Republicans Slam Obama As Partisan
This strikes me as potentially a major turning point in the “bipartisanship” wars: The Republican Congressional leadership, which had previously been targeting House Dems as “partisan” while praising President Obama’s outreach to the GOP, has dropped this strategy and is now openly hitting the President as partisan, too.
The occasion for the shift is the big speech Obama gave last night at the House Democratic retreat, in which he implicitly accused Republicans of creating policies that “doubled the national debt and threw our economy into a tailspin” and amped up the rhetoric before a fired-up partisan crowd.
The House Republican leadership just blasted to reporters a whole slew of articles describing last night’s event as an abandonment of bipartisanship on Obama’s part. “What happened to bipartisanship?” the GOP release asked.
One quick point on this. The GOP strategy for the stimulus package had been to blame House Dems for not heeding the popular Obama’s calls for bipartisan cooperation, as a way of driving a wedge between Dems and Obama, in order to drag down the Dems’ approval rating and color public perceptions of the stim package as laden with Dem pork.
Doesn’t this new GOP tack render that strategy inoperative from here on out? And doesn’t it risk driving Obama into a tighter alliance with Congressional Dems? Either way, the GOP is now openly targeting Obama for the first time.
Incidentally, if you haven’t seen it yet, here’s video of Obama’s appearance:
Greg, not sure if you’ve seen this:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/02/06/gop-opposes-pay-limits-on_n_164544.html
The DNC, Obama, anybody with a brain should immediately release this article (along with data from the labor dept indicating 600000 jobs lost this past month alone) and push the mainstream media to ask Republicans 3 questions:
1) Do you get how big this crisis is?
2) Do you understand that the vast majority of Americans (conservative, moderate, liberal) want bank exec pay to be capped and if so, why are you opposed to it yourself?
3) Obama did make concessions and include some of your ideas (most notably, the $15000/mortgage housing one) – isn’t bipartisanship a two way street?
hadn’t seen that article. thanks for passing it on…
It takes to two to tango. Rethugs are just playing mind games and the media is following them like sheep.
“HE’S TOO BIPARTISAN!” –>media: he’s weak! nothing is getting done!!
“HE’S TOO PARTISAN!” -> media: he’s talking loud now! nothing is getting done!!
It’s a Trap!
the problem is that the media have no brains and can’t think beyond five minutes ago.
I’m so tired of the media. They’ve been complaining about having to carry Obama’s primetime speeches. I don’t remember them complaining when it came to Bush’s primetime speeches.
the media have no brain”
lfo- You give the media a bit too much credit for innocence.
Danp–yes you may be right. I always assume is idiocy when in reality it might well be something else as you point out.
I think the House Republicans should have a hard time sustaining this point, given that not a single one voted for the stimulus bill
But all these e-mails aren’t really for the American public, are they? They’re to bias reporters and journalists.
I don’t remember them complaining when it came to Bush’s primetime speeches.
Actually, they did, but only after he repeatedly pulled the trick of announcing a “major policy address” and then came out and gave almost exactly the same speech as the previous time.
I think it’s more an indication that for the decision-makers in the media, war and terrorism are Important Things and of course the president should be given time to address the nation for them, but the economic crisis is just an annoyance, and not the lifestyle-threatening event that it is for most people who are less wealthy, so it doesn’t “deserve” the same level of attention.
It’s reflected in the level of seriousness in the coverage as well. While the coverage of the debate on the Iraq War was stupid, at least it was stupid on a jingoistic level. Now we’re dealing with the greatest economic crisis in a couple of generations, and the coverage is not about substantive positions about what will work, it’s about whether the unanimous opposition from the GOP is because Obama wasn’t “bipartisan” enough.
Sigh.
“Doesn’t this new GOP tack render that strategy inoperative from here on out?”
Better a rifle or a shotgun? Or perhaps a rifle re-aimed? (I’m trying to get more NRA people here for you)
It might be the case that R strategists deemed their present full-on-assault against the stimulus bill would inevitably push any wedge out rather than further in. Particularly as Obama takes them on bully-pulpit style. As Obama moves to the media forefront, he must become their target or they risk falling into defensive mode and losing message predominance.
Reasonable assumptions?
Yes, but you’re assuming they actually have a strategy beyond shrieking in public and running around with their hair on fire.
I welcome this development. House dems can’t compete on volume, but Obama is going to eat their lunch and their dinner too.
The question is why Obama is waiting til Monday before going on national TV? This last 7-10 days he’s been letting the republicans and the coporate media control the narrative.
“Yes, but you’re assuming they actually have a strategy beyond shrieking in public and running around with their hair on fire.”
Indeed, I do. Effective domination of the media universe for two decades or more doesn’t seem likely to be a matter of blind luck.
This is interesting, actually, from a cynical Fear and Loathing point of view. What we are seeing here is the first sparring before the big decisions get made 6-12 months down the road: Military procurement and health care being the two top targets. What we see is that the repubs. are intending to keep on doing negative targeting, using hypocricy as the tool to bring down individuals one at a time. They just threw a no pasaran! sign across mr. Obamas doorstep, and are signaling that they will continue in their Rovian/Limbaughish ways til the bitter end. So in one way, this leaves mr. Obama much freer to do as he sees fit. The big joker is Gates, who I would guess have interesting conversations with Petraeus AND Obama quite a lot.
As a foreigner, I must say that the republicans seem to be the most unconstructive oppositional party in the west today, totaly outside the reality of this crisis. Their rhetoric is just strange, they are becoming the party of Limbaugh.
Hey Greg, since you like polls, how about this one: Gallup on Limbaugh (http://www.gallup.com/poll/114163/Limbaugh-Liked-Not-Republicans.aspx). Independents not so crazy about him
Greg
Not sure where better to put this. We’ve all been tossing around our notions on how the Obama team ought to present themselves (and their policies and that of the opposition) in the present media melee. Alan Abramowitz writes a numbers-grounded argument which I think is highly relevant. Here are the last two paragraphs:
“These data, and similar data from other polling organizations, indicate that the American public’s disillusionment with the Bush Administration and the Republican Party began years before the Wall Street meltdown. And because party identification is by far the strongest predictor of candidate choice in U.S. elections, the Democrats’ advantage in party identification was a major factor contributing to their victories at all levels of government in 2006 and 2008, including Barack Obama’s defeat of John McCain in which, according to the national exit poll, 90 percent of party identifiers cast their ballots along party lines. Given the Democratic advantage in party identification, it was clear from the beginning of the 2008 campaign that John McCain was facing a very difficult uphill battle against Barack Obama.
In conclusion, evidence from academic forecasting models, economic trends, and public opinion polls all points to one inescapable conclusion: Barack Obama’s decisive victory in the 2008 presidential election was a predictable result of forces at work in the American electorate long before the onset of the Wall Street meltdown. To suggest otherwise is, indeed, poppycock.” http://www.centerforpolitics.org/crystalball/article.php?id=AIA2009020501
Assuming that interpretation of the data gets close to the truth of things, then it would seem to me that the Obama team really ought to continue attacking the conservatives past record of failures while demanding that they shape up (in line with the electorate’s demonstrated wishes).
I found the link for this piece at The Dem Strategist