Independents Finally Getting Fed Up

[jefferson_dem]

Independents Finally Getting Fed Up
—By Kevin Drum
| Fri Aug. 26, 2011 10:49 AM PDT.

Jon Chait points out that the results of the latest Pew poll are pretty remarkable:

People always want leaders to compromise. It's amazing that a plurality wants Obama to confront the GOP more strongly. Want to see something even more amazing? You're seeing non-trivial numbers of Republicans say that Obama should stand up to the Republicans.



He's right. It's no surprise that liberal Democrats increasingly want Obama to fight back against Republicans, but that's not the real story here. The biggest shifts in attitude have come from the center. Take a look at the circled parts of the table: the entire middle of the political spectrum — liberal Republicans, independents, and conservative Democrats — is speaking pretty loudly here. They want Obama to fight back harder against the shouters in the tea party wing of the GOP.

As Chait points out, Obama is walking a tightrope: if he does get more confrontational, he risks losing ground in the areas where he's still viewed positively (trustworthy, well-informed, cares about people, etc.). But he better figure out how to walk it. His entire electoral strategy is based on winning the middle, and the middle is getting fed up.

http://motherjones.com/kevin-drum/2011/08/independents-finally-getting-fed

[midnight]

1. Maybe we can shift towards more jobs and peace.... Less war and oil...

[tcaudilllg]

9. We don't have a choice

Gadhafi will make the evening news entertaining for years.

[Harmony Blue]

16. The majority of the population

regardless of political affiliation want this. Rachel Maddow has shown this nation is a progressive nation!

[marmar]

2. Nobody (sane) likes the GOP.....they just need Obama and the Dems to show some intestinal fortitude.

nt

[DCBob]

3. How is this Obama's fault again? America elected these Teabagger assholes.

They are legitimate members of congress and have votes. How about the independents pressuring them to stop acting like political psychos?

[ChairmanAgnostic]

6. It was his fault how he responded to them. HIs alone.

Check out this week's Nation. It says it far more clearly and expresses it better than I ever could.

[DCBob]

7. The Teabagger/Republicans control one part of congress.

That enough to create extreme havoc in our system of government should they desire to.. and clearly they desire to.

[tcaudilllg]

12. The president alone represents all the people.

Individual congressmen do not really have weight. Remember how Bush went into Dem territory to terrorize Democrats with his "charm offensives"? He should have done that... but he doesn't care to.

[DCBob]

14. Then doesnt he also represent the Teabaggers?

[ChairmanAgnostic]

19. Yes, and all the inmates in Joliet State, too

That does not mean that they should control his policies.

[tcaudilllg]

25. Presidential elections are in essence substitutes for armed conflict:

the defeated party agrees to accept the victor's control over the government, including the armed forces. That's how the Republicans see it, anyway, but also some Democrats. This is why Dems don't often have the stomach for recounts: the apparent outcome of the battle should not be challenged.

Of course those very Dems are the greatest threat to the party today. Obama is one of them, in case you couldn't tell from his "I won" argument to the Repubs last year, when challenged as to how he could push health reform through without bipartisan support. Militant democracy, yes!

[eomer]

20. He played it the same exact way when they didn't control one part of Congress (2009/2010).

During 2009/2010 he could have led the Democratic Party to enact a strong program of reforms by using the budget reconciliation process to eliminate the filibuster. Instead he pretended his hands were tied. He did that because his loyalty was to his corporate sponsors while the broad majority who wanted reforms were just a problem to be worked around.

[hulka38]

27. I agree.

I think that Obama's quixotic fixation with bipartisanship is a front to hide his fealty to corporate sponsors.

[Bluenorthwest]

29. But Obama claims to be the Bipartisan man of skill able to

find common ground and bridge all gaps, it was Obama who said he was all about the bipartisanship, and his ardents here always say 'he ran on bipartisanship'. Well, fine, but how is it that having the other Party in control of one house of one branch kills the bipartisan abilities? Is Obama only able to be bipartisan if there are no Republicans in DC? He is the one who kept saying he could work with them, deliver the goods, and he often said that we Democrats were just too partisan. He chided my Democratic Rep the same week he called Grassley an honest broker. What did he get for that?
What good, in the end, is a theory of bipartisanism that can not face up to a shred of power in the other Party? Was the bipartisanship just something he wanted US to do when we were majority?
If you are going to start saying 'extreme havoc' you need to acknowledge that such terms are very distant from the language of bipartisanship that is the actual message of the man you claim to support so strongly. Get him to say 'havoc' instead of 'my partners'. Or, adopt his lexicon. Or just admit you do not agree with his bipartisan dreams at all. You sure don't sound like you do.

[jefferson_dem]

11. I don't see this as a piece critical of Obama.

Drum is making the point that, at this point, strategically, there's little political risk for Obama to come out and challenge the freakish Repug/Teabaggers cabal more forcefully. The way they turned the debt limit debate into an insane hostage-taking exercise seems to have sealed the deal with independents, whose first instinct is to spread the blame. Ah...but independents will also determine winners and losers at the polls next November.

We've already seen signs that POTUS will draw much clearer lines of distinction between insanity (them) and sanity (everyone else). Beauty is that most of the zealots on the other side will keep digging, thereby giving POTUS an even better hand to play.

[DCBob]

13. Perhaps.. but it plays to the notion that Obama is weak.

and that does not help.

[SwampG8r]

30. yes its true.... i wonder who

would enable the teabaggers
how do you think guys like rubio and bachmann get elected?....it is truely a mystery to me

[treestar]

4. What does that mean exactly?

Politics is not a fight. Those words are vague. Each House R has one vote - that doesn't change no matter what "fighting" is done (whatever that means).

