Republicans gained by obstructing, Democrats lost by reaching out/ Chris Bowers

[KoKo]

Republicans gained by obstructing, Democrats lost by reaching out
by: Chris Bowers
Mon Feb 22, 2010 at 12:53\

The theory is that if Democrats make a show out of reaching out to Republicans, but Republicans slap Democrats down every time and obstruct for the sake of obstructing, then Democrats will gain politically.

The reality is that Republicans gain in the polls if Democrats fail to pass legislation that improves people's lives, no matter the political theater of obstruction.

This is demonstrative not of bad execution of the Democratic plan to reach out to Republicans and make them look like obstructionists, but rather of a faulty theory behind that plan. The problem isn't that Democrats haven't done enough to reach out to Republicans, or to get out the message about Republican obstruction. The problem is that the public doesn't care about political process, which makes attempts to publically reach out to Republicans useless political theater that does nothing except delay important legislation. The public wants their lives to improve, and doesn't care about process stories or the 24-hour news cycle.

Health care reform is an excellent example of this. Senate Finance Committee Chair Max Baucus passed his health reform legislation on October 13, 2009, 74 days later than any other committee chair (July 31st, 2009). The reason for this 74 day delay was that Max Baucus decided to negotiate with a six-person bipartisan group consisting of three Republicans and three Democrats. Even though the chief Republican negotiator in that group, Charles Grassley, said he was always opposed to the health care bill, that he wouldn't vote for it even if he received every concession he wanted, and said the health care bill would kill your grandmother, Bacuus kept reaching out to Republicans. Further, another of the chief negotiators, Mike Enzi, said he was talking to Democrats only to delay the bill.

Instead of this political obstruction hurting Republicans, it hurt Democrats. And badly. The 74 days that Baucus wasted would have easily been enough to pass health reform before the January 19th special election in Massachusetts. Democrats looked ineffective in passing legislation, and kept an unpopular bill in the headlines for much, much longer than it needed to be.

The reason this didn't hurt Republicans is because the country ultimately does not care about political process. In an open-ended CBS poll taken just before President Obama's inauguration, only 2% of the country cited fixing partisanship as the task they would most like to see President Obama accomplish. Further, that poll is the only time that "partisanship" has ever registered as the top problem facing the country for more than 1% of the population.

The country doesn't tune into process stories in the news, either. Five years ago, during the ultimate process fight in the Senate--the Republican attempt to get rid of the filibuster--only 34% of the country said they followed the story "very closely" or "somewhat closely." This helps to explain why only 26% of the country knows that it takes 60 votes to overcome a filibuster in the Senate. Most of the country has no idea why Democrats don't just pass whatever they want.

The problem with the theory of change employed by Democrats, and articulated by Mark Schmidt, is that it assumes everyone in the country is a political junkie familiar with congressional process and glued to the daily news cycle. In realty, the public never lists process issues among the top issues facing the country, and wants the party in charge of the government to help fix (or at least not exacerbate) the problems they face in their everyday lives.

The country never cared about political theater. As such, putting political theater--aka, making a show of reaching out to Republicans because you know they will reject you--at the center of your strategy was bound to fail. All it did was delay, water down, and block important legislation that could have made people's lives better. Had Democrats instead made using whatever political process they could to make people's lives better the center of their strategy, they would be a lot better off politically right now.

More with charts and figures/links at........
http://www.openleft.com/diary/17516/republicans-gained-by-obstructing-democrats-lost-by-reaching-out

[Demeter]

1. Most Americans Have No Appreciation for Kabuki Theater

and that's what this was. "Action" isn't just a genre, it's the American Way.

[kenny blankenship]

2. Obaucus didn't consort with Repugs and waste irreplaceable time in order to "reach out"

Obaucus did it to water down. You can't go from bold reform to industry giveaway overnight and without a rationale. You can't do that to people who're "fired up". You've got to wear them down.

The leadership of the Dem party is not so dumb as to believe this compulsive conciliation tactic was ever to our political advantage. I mean, it's true there are people who're that stupid (just wait - they're on the way), but not these guys. The Reach Around To Repugs, the deference to the Liebershits - these are their EXCUSES for gutting their own constituencies and subverting their own legislative program away from the platform that they sold to their voting constituencies, and the means to pervert it into the service of their big money donors. That all takes time, it takes iterations of failure, it takes vicious circles of "compromise", and the need for time means they need cover stories. The futile, never-ending quest for bipartisan concord over issues no thinking person would ever expect Republicans to cooperate with Democrats on, that is just subterfuge aimed at us.

[KoKo]

3. DNC CHAIR Time Kane just did a rare "surfacing" on CNN with Rick Sanchez...

You know what he was saying? He kept repeating that Democrats must work with Republicans, reach across the aisle and not give up. Sanchez asked him: "But what if these folks just don't want to work with you...never will work with you." Kane repeated his mantras: "It's important for us to keep trying to work with them because the American people want us to."

So...Tim Kane makes a liar out Chris Bowers. But, Chris Bowers has the statistics and the facts at his back. I don't know who Tim Kane thinks he's working for. It was very frustrating to see him. No spirit ...nothing...just repeating "work with Repugs" as the answer to everything.

[FrenchieCat]

4. Too bad Bowers leaves out a criticial component to his "analysis"

of what went wrong (when it isn't even over, but whatever!).....

He noticeably leaves out that the real reason this "Just Say No" routine didn't hurt Republicans is because the Mainstream Corporate media made sure that it didn't.

Since Bowers opted to cite the percentage of the public who followed the "stories", but didn't bother to question what information were in those stories reported, then Bowers is doing no one a favor. Plus the fact that Bowers chose to use rely on polling in making his assertions also should leave one doubtful that Bowers even knows what he is actually talking about.

Relying on false premises to come to conclusions and to put out pronouncements is never a good idea.