Do Liberals Deserve Larry Summers as Fed Chair?

[xchrom]

http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2013/08/do-liberals-deserve-larry-summers-as-fed-chair/279072/


The Tea Party shows that the right wing understands the game: If you want policy outcomes, you've got to throw your weight around. Progressives don't get it.


The conventional wisdom in the political class is that Tea Party-inspired primary challenges of recent years have had decidedly mixed success. Sure, Ted Cruz, Rand Paul, and Mike Lee have beaten sitting senators and establishment-anointed candidates, changing the issue terrain and nature of debate in the Senate. But most Tea Party candidates imploded.

That view largely misses the point. Interest groups seeking more influence within their party should think more like class-action trial lawyers: While it would be great to beat the company, the real reason to fight is not to win a 43-cent check for every plaintiff but to change corporate behavior in a lasting way.

Seen this way, even widely mocked far-right challengers have had lasting impact. Although Senate nominees Christine O’Donnell (Delaware), Sharron Angle (Nevada), and Richard Mourdock (Indiana) lost, their primary wins over establishment candidates terrified some other senators, causing them to move right. Witness the pandering of Senate Republican leaders Mitch McConnell and John Cornyn since 2010 to their home-state counterparts Paul and Cruz. Even very marginal primary losers like Arizona’s J.D. Hayworth had an impact, temporarily moving John McCain to the right on key issues like immigration. (McCain, who appears unlikely to seek reelection in 2016, has since shifted back.)

When tough votes arise, many Republican senators can’t help but consider ex-Senators Dick Lugar of Indiana and Robert Bennett of Utah -- both unceremoniously booted in primaries -- which usually leads to appeasement of the Tea Party. That’s the nature of politics. As congressional scholar Gary Jacobson has documented, politicians run scared, altering their behavior in anticipation of future challenges. That’s why it is helpful, but not necessary, for interest groups seeking power within a party to get a scalp.

[MannyGoldstein]

1. Sadly, true.

Only scalps will get their attention.

[marmar]

2. k/r

[BeyondGeography]

3. The Tea Party has wrecked the GOP as a national party,

driven Congressional approval ratings to record lows and blown slam dunk elections such as the IN and MO Senate races. They are an unqualified style and substance disaster.

On the positive side, most progressive policies have strong public support. But using Tea Party tactics...forget it. It's not only a loser, it requires a culture (think of all the people here who scream about imagined, let alone real, authoritarianism) that is not appealing to most Democrats nor most voters.

[n2doc]

4. Except they are driving the national agenda

We shall see if voters punish them in 2014 for it. I am not holding my breath.

[nashville_brook]

5. have they? really?

b/c we're not seeing that out "on the ground." instead we're seeing whole states taken over (FL, WI, NC) and gerrymandered to the point that it won't matter. they can run stuffed bunnies for office and they'll win.

[BeyondGeography]

8. Let's talk past each other why don't we?

I said "national party." They are pursuing a destructive path on any number of huge issues that will keep them out of the WH at the very least and deny them real congressional legislative achievements until they either grow up or move on. Unless, if course, we emulate their tactics from the left.

[dawg]

9. Gridlock *is* a legislative achievement for them.

Shutting down government is kind of their reason to be.

[BeyondGeography]

11. Except they haven't shut down the government, Boehner's OH numbers have gone south of 20 percent

probably because the Right thinks he's a sellout, 40 votes to repeal Obamacare have yielded nothing and Marco Rubio had his nuts cut off for being a good soldier on immigration, after which he threatened to shut down the gov't if Obama funds his own Supreme Court-certified health care law (which the few sober people left like Michael Steele calls "suicidal.&quot

[Egalitarian Thug]

7. No, they didn't. They beat up the leadership pretty good and have gained considerable influence

over the direction that party is taking. The fact that they are completely stupid and insane (and I do mean that literally), is irrelevant.

For a very long time now, the Democratic leadership has relied on being not republican while they've imposed their corporate agenda on us. That's not going to work for them very much longer.

[BuelahWitch]

6. The Tea Party can "throw their weight around" because of Koch money

Those of us who oppose the Third Way agenda don't have anyone like that. That's the difference.

[Octafish]

10. It's not that Liberals don't get it. It's the Party leadership works for the Have-Mores, too.

How many petitions have Liberals and Progressive Democrats signed? How many millions of letters and phone calls have they made to Congress and the White House on fiscal and monetary policy? And what happens?

They get the circular file and the rich get richer. Thanks to Corporate McPravda, the only ones on the tee vee during election seasons are the most conservatives of Democrat.

And We the People get the likes of Larry Summers, Jack Lew and Penny Pritzker.

Like their Wall Street GOP War Party counterparts, Masters of Trickle Down, all.

Sorry to sound so negative, xchrom. I'm in Detroit and things are looking a lot like fascism.

[Enthusiast]

12. One thing for certain.

Doing the same thing over and over with disappointing results won't help. Time to change up.