’ve voted in pretty much every election I could since I was 19, midterms included.
If you’re working a crappy job and have to take two buses to get to your polling place, you’re not going to be able to do that with your child (or you’re going to have to be hella dedicated to the political process), so you’re not going to be able to instill in them that Voting Is Important the way my mom did.
Not only that, but it may be more likely that you’re going to think that your vote is useless and pointless since obviously no one is interested in making it easy for you to cast it, so you’re not going to be excited about politics at home and making your child want to vote.
Not cultural like “Oh, that’s just how Those People are.” More American cultural, as in we as a culture make it very difficult for working class people to vote, especially if they’re minorities, so they’re less likely to think their vote counts than a middle class person who has a polling place within a couple blocks of their house and whose employer lets them come in a little late on Election Day so they have time to vote.
And, as Mike said, it’s much more class based than race based. I wouldn’t be surprised to find out that a larger proportion of working class black people vote than working class white people even if the overall numbers for all working class people are low.
Yutsano
@Vibrant Pantload, fka Studly Pantload: I think what you and I are saying is not incompatible. dogwood wasn’t wrong in identifying (as you did and I alluded to) that there is indeed a big class barrier to voting. But saying that it’s cultural smacks of dismissiveness to me, as if nothing can be done to change it and to try would be impossibly difficult. There are a number of reasons why poor minorities don’t vote, but blaming their “culture” isn’t helpful.
@Mnemosyne: I could be reading hir wrong, and if so I’ll walk it back. But the sentence as constructed alludes to that conclusion. I can see other interpretations however, so maybe I just need clarification.
Mnemosyne
@Vibrant Pantload, fka Studly Pantload:
@Yutsano:
I think it also has to do with what kay’s been saying lately about people treating voting as a privilege, not a right. Our whole culture really does treat it that way, because otherwise we would make it easier for people to vote by doing things like making Election Day a federal holiday, requiring polling places to be within X distance of the person’s residence, requiring that polling places have enough machines to serve all of the registered voters in that precinct, not just the ones they guess will show up, etc.
I think it’s only natural that working class people think their votes don’t count, so they don’t bother to vote. Sucky, but natural.
Sarah, Proud and Tall
@Parallel 5ths (Jewish Steel):
Elise was always the brains in that family.
I saw poor Ruth Madoff the other day. She seemed depressed. I can’t imagine why.
Calouste
@Spaghetti Lee:
Benn’s like a Kennedy. Left, but very upper class. Both his grandfathers were Members of Parliament, and his father even made it to the cabinet and was created Viscount for his troubles.
dogwood
@Yutsano:
I didn’t say there aren’t structural disadvantages that make it more difficult for poor people to vote. Those disadvantages make it more likely that poor people don’t develop the habit of voting, and I understand that. The point I was trying to make, perhaps inartfully, is that Republicans have a smaller party, but because its voters are more reliable, they can afford to be assholes and still win reelection.
Yutsano
@dogwood: Okay, you meant culture of the parties, not the culture of minority voters. Got it now. I didn’t think you were trying to be willfully overprivileged there, it just stuck in my brain like that. Peace beer?
dogwood
@Mnemosyne:
This thread is long, but I’m the one that said voting is class based and not race based. And you are absolutely right. Minorities actually vote at a higher rate than their white counterparts of similar socioeconomic background. The least likely voter in America is a white, uneducated, single, male aged 18-25.
dogwood
@Yutsano: Yeah, I didn’t mean culture the way you interpreted it. And I’m not blaming poor people for not voting at higher rates than the more affluent. I merely meant that voting is for many people a habit they develop from watching their families and friends engage in the activity. If poor people have lower voting rates, then it would stand to reason fewer poor people would become habitual voters.
Cheryl from Maryland
@Suck It Up!: Maybe, if Maryland successfully passes the progressive laws it just manages not to — this year, same sex partner marriage and more wind power missed out.
joe in oklahoma
Boehner may have had the most to lose, but he came out the winner. He managed his caucus and got the WH to agree to more cuts than expected. It all went exactly according to GOP plan: Demand super extreme agenda, then settle for merely extreme agenda.
And the WH ends up trying to say now that they were for more cuts, even after bashing these cuts just 3 weeks ago.
jinxtigr
Boehner compromised, he didn’t take all he wanted, he cut a deal and he let down the Tea Partiers.
I’m prepared to consider that some government spending may be bad on the grounds of, who escalated it very severely? Bush did. Obama inherited a great deal of stuff Bush created. I realize the Republicans want to kill off everything Bush DIDN’T make, but that doesn’t mean government spending in the abstract is sacrosanct.
Good on Obama for clinging to stuff like Planned Parenthood and the EPA. The truth is, it is wrong to run the government like Bush did, and when somewhat less than half the country is batshit insane and clamoring for tire rims and cyanide for dinner, they are represented in our system! It’s not about obliterating them from the public sphere just because they’re crazy, they are represented and we’ve got to deal with it, cope with representing some of what they demand, just as they have to cope with not getting everything (or indeed the biggest things!) they want.
I’m grudgingly impressed here. It looks like Obama went into the burning building and rescued a couple kids. Shame about the building which shouldn’t have been burning- but who rescued PP and EPA?
FlipYrWhig
If you think Democrats don’t deliver the goods to their base, and that this is a consistent problem, it’s possible that you’re mistaking what their base really is. The Democratic base is NOT blogosphere liberals. If you’ve heard about and been upset by Bradley Manning, you’re already not part of the base, you are a member of a very small niche. You may be smart and righteous, but there aren’t many of you.
Mike
@FlipYrWhig: People always say, that, “Liberals aren’t the base.” Which is fine, except they never seem to identify who they think the base really is? But, let’s break down the coalition and see how the Dems have delivered for them. Workers who make under $60,000 a year? They got… well… very little. Unions? Employee Free Choice never even got a vote. Minorities? Well, they got ACORN voted out of existence by Dems. Students? Well, their student loan payments have increased with this budget bill alone. The only part of our coalition that got something this round was women, but even that is debatable, since the anti-women riders would never have passed the Senate under any circumstances.
Pretty much every aspect of this budget bill whacks at every part of our electoral coalition, and the Democratic leaders are praising how wonderful the whole thing is!
FlipYrWhig
@Mike: I’m not sure the Democrats have a single base. I don’t disagree that Democratic policy-making tends to favor the upper-middle-class, with a thin veneer of sympathy for women, gays, and racial and ethnic minorities. And I assume that a large proportion of the praise is a ritualized kabuki performance (for the benefit of middle-of-the-road pundits and self-avowed moderates), not a true feeling.