So argues Byron York:
It’s hard to overstate just how surprised Republicans have been by Obama’s performance. In talking to GOP strategists over the past months, most said something like this: The American people don’t expect Obama to perform miracles. They know he inherited a mess. They don’t think the unemployment rate will magically fall to 4.5 percent. But they do expect the president to devote himself completely to the economy, and they want to see signs of progress by election day. By “progress,” they mean not just a good month but the clear sense that the economy is moving in the right direction.
Instead, they got policy potpourri and “Recovery Summer.”
Now, with unemployment stuck at 9.6 percent, it appears the waiting is over. On his 595th day in office, less than eight weeks before voters go to the polls, Obama is making that now-infamous pivot. In a flurry this week, he’s proposing spending $50 billion on the nation’s roads and railways. He’s proposing a $100 billion research tax credit for businesses. He’ll have more proposals in the days ahead.
White House officials insist these are serious policy initiatives that are not being put forth just so Obama can say he’s doing something about the economy. But that leads to the question: If these are such great ideas, why wasn’t the president pushing them earlier?
“They’ve had nearly two years to think about it, and they’ve come up with a Democrat caricature: tax and spend,” says one high-ranking GOP Hill aide.
But even if Obama’s proposals were good policy, it’s not just too late for them to have any significant economic effect by November. It’s also too late for them to have any significant political benefit for Democrats. Large segments of the public believe Obama and his party focused on the wrong issue — health care — for too long in 2009 and 2010, and when they did pass a big economic measure, the $814 billion stimulus, they got it wrong. That will be a hard perception to change by Nov. 2.
“The die has been cast in many voters’ minds,” says another Hill Republican deeply involved in the midterm effort. “People believe the stimulus was a failure. By trying to ‘pivot,’ Democrats can’t all of a sudden hide from their signature jobs effort. After all, didn’t we just have the recovery summer?”
Ouch.
Okay. Well and good. Obama and the Democrats have screwed the pooch, and objectively so.
But what Republicans have to keep in mind is that the progressives in power believe so fervently in their own righteousness and rectitude that they find it almost a moral imperative to stay in power — and so are likely to say and do almost anything to make sure that happens.
Yes, one can sense their despondency now. But two things we should never underestimate are the progressives’ willingness to deploy a sliding scale of ethics in the name of “pragmatism” (with the pragmatic end game of course being service of the greater good, which they believe can only happen when they hold power); and the willingness of voters to buy hope and hokum if doing so means they won’t have to vote for belt tightening and pain.
We live in an enormous client state, and progressives will be handing out money over the next 8 weeks in a bid to win votes.
Hopefully the electorate has become more savvy over the last two years; but honestly, I’m not entirely ready to believe that to be the case.
Jeff,
If you can let PJM bygones go, there’s this alert on progglodyte fraud prospects:
http://pajamasmedia.com/blog/small-sample-of-philly-voter-rolls-reveals-hundreds-of-ineligible-names-pjm-exclusive/
Cordially…
Actually I think people are starting to figure it out. Certainly not all, but enough of them. Enough to swing a lot of races.
That said, if the GOP better not go with the status quo. Because people want results, not the same old same old. And it is time someone stood up and said if you want us to cut taxes, we have to cut benefits too. And start rolling these entitlements back.
When the Kings of Comedy start painting Obama accurately – as a bumbling idiot – they’re ratings will spike and they’ll be funny.
And then they’ll make more money. And then they’ll get it.
Continetti gets to something true about Obama and the left’s mind-set about the economy or economies in general, I think. Which, if correct as to their view, would tend to reinforce the rationale the left uses to soothe guilty conscience of their power madness, as well as to deploy against the rubes.
Speaking of government to the rescue, some telecoms in Montana are worried about the federal stimulus package’s provisions for extending broadband connectivity.
Thanks Ric. Added the link to the post.
Blockquote fail on aisle 9.
conservatives take back the house and senate in november. obama is affectively neutered. palin/romney wins the white house in 2012. it will be as if this nightmare never happened.