[ChairmanAgnostic]

5. No longer just the Professional Leftists, eh Brute?

[Name removed]

8. Deleted message

Sub-thread removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[high density]

10. So "Independents," stop voting for crazy Republicans to be members of the House and Senate

They don't win without your help.

[young but wise]

17. +1000

[NorthCarolina]

23. Unfortunately, the Democrats backed by the party for various races are politically as conservative

and corporate friendly as their GOP counterpart. It's a lose-lose situation.

[stevenleser]

31. That is virtually never true. Your state is a good example.

While some of the Democrats in the Carolinas are as conservative as a Republican in a blue state like New York, the person that they run against in elections is generally to the right of Atila the Hun.

Ignoring that part of the equation doesn't help.

[Doctor_J]

15. This will be the subject of many post mortem analyses of his term

I can't for the life of me understand why he's given in on every major issue, and when I say given in I mean complete capitulation. It was only a matter of time until everyone got sick of his complete lack of leadership and lack of any sort of moral center. This article has one stark error in it though:

he risks losing ground in the areas where he's still viewed positively (trustworthy, well-informed, cares about people, etc.)

If he grasps the FDR ideology and fights for it, he'll gain ground, not lose it

[ClassWarrior]

18. "Finally?" But people keep telling me that they're much more eager to support Obama than...

...progressives are.

:rofl:

NGU.

[Bobbie Jo]

21. This has been a process of GOP exposure

They have basically given him the evidence he needs to smack them across the head with it.

[LetTimmySmoke]

22. Makes sense.

Most voters want to see shared sacrifice, but Obama and the GOP have acted against that.

[bvar22]

24. Harry Truman tells the TRUTH:

"I've seen it happen time after time. When the Democratic candidate allows himself to be put on the defensive and starts apologizing for the New Deal and the Fair Deal, and says he really doesn't believe in them, he is sure to lose. The people don't want a phony Democrat. If it's a choice between a genuine Republican, and a Republican in Democratic clothing, the people will choose the genuine article, every time; that is, they will take a Republican before they will a phony Democrat, and I don't want any phony Democratic candidates in this campaign."
---President Harry Truman

QED:2010


Leadership! "The Buck Stops HERE!" NO Excuses!




You will know them by their WORKS,
not by their excuses.

Solidarity!
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

[hulka38]

26. If he's walking a tightrope

it's because he strung it up there himself. Politics is war. Obama is so obsessed with being a transformative bipartisan figure that he has put himself and more importantly the rest of us in a bad spot. The left has the numbers in terms of the issues even though our leaders don't champion them. We have the moral high ground and historical record of solving large problems. We need to get the McClellans out of the way and kick some right wing tail. We should have been on the march when the cons had 18% approval and we had the unmistakable mandate.

[Bluenorthwest]

28. Interesting in terms of how DU liberals are characterized as

being fringe and unrepresentative of 'the real world'. It seems to me that the liberals here are representative of the nation, while DU's 'moderate centrists' who express no disagreement with Obama are the ones who are far out of touch with the 'real world's' moderates and independents. More and more centrish types are wanting Obama to take a stand, but here, they shout that he is always right and that he is doing what he is doing to please 'the middle ground voters'. Except that it does not please those voters outside of DU. Today we learn that one can be both 'in the center' and 'the fringe' at the same time. One can claim to be a 'moderate' while actually being out of step with the middle as it exists in the 'real world'.
Interesting.

Edited to add that the author's first line is not exactly true. People do not always want politicians to compromise. Usually, sure. Always? Absolutely not. Ask Neville Chamberlain. Ask many others. There are many times when compromise is not possible, in fact, where compromise would be immoral and reprehensible. I have never met anyone who said that politicians should always compromise. Most people know that picking your battles is half the war, and knowing when to stand and when to make a deal is a skill unto itself. There is no such thing as that which is 'always' the right thing. There are many times in life that are not about compromise. We all know that.

[Cosmocat]

32. Called out for right wing bullspit ...

1) DU's moderate centrists who express no disagreement with Obama.

Right wing BS to pose a FALSE boogyman to argue against. NO ONE is saying they have no disagreements with Barrack Obama, there are those who most assuredly call out democrats who are standing next to republican's putting bullets in him.

2) Neville Chamberlain.

SERIOUSLY, this is ALWAYS something right wingers go to. Just a surreal friggen bit of not even having the first god darned bit of a sense of the context of the history you are spewing about - a TOTAL right wing trait. I personally think Chamberlain was wrong to go to the lengths he went to, but why did he do it? Because he was weak or pathetic? NO. Because he just was an appeaser by nature. NO.

There was this little event called WWI, where 15 million died in the most brutal way this world had ever imagined at that time. He and many in his generation had pledged to never allow that to happen again.

It takes a right wingers glib, and childish mindset to reference Chamberlain in modern arguements. It takes a right winger's glib and childish minset to act like they would know exactly what Hitler would do and become BEFORE he became it, to the extent that he would become, as well as where the Japanese were going to go.

There is NO context currently where his name and this situation should apply.

I have been disappointed with BO not taking a stand and fighting the bush tax cuts, but if you can't stomach his style, that is your problem, not his or the people who call "democrats" out for using republican thinking to marginalize him.

[rury]

33. K&R Cosmocat!

:kick:

[Cosmocat]

37. Thanks ...

I swear - I don't come to DU to deal with right wing nonsense ...

[woo me with science]

36. Pretty telling, huh? nt

[Skittles]

34. CORRECT

[opihimoimoi]

35. The GOPers will Fail in an epic fashion...we will see them capitulate yet...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UwhUUcpule0

amazing grace by Rieu