- ‹ previous
- 149 of 8902
- next ›
Liberals' Doug Hoffman Problem
Three elections scheduled for Tuesday—the New Jersey and Virginia gubernatorial races and the special House election in New York's 23rd district—have garnered national attention in recent weeks. Now it seems possible, and perhaps likely, that Democrats will lose all three contests. Creigh Deeds looks dead in the water in Virginia, John Corzine could easily lose in New Jersey, and the conservative party candidate, Doug Hoffman, looks set to win in NY-23. The actual impact of losing all three races would not be nearly as large as the perceived impact. But in Washington, perception often morphs into reality.
A Republican sweep of the races the media has chosen to focus on (there's another House special in California that Dems are almost certain to win) will doubtless be spun as a rebuke of President Barack Obama and his "liberal" governing agenda. If Hoffman wins in NY-23, it will hammer home that narrative—with support from national Republicans, Hoffman pushed a moderate Republican, Dede Scozzafava, out of the race. Scozzafava has since endorsed the Democrat, Bill Owens, who is actually more conservative than she is on some social issues. Andrew Sullivan says a Hoffman win would eventually be bad news for the GOP:
From the mindset of an ideologically purist base - where a moderate Republican in New York state is a "radical leftist" - this makes sense. But for all those outside the 20 percent self-identified Republican base, it looks like a mix of a purge and a clusterfuck. If Hoffman wins, and is then embraced by the GOP establishment, you have a recipe for a real nutroots take-over.
Perhaps. Scozzafava's destriction has certainly emboldened conservatives to think that they'll be able to deny another moderate, Charlie Crist, the Republican nomination for Senate in Florida.
But I think Hoffman's success, especially among independents (he leads them 52-30 in PPP's latest poll) signals a different, deeper problem for liberals. As the recent WSJ/NBC poll highlighted, Americans really don't trust government. Much of that, I suspect, is the result of the bank bailouts—as Neil Barofsky, TARP's inspector general, pointed out last month, the bailouts did immense, lasting damage to the public's faith in their elected officials. "This cannot be seen as just a Wall Street bailout," Rep. Barney Frank (D-Mass.), the chair of the House banking committee, famously warned when Hank Paulson came asking for $700 billion last year. But that's exactly what happened.
Even though Paulson and George W. Bush asked for the bailout money, it's liberals who will pay the price in the long run. Liberalism is based on the idea that government offers solutions to people's problems. When you don't trust the government, Doug Hoffman's argument that there should be less of it seems awfully appealing.
This is why liberals' biggest priority should be restoring people's faith in government. Part of that requires actually solving people's problems. That means fixing the economy. It would also help to if Democrats avoided bailing out any more widely reviled industries, and maybe regulated some stuff. But even if Democrats can't fix things right away, they can still institute reforms that go to the heart of why people don't trust their representatives—including, crucially, public financing of elections. The public sees politicians—almost all of them—as bought and paid for. Public financing would go a long way towards fixing that.
UPDATE: Jim Newell somewhat sarcastically summarizes here.
Let the republicans have the
Let the republicans have the country back. The best thing for liberals would have been a McCain/Palin win last year.
The resulting carnage and social unheaval due to widespread panic and instability would have made it open season on all things conservative and capitalist.
When the white trash majority is living in tents maybe we'll see some real change.
Deja vu
That's exactly what I thought about the Bush 2000 victory. At some point, I'm losing faith in the educability of the 20%-ers. They have taken an almost totally nihilistic approach to policy debates - they do not give a shit what the facts are, and will actually take active steps to avoid learning them.
That said I agree with your broader point that this is a tough time for to have taken power, since a lot of chickens were flying full speed at the roost.
A Lot of Good Points Here, BUT...
I agree with much of what's written here, but as a conservative Independent I see much larger problems that are contributing to liberal Democrats' demises. In many ways, the present government is openly hostile to their constituencies and far too many others. They see the Obama administration attacking everyone not with the program: Rush, Beck, Fox News, the Chamber of Commerce, even Edmunds.com, which came out with $24K per car figures on Cash for Clunkers. Attacking a minor business website merely for dissenting? How beneath the office of the President is that? Instead of working with the American people and business to solve problems, they're going "damn the opposition and full speed ahead!"
