Frum: GOP's Health Care Loss Not Worth Potential Midterm Gains

[democracy1st]

Run time: 01:48 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l7jRjkVc5tc   Posted on YouTube: March 21, 2010 By YouTube Member: tpmtv Views on YouTube: 0   Posted on DU: March 22, 2010 By DU Member: democracy1st Views on DU: 1163

 
David Frum explains how today is turning into the GOP's Waterloo.

Former Bush speechwriter David Frum says it’s hard to exaggerate the magnitude of the GOP disaster. And he blames this “most crushing legislative defeat since the 1960s” on conservatives and Republicans:

At the beginning of this process we made a strategic decision: unlike, say, Democrats in 2001 when President Bush proposed his first tax cut, we would make no deal with the administration. No negotiations, no compromise, nothing. We were going for all the marbles. This would be Obama’s Waterloo – just as healthcare was Clinton’s in 1994.

Only, the hardliners overlooked a few key facts: Obama was elected with 53% of the vote, not Clinton’s 42%. The liberal block within the Democratic congressional caucus is bigger and stronger than it was in 1993-94. And of course the Democrats also remember their history, and also remember the consequences of their 1994 failure.

This time, when we went for all the marbles, we ended with none.

When Rush Limbaugh said that he wanted President Obama to fail, he was intelligently explaining his own interests. What he omitted to say – but what is equally true – is that he also wants Republicans to fail. If Republicans succeed – if they govern successfully in office and negotiate attractive compromises out of office – Rush’s listeners get less angry. And if they are less angry, they listen to the radio less, and hear fewer ads for Sleepnumber beds.

So today’s defeat for free-market economics and Republican values is a huge win for the conservative entertainment industry. Their listeners and viewers will now be even more enraged, even more frustrated, even more disappointed in everybody except the responsibility-free talkers on television and radio. For them, it’s mission accomplished. For the cause they purport to represent, it’s Waterloo all right: ours.

http://themoderatevoice.com/66859/frum-republican-waterloo/

http://www.frumforum.com/waterloo

[TxVietVet]

1. The guy has some good ideas,

let's hope that they work out the way he says they do. That is, the conservanazi followers of druggie limblaugh go nuts and the republiKKKlans lose in the midterm elections.

[Schema Thing]

2. First time in my political life (10 years) that I've heard a republican

think past the next elections cycle.

[Grand Taurean]

3. No it was not David.

[FarLeftFist]

4. Frum says this is the conservatives waterloo-link inside

http://www.frumforum.com/waterloo

[Zambero]

6. Yup, they bet the farm all right

And lost. The Waterloo strategy may have backfired.

[ramapo]

5. Republican's biggest fear is that this works

Bob Dole said it best. He explained the opposition to Clinton's plan as strictly pragmatic political survival. If Clinton had succeeded, the Republicans would've been relegated to minority status for decades. Now they have gone the fear route. However when reality doesn't live up to the fantasy, the public might just decide this wasn't so bad after all.

[Left Coast2020]

7. And if we fix it to make better, it guarentees the party of greed

will be toast for many elections cycles. I love it!! I'm really happy tonight!!

[murdoch]

8. One more Obama/Clinton difference

Obama let Pelosi and Reid handle a lot of the bill, and everyone from Stupak to Lincoln to Nelson put in their two cents about it.

Not that I like what Stupak/Lincoln/Nelson etc. did to the bill, but a half-good bill that passes is better than a great bill which never gets passed.