People need to stop acting all rhetorically puzzled by the Oministrations actions or lack thereof. If you have a correct understanding of whom you’re dealing with, it always makes sense.
You’ve got a clinical narcissist in office, which means that he is unable to grasp that other people have a different perspective than his, that he’ll bristle every time he’s criticized, and that he won’t actually learn from his mistakes (which he’ll never acknowledge) so much as he’ll try another way because the poopyheads wouldn’t let him have his way the first time. And it especially means that he expects praise and adulation without having to lift a finger, without having to produce results, without things actually changing.
This narcissist is also a die-hard progressive, which means that his concept of how an economy works (free-market or otherwise) has nothing to do with how an economy works. It means that the facts on the ground are irrelevant when they contradict the Holy Narrative. It means that human society can finally be perfected now that he and his kind are in office.
As soon as they get this pesky free-market economy out of the way, that is.
Pivot to the economy? What do you think he’s been doing? What do you think Obamacare is, if not part of the Cloward-Piven strategy to fundamentally transform the nation?
People need to get rid of their old business-as-usual paradigms and normalcy biases. We’re at the brink of a very unpleasant change.
Stop acting surprised and figure it out already.
it will be as if this nightmare never happened.
Yeah, you just keep thinking that, mobysan. When the front half of the canoe is already over the edge of the falls, no amount of backpaddling is going to help.
thats kind of a defeatist attitude dicentra.
Jeff,
Is this moby another incarnation of Professor Power Chord?
Darleen noted the Murfreesboro IP address in another thread.
how do u pivot on a divot?
obama wants a mulligan
– Bunbblefuck is going to have to stand and watch as his balls get dropped and this mess of a mess costs him a 115 stroke penalty – 100 in the House, and 15 in the Senate.
– A pile of Qourans walk into a bonefire, and the head Wahabist says: “That’s funny, we don’t look Jewish…..”
From the PJM link:
I believe the dead are, in fact, eligible to vote in Chicago… ;^)
And this reader comment:
Probably true of big cities elsewhere…
The rest of the story….
* All Ur-Korans-R-belong to US….
– Spiney – Knowing the depth of Progressive moral/principles bankruptcy, do you imagine they give a flying space monkey where the votes come from?
The problem isn’t that they’re registered, the problem is they are still voting. Strangely, they all seem to vote for the Democrats.
buttons has a point. It’s hard to pivot on a little bitty divot. Of course, if he had collected them all, then he might have something.
…and so are likely to say and do almost anything to make sure that happens.
And that also requires a willing suspension of disbelief in the voters, which I do not think is going to be there this time around for the Democrats.
Oh – and afterwards, if the Republicans do get the House, keep their feet to the fire. We can keep replacing Congresses until the dumb beggers figure it out. Of course, that means that we will have to do our jobs and keep an eye on the dumb beggers until they feel like rats in a trap.
BBH,
Not for a moment.
People move in (or grow up somewhere), register to vote, and move out, or die, and are still registered to vote.
The problem isn’t that people move away or die, the problem is that those charged with keeping the voter rolls accurate and up-to-date aren’t doing their fucking jobs, and the Justice Department has explicitly said that they’re not going to enforce the law that says the rolls have to be updated.
Honestly, trolls, could you please try a little harder?
The only laws they seem to care about, Squid, are the ones that they actively seek to not enforce.
I dunno, JD — the EPA’s been working overtime trying to keep anyone from emitting CO2 or killing bedbugs. Maybe it’s just Justice that’s taking the term off?
thats kind of a defeatist attitude dicentra.
No, it’s the proper evaluation of the situation. I see sky under the front end of the canoe, whereas the canoe itself is still horizontal, meaning that the back end is still in the river. The roaring sound and spray are sure indicators that this is in fact a waterfall we’re going over and not just the reflection of the sky at the front of the canoe.
But let me tell you more about my defeatism:
We’ll never build a functioning perpetual-motion machine.
We’re not going to fly to Alpha Centauri any time soon.
The GOP couldn’t find its whatsit with both hands, a flashlight, and a GPS with extra batteries.