Also, the American people believe the administration's and Congress' priorities are severely misplaced. We're in debt over our heads, yet Obama and Congress want to pass very expensive and job-killing bills like ObamaCare and Cap-and-Trade when the focus should be on reviving the economy, not sinking it further with draconian taxes and regulations and jacking up living costs for people who are already struggling. It has also not escaped the electorate's attention that a great deal of the stimulus money went to wasteful spending or keeping government sinecures in place. In short, the tax-eating gov't jobs are preserved or expanded while the tax-producing private sector jobs continue to disappear.
This is not the Hope and Change Americans voted for last year. Furthest thing from it. Their actions have in fact spurred a populist uprising that could damage both parties, as it has in NY-23. The American people are smart enough to know you cannot spend your way out of debt or should be increasing tax burdens in the middle of a depression. Yet these are the essential platforms of our current government and will only be pried loose with electoral losses.
In summary, this oped is a good surface analysis, but the problems go much deeper. Even Bill Clinton knew "it's the economy, stupid!" And for as long as Obama and liberal Democrats take the opposite tack and the DC GOP establishment plays along with liberal RINO candidates like Scozzafava, it's going to be a very rough ride the next year for incumbents of all stripes.
Taxes and Economics.
The biggest problem I have with this analysis is two-fold. The first, is that Bush came into office during an economic slow down, cut taxes and the economy did not recover (despite what the market did). There was a shell game of artificially inflated housing prices stemming from easy credit, but not job growth AT ALL. All this stuff about cutting taxes stimulating job growth does not bear up in reality. If there was a one to one relationship than Bush's tax cuts, the largest in history should have led to an equally significant job growth and there was none. So all this stuff about how taxes are going to hurt the economy is proof of how theories of economics do not translate into realities.
You mentioned Bill Clinton. Well he inherited a Bush tax hike, the tax hike that likely cost Bush the election and yet the recession ended during Clinton's first year in office after the Democratic Congress passed the Clinton stimulus, so in summary, Bush the first raised taxes, Clinton increased spending and the economy recovered and then grew for 8 straight years, creating jobs. Bush the Second cut taxes, and jobs continued hemorrhaging out of the economy and then at the end of his 8 year in office the economy completely collapsed. This suggests that the old pablum that cutting taxes stimulates job growth is just a fever dream whose reality has never fit the supposed theory.
Of course Bill Owens also won yesterday so so much for that notion that Americans do not like liberal politics. NJ is going to have a marvelous time with Chris Christie as governor as well. Jon Corzine was honest about NJ's problems and got brought down the economy tanking, but to be fair he did play a role in facilitating the meltdown by joining hands in a bipartisan fashion with all those Republicans to pass the Financial DE-Regulation that got us in this mess in the first place.
So, in summary. Theories are pretty, but reality is all that matters. I live in the reality-based community (to quote Cheney) and in that reality, raising taxes and increasing spending has ended recessions in the past (Bush-Clinton 89-92) and led to a strong US dollar, while cutting taxes just enabled the shell game that threatened to destroy our entire financial system (Bush 2001-2008) while delivering no or inadequate job growth, not to mention the collapse of the US Dollar's value.
online casino
online casinoThe American people believe the administration's and Congress' priorities are severely misplaced. We're in debt over our heads, yet Obama and Congress want to pass very expensive and job-killing bills like ObamaCare and Cap-and-Trade when the focus should be on reviving the economy, not sinking it further with draconian taxes and regulations and jacking up living costs for people who are already struggling.keep posting thanks for this useful post.
http://www.hottiffanyshop.com
Tiffany 1837
tiffany jewellery
UGG boots on sale
chi irons
GHI Blue
CHI Flat Iron
Christmas gifts,UGG Boots Ireland,UGG Boots UK,UGG Bailey Button
Christmas is coming. It's time to shop Classic UGG Boots as big Christmas gifts for your beloved and families. Show off your love with these must-have sheepskin footware. Cozy UGG Classic Short Boots & UGG Classic Tall Boots keep your feet warm and comfortable. What's more, UGG Bailey Button Boots and UGG Classic Cardy Boots are stunning design for UGG faddist. Come on, InUGGShop is No.1 UGG Shop for provides the perfect collection of UGG Boots UK & UGG Boots Ireland for you.