Ignore Obama
The smartest strategy, it seems to me, for the incoming Republicans to follow is this: don't try to pass laws; don't try to "craft compromises;" don't engage. Instead, keep talking directly to the people who put you there: the American voter.
Ignore Obama, I say. He's irrelevant. Keep proposing clear, simple conservative ideas -- on every topic: taxes, immigration, health care, etc. -- and let him be the guy who wants to negotiate. Let him come to you.
So, yesterday's meeting at the White House between the president and the incoming Republicans has me worried. From Walter Shapiro's column in AOL's Politics Daily:
Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell reflected the new accentuate-the-positive spirit when he said, "I think we all agree there's no particular reason why we can't find areas of agreement and do some important things for the American people over the next two years."
No, no, no. Please! Don't do any "important things." That's what Obama wants:
"The American people did not vote for gridlock," Obama said after the White House social. "They didn't vote for unyielding partisanship. They're demanding cooperation and they're demanding progress."
No they're not. Politicians always get this wrong.
- Comment (20)
- · Quote
- · UnfollowFollow (3)
Comments :
Jun '10
Re: Ignore Obama
I voted for shrinkage (of government,) but in the meantime I'll settle for gridlock. Gridlock works for me.
Re: Ignore Obama
Rob: This is excellent and mirrors my feelings (now that should worry you). But I appeal to the Chair for one small amendment: You say, "Ignore Obama, I say. He's irrelevant."
I don't think we can ignore him or assume he's irrelevant. I say we vigorously and pro-actively oppose him and render his destructive agenda irrelevant. He ought to be irrelevant, but he's not and won't be as long as he's in office. But I don't think you meant to imply anything different, right? Just want to make sure that luxury cruise didn't make you too passive. LOL.
Jul '10
Re: Ignore Obama
The January Congress was elected to render the man impotent. Any other "message" is the fever dream of an unnecessary federal aparatchik. Their objections are loud, but ineffectual. Unless the Boehner Republicans want to go down in history as just some more nameless folks replaced in Tea Party primaries.
Hey, Rob. Some days you seem less squishy than others.
Edited on Dec 1, 2010 at 10:25amMay '10
Re: Ignore Obama
Amen, amen, amen, Rob!
Jul '10
Re: Ignore Obama
"They're demanding cooperation..."
Okay, then cooperate with Us as We shrink the size of government and cut taxes.
Re: Ignore Obama
Sisyphus: Hey, Rob. Some days you seem less squishy than others. · Dec 1 at 10:24am
Edited on Dec 01 at 10:25 am
Yes, Sisyphus. It's ironic that he's coming back as one of us Neanderthals after a cruise. Rob, if you start to get squishy again, you'll have to go for another -- maybe a Palin/Alaskan cruise.
Jun '10
Re: Ignore Obama
I'm not sure any president is ever irrelevant, especially with his party in control of the Senate. The Obama-Pelosi-Reid tax increase will happen unless the president gets some of his own. Tempting the Democrats with a huge increase in tax revenue that they can blame on the Republicans is akin to the kids getting the cookies because "the dog knocked the cookie jar off the shelf"
Re: Ignore Obama
David Limbaugh
Sisyphus: Hey, Rob. Some days you seem less squishy than others. · Dec 1 at 10:24am
Edited on Dec 01 at 10:25 am
Yes, Sisyphus. It's ironic that he's coming back as one of us Neanderthals after a cruise. Rob, if you start to get squishy again, you'll have to go for another -- maybe a Palin/Alaskan cruise. · Dec 1 at 10:36am
Hah! You'd think a week lounging around drinking cocktails would have made me even more loose and undisciplined! But somehow....well, it didn't.
I agree with you, David: Obama isn't quite (yet) irrelevant. What I mean is, the goal for the Republican House shouldn't me to put laws on the books. The goal should be to stand for smaller, limited, pro-enterprise government. The litmus test should always be, does this idea give voters more choice -- in education, personal spending, health care, whatever.
Getting entangled in legislative mixups with Obama is just what he wants them to do. It's an irresistible urge -- Gingrich couldn't do it -- but it's the way to shift the direction of the country.
Dec '10
Re: Ignore Obama
Your advice is correct, but your characterization of Obama as irrelevant is slightly off-base. As Toby Harnden of the Daily Telegraph (UK) put it,
Obama believes he can get by on Being Barack Obama. Last Tuesday was a setback like nothing else he had experienced in life and it appears to have left his enormous sense of self-assurance undiminished.
