By Dave Anderson:
The day before the Obama Inaguaration, I outlined the Republican strategy and its payoff matrix:
The
stimulus has non-symmetrical political pay-offs. Seeing positive
impacts of the stimulus package and voting for or against it still
leaves the GOP rep SOL. The big project is a Democratic Branded
project, almost all benefits will accrue to the Democrats. Voting for
the stimulus and seeing a fairly crappy economy in the summer of 2010
deprives an incumbent of a good sledge hammer. The only positive
political outcome is to oppose the bail-out and be proven right about
your wisdom....Caving and
hoping that the popular opponent screws up without destroying your own
credibility as a critic is amazingly stupid political strategy (Hi John
Kerry, Dick Gephardt, Hillary Clinton, Tom Daschle etc) as well as a
predictor of crappy results.
The stimulus as passed in ARRA was necessary but insufficient. It was too small at the topline number for the size of the output gap we actually faced (as the recession was deeper than the earlier data showed) and poorly designed with too much money going to AMT fixes and ineffective lump-sum tax-cuts. The effective parts were pared back to please Sens. Collins, Snowe and Nelson. And this was because the Republican Party realized they were the opposition and the job of the opposition is to oppose. It also was because the Obama Administration likes to punch dirty fucking hippies, especially when they are right on the math and the political outcomes.
We are likely to see the same dynamic next year as the Republican strategists read political scientists. Presidential re-elections are primarily determined by disposable personal income growth and job approval levels. Those two variables are correlated variables. Republican chances (including Sarah Palin) are much higher if the economy continues to suck for another two years. And if they have a majority in the House, and a minimal blocking coalition in the Senate, they can guarantee a shitty economy for another two years.
Bruce Bartlett, via the Big Picture, says this is the Republican plan:
�Clearly, a weak economy in
2012 will be very good for whoever the Republican presidential
candidate is. It�s hard to see how the Republicans lose by blocking stimulus.�
Opposition politics means millions of people will get hurt worse than they need to, but those people will vote Republican because Obama, Democrats, and unfortunately the dirty fucking hippies who were right and punched for being right, will get the majority of the blame for the state of the economy in 2012. And that is how we could get President Palin.
There is one other group which has a strong interest in keeping the economy bad. The large corporations and financial institutions in this country have 1.4-1.5 trillion in cash available to invest but are sitting on it. I suspect they are hoping that by letting the economy stay sour they will get a Congress and eventually White House staffed with people like those of the Bush era.
ReplyDeleteIn the early 20th century, a Mississippi politician named Bilbo would loudly announce at his campaign rallies, "I'M GONNA STEAL YOU BLIND!" and Mississipians repeatedly voted him into office anyway.
ReplyDeleteIf the whole of Faux nation and most independents are stupid enough to believe that the Democrats are responsible for the depression we're now in, they'll force the US to endure the same kind of financial pain that Bilbo and his ilk dished out to Mississippi for decades.
Apparently it's gonna take that greater level of pain to make people wise up to the economic poison in that koolaid they're still swilling.