There Is No Plan

Rick Perry is in the process of dismantling Mitt Romney. He’s sucked the air out of the race, and made it very hard for anyone else to get traction. Bachmann’s initial mo has stalled, Huntsman is finding it hard to get any purchase at all, and Palin would find it very hard to dislodge Perry from front-runner status if she decided – belatedly – to run. She had her chance before he declared, but now he’s in, it’s going to be very heavy sledding (pardon the pun) for her to take a winning bite out of a very restive GOP primary base. Ron Paul is only considered electable by that GOP base, Gingrich is on life-support, and rest of the line-up right now are seat fillers at best.

Of course, it’s early days, and the race hasn’t even begun in earnest, but Thereisnoplan regards Perry as a very, very major threat to Obama. He’s playing dumb for the primaries to help lock up the knuckle-draggers, and has already courted the Evangelical vote with his “The Response” lam-o prayer meeting at an echoing, half-empty Houston Texans Stadium. He’s working the tough Texan BS for the primaries, but my suspicion is you’ll see a much more polished and thoroughly All-American Perry if he gets the nod. His ability to adjust on the fly suggests he’s no fool, and as a cliched American foil to the polyglot professorial Obama, he’ll be very effective. He’s also eminently capable of walking back some of his more outrageous statements about Medicare and Social Security, along with his hints about Secession. He might even turn those switches to his advantage. He can ‘pivot’ to ‘compassionate conservatism’ with ease because of his (totally fake) Evangelical credentials. In short, while he’s got weaknesses, which could lay him low, he’s also got many, many weapons in his arsenal.

And there’s another string to Perry’s bow too. He’s white, which – because he’s facing an African-American President – means he needs a woman or a minority candidate on his ticket. The only two practical choices among women are Palin and Bachmann, both of whom are very bad fits for Perry, which means he’ll go minority, which means he’s almost certain to choose Marco Rubio.

Rubio brings huge power to a Perry led ticket. He’s the young, clean-cut, acceptable face of right-wing lunacy, likely to play a classic protege to the “wise” Perry. He’ll also have naive Latino voters nationwide voting for him in droves, ignoring their own economic and social interests to vote for a guy who speaks Spanish and will play up his heritage every chance he gets. Florida will be a lock, Nevada and the Four Corner states will almost certainly go Red, and even California will be in play, drawing big resources from Obama’s campaign that will have to focus on the North East in the eye of a major economic meltdown.

The threat of a Perry-Rubio ticket highlights a critical issue. It’s become clear that all the attempts to talk the Economy into a recovery have failed, so Obama is now vulnerable from a mainstream GOP candidate, who has the power to reach the center. There are others too. George Allen, Jeb Bush, and Chris Christie, are all bad news Republicans with the potential to appeal to Independents. It’s not just Huntsman and Romney who could give Obama a run for his money now.

Obama needs to find his mojo fast, and his Independent direction is the only sure way to go – as distasteful and essentially useless as it is to all sensible supporters of the New Left. Obama’s bloodless, professorial approach to government has proved to be a problem. Just being the only “adult in the room” is not enough to get you elected in America. You need some fire in your belly too, and it’s not certain that the low-energy President hasn’t had it shaken right out of him by the sheer enormity of the task he’s faced over the last two and a half years.

The problem is that a non-ideological centrism is hardly the stuff of whistle-stop fire-branding across America. By definition it’s kind of boring. As much of a contradiction in terms as it might seem, Democrats will have to push hard to claim and hold the centrist ground that seems, more than slightly, to be slipping away. One, shocking and rather distasteful way for bi-partisan obsessed Obama to do that would be to outflank the GOP by putting a Republican on the ticket. Biden has to go. He can’t stand as a presidential candidate in ’16, which means the Democrats would be losing an incumbent advantage should Obama win next year. Biden’s old, he’s regarded poorly, and he’s not ambitious. He should be asked to step aside and will likely accept. That opens the way to an aggressive centrist choice by Obama. The obvious two names are Scott Brown and Jon Huntsman. The only Democrat who comes close to having the same impact would be Jim Webb, but with a GOP guy as Veep, Obama would have no problem establishing his centrist bona-fides, and his choice of running mate could insulate him against what are likely to be vicious “socialist” attacks from the right.