The GOP is thrilled that the Dems are unpopular, but we will have to sit on their heads to get them to do the slightest thing right. Sure, Obama will be hobbled, but so will the GOP, though you can’t actually tell between that and unfettered power.
During that time, half the countries in the world, including the U.S., will have defaulted on their loans and the Weimar Republic will be upon us. Your phony moby optimism will be as worthless as the paper bills in your pocket, and you’ll be SO STARTLED that such a thing could happen to US!
And you’ll figure those of us who saw it coming just got lucky, rather than merely tracing cause and effect to its logical conclusion.
You are right, how silly of me to forget that. Reminds me of that article I read earlier how Barcky is going to focus on regulations due to the impending Republican Congress.
– I’ve seen this movie before. The only thing we can be reasonably sure of is that thing’s are never as bad as we secretly fear they will be, and they’re never as good as we hope for.
– But that ain’t much of an encouraging situation.
– Once the Left is stripped of any real power to cause further damage AND the private sector can plan a little for tomorrow without fear of being slaughtered, private investment will start trickling back into industry again and jobs will build back slowly. As long as the Dems stay the hell out of power the financial group will steadily reinvest over the next few years. But if the Dems regain power we’ll go right back in the dumper again, because the financial’s will pull out immediately.
– The bigger problem, even bigger than we face right now, is the fact the financial’s have no particular reason to trust the Republicans either now. They get in office and just sit on their collective asses, ala Bush, and seem to be afraid to act like legislators, or to fight against the bullshit idea’s of the statists.
– Remember CRA and the Fannie-Freddie scam started under Bush. So all that said, there’s not a lot to look at in a positive light, and a hell of a lot of additional problems that could ensue. If we lose the financial’s trust of both parties, we might as well pack it in, and right now I would bet it’s tentative at best.
– I honestly do not know how to give the Repubs a spine.
no. under clinton with andy cuomo @ hud
– Well yes, but it went absolutely wild eyed bat shit crazy under Bush, and where the fuck were the Reps while all that was going on. Remember, Clinton ran as a Left of center moderate, but governed as a centrist. (more or less) And not having control of THAT Congress meant something. Bush’s Congress was all but persona non grata through both his terms, and a repeat of that sort of spineless group, assuming they do get control, would be just another day at the recession office.
link
– All smoke and noise. If any of that would have mattered CRA and Barney Franks would have never happened.
– The fact is that for over 20 years neither party has had the balls to stand up to special interest groups for fear of losing voting blocks. That will only change when:
1) A larger majority of Americans take the time to understand reality in politics and start thinking beyond next week.
2) That same larger group actually starts voting.
3) Whoever controls Congress understands they’re gone if they go against the public’s wishes.
– I do not know if any of that will happen, but if it doesn’t to some extent, we’re plain and simply fucked.
– As things stand we have a situation where our own Justice Department is suing a state for trying to enforce laws it refuses to enforce itself. If that isn’t insanity I don’t know what would qualify.
bush and reps were trying to get handle on fannie. their problem was iraq/afghan. they couldn’t push the donks too hard if he wanted war funding.
also cra was passed under carter and revved up under clinton
http://www.ffiec.gov/cra/
“…bush and reps were trying to get handle on fannie.”
– Yes, well now they have the worst of both worlds, a civil war in Iraq that will still be going on when our great grand children are trying to survive, and a collapsed economy here at home. Great thrade off.
that’s the hand that was dealt
– We did alright with shock and awe, we should have stuck with that game plan. We could have permanently based in Kuwait for good, and crumped Husseins ass every time he crawled back out of the sand hole.
– The cost would have been at a fraction, both in money and American lives, and Iraq, which to this day has no working government, would look almost the same.
That problem the linked article asked us to “assume.”
We have no choice but to assume, because the evidence has not been made available to us. The election officials refuse to investigate, and the Department of Justice refuses to make the election officials perform their duties. Which, if you’ve been paying attention, is the problem the article’s author is trying to outline.
Now, you may argue that the extra registrations haven’t translated into fraudulent votes, but that’s another issue, and one that won’t be laid to rest until our election officials start taking their duties seriously.
I cannot stand sophists.