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Friday, January 15, 2010

Only the Washington cocktail weenie set thinks bipartisanship is important
Posted by Jill | 6:14 AM
A year into his Presidency, Barack Obama is facing a situation in which already half of Americans now say they'll vote for someone else in 2012. He's spent the first year of his presidency trying to play nice with Republicans, whose response is to claim that he hasn't tried to play nice with them. Of course, the Republicans in Washington have grown used to "compromise" meaning "100% of what WE want", so it may seem that way by comparison. Health care "reform", if it even passes, is going to be little better than what we have now. We have an escalating war in Afghanistan, a continuing one in Iraq, a continuation of the second-class citizenship of gay Americans -- all in the name of "bipartisanship."

Even if Obama was the establishment candidate, as the hacktacular Halperin 'n' Heilemann claim in their I'm Sick Of Hearing About It Already book, it means that the Democratic establishment, as it usually is when it listens to that bantam rooster, Rahm Emanuel, hasn't got a clue about what people actually want.

Because it seems that even when Americans don't necessarily like what a President does, they want their illusion of "strength" -- and don't much care about bipartisanship. Over 80% of those in the latest Allstate/National Journal Heartland Monitor poll said that for officials to gain the public trust, it would help "a lot" or "some" for them to "make a stronger effort to stand up for principle, even if that risks increasing conflict with members of the opposing political party." It seems that too much willingness to play nice gives an impression that you don't really believe in what you're trying to sell.

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3 Comments:
Blogger merlallen said...
Obama sure spends a lot of time trying to please people who'd never vote for him doesn't he?
1/15/10, 3:14 PM  
Anonymous damaged goods said...
consider this alternate: since the earliest days of his campaign, obama has used the b word -- bipartisanship -- to signal he is a centrist of the old-school status quo type and that, while he must promote himself as an agent of change, he in fact won't be supporting anything that business interests won't be comfortable with.

how else to explain this relentless pursuit of some fantasy middle, when his supporters are all left of that?
1/15/10, 7:36 PM  
Blogger Rhode Island Rules said...
None of them particularly care what the people want. They are there to do big money's bidding.
1/16/10, 8:38 PM  
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