At this point, with the current against the Dems economically and politically, and with the House and Senate likely to stay or go Red next year, regardless of our own brand of Democratic politics, we simply have to hold on to the veto pen, which would be the only thing between America and the serious beginning of the end of its social contract. Thereisnoplan has come to realize that Obama’s dull, technocratic centrism is a far, far better alternative to what the hyenas have in store for us. It’s also the only game in town right now.

Left and Center must unite. We’re fighting a rear-guard action. Little Round Top.  20th Maine. Hold the line or die.

The time to trash the President for his failures is over.

Donate to Obama 2012.

Don’t ask why, but I just relistened to Dolly Parton’s song, “9 to 5″ for the first time in many years. Even though it was written thirty years ago, it’s an anthem for the times we’re living in. It reminded me that the harsh recession (and maybe depression) we’re in isn’t just about economic statistics, or even jobs lost or lives destroyed, it’s about who we, as Americans, are at our very core.

Take a listen, study the lyrics.

Tumble outta bed

Dolly in "9 to 5". Her fellow secretaries were played by Jane Fonda and Lily Tomlin, at the time two of the most politically progressive actors in Hollywood.

And stumble to the kitchen
Pour myself a cup of ambition
Yawnin, stretchin, try to come to life
Jump in the shower
And the blood starts pumpin
Out on the streets
The traffic starts jumpin
And folks like me on the job from 9 to 5
Chorus:

Workin 9 to 5
What a way to make a livin
Barely gettin by
Its all takin
And no givin
They just use your mind
And they never give you credit
Its enough to drive you
Crazy if you let it

9 to 5, for service and devotion
You would think that i
Would deserve a fair promotion
Want to move ahead
But the boss won’t seem to let me in
I swear sometimes that man is out to get me
Mmmmm… Read the rest of this entry »

a fresh faced bill clinton in 1993. he came from hope, he ended up nowhere.

In 1993 Clinton arrived on a heady wave of enthusiasm, dedicated to undoing some of the excesses of Reaganism. He made a few stumbles, he announced a sweeping healthcare initiative and he got nowhere. There are many reasons for his failure. The sheer newness of the administration, presentation issues, and this – he got very limited support from a Democratically controlled Congress. That opened the door for Gingrich’s charges of stasis and corruption that led to the Contract for America, and sweeping mid-term victories. That broadly was the end of the Clinton Administration as an effective liberally-driven government. It’s the main reason that the Reagan Revolution was not shattered. Clinton became merely a painful interregnum.

Cut to 15 years later.  Obama is getting it right. The budget is a great document, the bipartisan experiment is over, the decision to leave troops behind in Iraq is correct, and the healthcare, energy, and education agendas are on course. Now it’s up to the Democratically elected Congress to respond. Obama’s charm offensive is wasted on the GOP. Obama appears to have realized that. The true targets of his charm offensive should be members of his own Senate caucus with a more conservative viewpoint. Read the rest of this entry »

Obama is all about popularity. But he forgets that popularity is least important after you’ve just won an election. He went out of his way to court the GOP on his stimulus bill, and despite an awful lot of bipartisan BS, not one voted knuckle-dragger for it.

For a President apparently more politically savvy than most on arrival in the White House, he let himself down badly. He forgot that Bipartisanship BS is only meant to be trotted out for winning elections. After they’re over, you kick the losers when they’re down. But Obama’s flaw is that he hates the idea of being hated. So instead, the President got an earful of whining from the GOP who had ample opportunity to diss the plan, and Obama ends up looking like an unconvincin blowhard, after only a week on the job.

The lesson of the day is pretty simple. The GOP is more right-wing, doctrinaire and disagreeable than ever. They’re MO is very simple. If the President had ignored them they would have bleated on that nobody listens. If the President gives them the time of day, they give him the finger. Neither apporach is without costs, but the former is a far better alternative, considering that right now Republicans are more discredited than at virtually any time since Roosevelt.

Politics is not a pretty business. It never was and it never will be. The sooner Obama realizes that the better, because right now he’s at risk of becoming a victim of his own magnanimity. Most kids learn it in the school yard. There are certain people that are just dangerous to be friends with. Obama apparently missed that memo.

you wanna see my resume?

