It's Not The Gridlock, Stupid. It's Obama

"Washington is broken", "The Republicans are just the party of no", "Obama can run against the do-nothing Republican Congress". We've all heard variations on these themes since the 2010 mid-terms.

As is his wont, EJ Dionne has a perfectly silly little blog post that perfectly captures the conventional, and incorrect, establishment version of the world.

One of the problems facing President Obama has been to make clear that the popular things he wants to do are being blocked by Republicans in Congress. If voters think that “Washington” or “the political system” is broken, they are as likely to blame inaction on Obama as on the Republicans. Obama, after all, is president. One of his tasks is thus to make clear that he wants Washington to act and that his efforts are being blocked by opponents caught up in right-wing ideology — or simply determined to bring about his defeat.

...

One of the central skirmishes over the next four months will be over whether Obama takes the blame for Washington gridlock or whether voters place the onus squarely on Republicans in Congress. By challenging Congress “to do what we agree on,” Obama is trying to highlight what is actually going on. This will be one of the most important definitional struggles of the campaign.

The excised portion of the post is about Obama's desire to raise taxes on people making more than $200,000 a year but it could be any number of issues. Taxes are just Obama's and therefore the MSM's topic of the day.

The reality however is very different.

In 2006 and the 2008 the Democrats were on a roll, they took control of both houses of Congress, the presidency and eventually had a super-majority in the Senate.

What was the reaction of the American people? A quick and massive change of course to reverse the Democrat's 4 year sting of gains. In other words, voters massively rejected what the Democrats were actually doing.

Yes, mid-term elections are different from presidential elections but politics and governance are about results. The last time the last time the American people spoke they said to Obama, Pelosi and Reid, "STOP IT! STOP IT NOW!".

Democrats of course don't want to admit they've been rejected and chastised. They and their media allies spin a crushing rejection of Democratic governance as a demand for "bi-partisanship" and "compromise".

This of course is sheer nonsense. The GOP House was never going to be more than a brake applied to the worst of Obama's impulses. The job is to not fall prey to conventional liberal wisdom that in taking power from the Democrats the people were saying, "work with the Democrats", it's finishing the job and undoing as much of the damage that has been done.

Republicans, starting with Mitt Romney and running down to every competitive Senate and House race need to remind voters that this is the time when we admit the mistake of electing Obama and finish the job of getting rid of him.

If you think voters really want more Obama, you are listening too much to the likes of EJ Dionne, Jon Huntsman and Jeb Bush. Voters know better. I just hope Republicans "leaders" do too.

posted by DrewM. at 01:15 PM

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