We didn't lose the game; we just ran out of time. - Vince Lombardi

The Congressional Problem

by Hal_10000

Mark_M made this comment in the “Cause For Hope” thread:

When Clinton was inaugurated in 1992, Limbaugh said “Just watch...his biggest problem will be the Democrats in Congress.” And he was exactly right, which led directly to the Republican takeover in 1994. I suspect (hope?) something similar will happen in 2010, and we can get principled conservatives in there to offset things.

I remember Limbaugh saying this and Mark_M is right—this was precisely what happened (although Clinton himself helped).  I think (hope?  think wishfully?) that Obama is smart enough to realize that the country is not voting for socialism. Rick Moran, among others, thinks that is the case:

I may be going over old ground here for daily readers but this is such an important aspect of Obama’s political personae that it bears repeating. Barack Obama’s political beliefs are secondary to his using anyone and everyone – from corrupt Machine politicians to wild eyed radical Maoists – to further his political career. All of the radical associations in his past (and present) represent nothing more than stepping stones to aid him in his political advancement. As early as 1987 he told Jeremiah Wright that he had his eye on the Governor’s mansion in Illinois (no doubt his sights were set higher). The arc of his career has always been headed toward high political office. Of this, there is no doubt.

Besides using these radicals to get ahead and making common cause with groups like ACORN and The New Party, it is a legitimate question to ask if Obama shared their ideology. The answer is almost certainly no. I believe that there is something about these radicals that attracted Obama. Perhaps it was their utter certainty and belief that they are in the moral right. Or maybe it was that their personalities are so driven and single minded. Given Obama’s own doubts about his place in the world as a young man as well as his apparent aimlessness early on, it stands to reason that people who believed so strongly in something and seemed to know where they were going in life would be able to interest the young, ambitious politician.

Calling Obama a “socialist” simply isn’t logical. He doesn’t share the belief that industries should be nationalized by the government or even taken over by the workers as many American Marxists espouse. He may not be as wedded to the free market as a conservative but he doesn’t want to get rid of it. He wants to regulate it. He wants “capitalism with a human face.” He wants to mitigate some of the effects of the market when people lose. This is boilerplate Democratic party liberalism not radical socialism.

I detest conservatives throwing around the words “socialism” and “Marxism” when it comes to Obama as much as I get angry when idiot liberals toss around the word “fascist” when describing conservatives. I’m sorry but this is ignorant. It bespeaks a lack of knowledge of what socialism and communism represent as well as an ignorance of simple definitions. Obama will not set up a government agency to plan the economy. He will not as president, require businesses to meet targets for production. He will not outlaw profit. He will not put workers in charge of companies (unless it is negotiated between unions and management. It is not unheard of in this country and the practice may become more common in these perilous economic times.).

An Obama presidency will have more regulation, more “oversight,” more interference from government agencies, more paperwork for business, less business creation, fewer jobs, fewer opportunities. It will be friendlier to unions, more protectionist, and will require higher taxes from corporations (who then will simply pass the tax bill on to us, their customers). But government won’t run the economy. And calling Obama a “socialist” simply ignores all of the above and substitutes irrationalism (or ignorance) for the reality of what an Obama presidency actually represents; a lurch to the left that will be detrimental to the economy, bad for business, but basically allow market forces to continue to dominate our economy.

Obama’s friendship with Ayers, Rezko, Wright, Pfleger, Meeks, Khalidi, as well as his working with Richard Daley’s Chicago Machine was the result of his overweening ambition and not due to any ideological affinity or strain of corruption in his makeup. He may have taken a scholarly interest in some of the ideas put forth by Ayers and he might have seen working to approve some of Ayers’ radical ideas as good politics (Ayers was an ally of Daley in the School wars of the 1990’s).

But frankly, Obama is someone who impresses me as having no real ideology save that which can get him elected. His campaign has shown him to pander to whatever audience he is addressing at the moment. His contradictory positions on issues is simply dismissed as his words “being taken out of context” or the candidate himself “misstated” his position. The press gives him a pass and its off to the next audience where he tells them exactly what they want to hear.

This is again a startling parallel to Clinton.  Clinton was liberal but he was also ambitious.  Starting in 1994, he struck out a conservative course because the voters gave him no other choice.  He realized that he had been elected because of disgust with Bush I, not because of some shift of the nation to the Left.  And if he wanted to stay elected, he had to control spending, reform welfare and declare that the era of big government was over.

The Democrats in Congress don’t realize this and the next Congress is even less likely to.  They are lead by idiots like Nancy Pelosi and their numbers are about to swell with people like (God forbid) Al Franken.  They will think they have a socialist mandate.  And this belief will lead them to political suicide.

The only question is if the GOP can take advantage, as they did in 1994.  It is critical that the Far Right not be allowed to take over the GOP after the disaster that is coming.  We have to move this party back to basics—to true pragmatic conservatism.  That way, when Obama fucks up—and he will—we’ll be there to pick up the pieces and get the country moving again.

The most important time in politics is the time between elections, when the citizens can hold the politicians’ feet to the fire.  The “perpetual campaign” of the Bush years has made us forget that, has gotten us too focused on the horse race (the Presidential campaign lasting for two years doesn’t help).

Comments

Posted by on 10/10/08 at 03:06 PM from

Hal -

The problem is “conservatism” as it’s currently defined.  Look at what’s happened to “conservatism:”

Big Government Spending
Two Wars
Torture
A lack of Fiscal Discipline
A lack of intellectual curiosity
A parochial, small town view of what constitutes “Joe Sixpack”.
A view which attacks cosmopolitan living, education, travel, foreign knowledge.

That’s just for starters…

Shit, they nominated a Hockey Mom for VP.  Who the fuck plays Hockey outside of the Northeast, Upper Midwest, and Alaska?  I mean, seriously, hat happened to conservatism?

Today, you have Christopher Buckley, who is STILL writing for National Review, endorsing Obama.  Do you fucking knuckleheads who are still supporting Palin get it?  The son of the founder of National Review, the son of the “father” of modern conservatism (William F. Buckley), is endorsing Obama. So is Douglas Kmiec, a pro-life, devout Catholic.  Think about that for a moment.  Then think about how truly fucked the conservative movement really is right now.

Lee can go back into his archives and see what many of us wrote back in 2004, 2005, 2006 while Bush was doing his thing and you all were supporting him.  Many of us knew “conservatism” was going away because there were no “conservatives” actually acting conservative.

Sad. So sad....

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