Ted Kennedy, one of the scions of the family, is sadly unlikely to serve much longer in the Senate. Before this week when his niece Caroline decided she’d kind of like to be a Senator too, that would have left only one Kennedy left in Congress, Ted’s son Patrick, elected as a Congressman for Rhode Island in 1994, at the highly qualified age of 27. Since then he’s driven drunk into the Capitol building, and checked in to rehab for an Oxycontin addiction, both sterling qualificiations to be a Kennedy in Congress, no doubt. His signature achievement appears to be, well, being a Kennedy.

To suggest there are double standards for the Kennedys is just too shocking for words to many, but at least the raw political savegery that put Sarah Palin into a position of prominence has nothing whatsoever to do with her name or family. Caroline Kennedy just gets to make a phone call to be considered for an “appointment” to office. Palin at least had to be elected Governor of Alaska. One can understand LBJ’s feelings about the Kennedy’s. He was a poor boy from Texas made good. The Kennedys were America’s blessed, for reasons which to some extent remain a mystery. Read the rest of this entry »

aren't they sweet together. not

Rick Warren is a more agreeable and far smarter version of Focus on the Family’s repugnant James Dobson. If you’re going to try and turn the country into some kind of boring Christian nation, you don’t harangue people to do it, like Dobson. You have to jolly them towards the Rapture, with a Starbucks latte and a good time.

Warren is, sadly, a very influential man in certain quarters. He will look upon his appearance at Obama’s inauguration as a huge victory for his roly-poly propaganda approach. He’ll stir up his troops in favor of the new President, he’ll be able to show nice pix of him blessing the new Prez, and he’ll be able to say, look what kind of influence I have. It’s a huge ego trip for him.

Oh, and he’s being used by Obama quite brilliantly. Read the rest of this entry »

Judging from his appointments so far, it’s becoming pretty clear that Obama is going to mean business when he takes over in two months time. Just to take one example, the appointment of Tom Daschle as Health and Human Services Secretary is a clear sign that Healthcare reform is front and center. Daschle is a former Majority Leader in the Senate and knows how to play the legislative game better than just about anyone else. Who better to help reform through Congress.

You can bet that Obama’s healthcare reform package is going to contain an awful lot that the GOP Senate Caucus is going to hate. In about three seconds all talk of bipartisanship will be off, because they will filibuster. Or at least try to. My guess is that the Dems end with 57, (they will probably win Minnesota by a handful of votes). That means, including Bernie Sanders, and the recently exonerated Joe Lieberman, they’ll have 59 votes. That leaves them one shy to beat the filibuster.

Which is where the fair ladies of Maine come in… Read the rest of this entry »

i am grateful

We now know for sure that Obama wanted to keep Lieberman on board. I’m certain his voice was the key to his survival as chair of the Homeland Security Committee. Obama probably didn’t make his reasons clear, but it seems certain they were straightforwardly tactical. Lieberman is in the Senate for at least four more years. So it’s a good idea for Obama to own him to help him beat GOP filibusters. It’s unlikely he cares much for a turncoat, but the key here is appearances. Who doesn’t like to be forgiven, and who doesn’t like to be seen as forgiving?

Lieberman was kind enough to do his part by saying that he was grateful to Obama for putting in a good word for him, a not so subtle hint that the President-Elect was running the show. The whole episode made Lieberman go all warm and fuzzy inside.  Katie Couric interviewed Lieberman earlier…

He added that he thought the Democratic message on the subject was, “it’s time for us to reconcile, to close ranks.” He added he was “very grateful” and “in some senses feeling closer to the Senate Democratic caucus than I have since the 2000 election.”

For more info go here

There’s a grand tradition of Bipartisan BS in the immediate aftermath of an election campaign. The vicious attacks are soon forgotten, and the talk of “unificating” and “coming together” take center stage. The press dutifully lap up all the talk because they can’t see beyond it. To his credit, Obama went further than most by actually making bipartisan BS actually part of his campaign. But let’s face it, a smart politician like the President-Elect will say anything to get elected. Read the rest of this entry »