A majority of Americans voted against Obama's agenda that day and Republicans dearly want to make him history. It is far too soon to write off Obama's chances of re-election but his rhetoric of bipartisanship and forging consensus has been shown to be a sham, leaving his Left-wing core exposed.
But the first step to keeping him in the hole he has dug for himself is a counter-intuitive one. Republicans intend to capitalise on Obama's vanity and highlight his default ideology and determination to push "progress".
So part of the correct strategy is to point out repeatedly and consistently that Obama IS relevant: that it’s up to Obama to decide whether to block the Republicans' sensible policies or to cooperate with the Republicans to let the American people benefit from those policies.
May '10
Re: Ignore Obama
Agreed. And the message to Obama, The Ds, and the media ought to be nothing more nor less than a quote from the President himself: "Elections have consequences."
Re: Ignore Obama
Totally agree, Stuart.
Nov '10
Re: Ignore Obama
I am really beginning to dislike Mitch McConnell. He is one of the GOP Old Guard who is still swayed by the siren song of "go along to get along." Nuts to that.
And I am sick to death of Congressional civility. I want to see Democrats and Republicans on C-SPAN fighting it out with Bowie knives and tomahawks.
It is time to get serious. Screw Mitch McConnell and the poodle he rode in on.
Edited on Dec 1, 2010 at 12:58pmDec '10
Re: Ignore Obama
Thanks!
The other key point is that the strategy has to be very visible to work. The American people have to see the Republicans saying to Obama (to paraphrase Deuteronomy), "See, we have set before you Capitalism and Socialism, blessings and curses: choose Capitalism, so that you and the American people may prosper."
Aug '10
Re: Ignore Obama
I'm OK with gridlock. Yeah. Beats the usual Congressional alternatives. I'll have the Gridlock Special, please. With a side order of Gridlock.
Jul '10
Re: Ignore Obama
on wry.
Nov '10
Re: Ignore Obama
"So, yesterday's meeting at the White House between the president and the incoming Republicans has me worried."
I think what you're feeling is just part of the general anxiety we all have about this nascent conservative comeback.
Will it last? Will the Republicans 'compromise', which would be the political equivalent of committing hari kari? Will high-visibility conservatives say or do so something so idiotic that the press can use it to bury us? Worst yet, will the tea partiers lose steam or be co-opted or just get bored?
Beginnings are such fragile things. There are just so many ways that this could get screwed up.
Edited on Dec 1, 2010 at 7:07pmOct '10
Re: Ignore Obama
I dislike Obama's ideology as much as anyone else. But if he comes to the center to compromise, we shouldn't reject the offer. Most Americans want these problems solved, not postponed until one party or the other has a supermajority (and that worked out so well for the Democrats, didn't it?).
Let me say this in words ideologues posting here can understand:
We Are All F**ked.
A no-compromise stanch is the best way to destroy the country. How is that patriotic? Our problems are just too extensive. Does anyone seriously advocate massive cuts in Social Security, Medicare and defense? The bi-partisan plans all shrink the government; the only way to shrink it even more is cutting everything from national defense to disability insurance.
That isn't conservative at all, nor is it what Reagan would have done (he was always willing to compromise on these issues, to get things done). Republicans did it in the 1990s--they can do it again. Compromising in and of itself doesn't guarantee a repeat of the last decade. Our problems are too serious for that to happen.
May '10
Re: Ignore Obama
Well, I'm going to get past my sense of being over-awed by the Ricochet people I admire so and wade in with a post, my first:
I was so dismayed to hear the President say that the American people did not vote for gridlock. I wanted to shout "Yes, we did vote for gridlock! We did! What are you talking about?" Is the President really as obtuse as that, or is he really so out of it that he doesn't get the meaning of the election, or is it his pride that won't let him acknowledge what the public was trying to tell him? He claims to be willing to listen and be open but a performance like that betrays that idea.
I'm with PJ O'Rourke on this one (paraphrasing here) that this was not an election, it was a restraining order. Here here.
Aug '10
Re: Ignore Obama
Palaeologus
on wry. · Dec 1 at 6:24pm
Mmm. tasty.
Nov '10
Re: Ignore Obama
This is like a Gregalogue on steroids.