Intermarkets' Privacy Policy
Support


Donate to Ace of Spades HQ!


Contact
Ace:
aceofspadeshq at gee mail.com
Buck:
buck.throckmorton at protonmail.com
CBD:
cbd at cutjibnewsletter.com
joe mannix:
mannix2024 at proton.me
MisHum:
petmorons at gee mail.com
J.J. Sefton:
sefton at cutjibnewsletter.com


Recent Entries
Absent Friends
Bandersnatch 2024
GnuBreed 2024
Captain Hate 2023
moon_over_vermont 2023
westminsterdogshow 2023
Ann Wilson(Empire1) 2022
Dave In Texas 2022
Jesse in D.C. 2022
OregonMuse 2022
redc1c4 2021
Tami 2021
Chavez the Hugo 2020
Ibguy 2020
Rickl 2019
Joffen 2014
AoSHQ Writers Group
A site for members of the Horde to post their stories seeking beta readers, editing help, brainstorming, and story ideas. Also to share links to potential publishing outlets, writing help sites, and videos posting tips to get published. Contact OrangeEnt for info:
maildrop62 at proton dot me
Cutting The Cord And Email Security
Moron Meet-Ups






















« Breaking: David Petraeus Resigns As CIA Head | Main | Important Information: James Bond Isn't Gay »
November 09, 2012

John Boehner, Weakstick

There are certain hard and fast rules in negotiating, and if you don't know those, you can't do it. I'm not saying John Boehner isn't a nice, intelligent man. But he is risky business adverse, even when it's not that risky. Some people are just like that. Some people would rather buy a Saturn, where you go in and pay the price--where you don't have to negotiate with the salesman. (That was one of the selling points of the Saturn; you paid a set price, no haggling.) A lot of people just don't like the pressure of negotiating, even when it doesn't hurt. They're not wired that way.

Remember last week when it seemed like Romney would win? Harry Reid put down his marker immediately: "I just can't work with Romney." Now, that's not necessarily true, but that's what you do in a tough negotiation; you stake out a tough position. You prep the battlefield. You take the hardest-line posture and then work back from there.

What did John Boehner do after the election? He talked immediately about raising revenue. "[T]he American people expect us to find common ground, we are willing to accept some additional revenues, via tax reform." See the difference? Reid knows how to deal.

Speaker Boehner should have matched Harry Reid: "President Obama is too extreme, and unless he's willing to finally give a little and bring a plan to the table, I don't see how anything will change." Although that's not necessarily true, that's what you would say. Then you would work back from the hardline ground that you've occupied.


Speaker Boehner did the same thing in July of 2011 when he blurted out in an interview, to paraphrase, "Oh, no, we won't shut down the government." Whether or not that was true, it's not something he should have said out loud.

In The Godfather Don Corleone gets angry with Santino when he speaks out of turn during a negotiation: "You never tell anyone outside the Family what you are thinking again!" Speaker Boehner's natural impulse is to be honest. That isn't always helpful at the beginning of a negotiation.

This is one area where Donald Trump speaks with authority. He's fond of saying, from memory, "The right guy can get the deal. You can send one guy in who can't get anything done and then send in another guy with the same deal and he can get the deal. The only difference is the guy you sent in."

Here's another contrast: Remember Ronald Reagan's first meeting with Gorbachev at Reykjavik? Reagan blew Gorbachev out of his chair in the first minutes of the first day. He put a stranglehold on the hardliner ground and put Gorbachev on the defensive. Gorbachev shot back, "Mr. President, I am not a student, you are not a teacher." Well, as soon as Gorbachev said that, Ronald Reagan was the teacher. It was over. The proper response was to try to reclaim the hardline ground.

It's just posturing, but it's effective. Ronald Reagan was a master negotiator. He had the natural ability plus all those years as president of SAG and dealing with Hollywood lawyers. Gorbachev didn't stand a chance.

One last contrast: Obama is not a negotiator either, but he does have people who do know what they're doing. He pwned the hardliner ground today. Ace has already written about it: Give Me My Tax Hikes On Those Making $250,000 Or More Right Now, Before Anything Else, As a Show of Good Faith. Does Obama appear to be "seeking common ground" here? No, of course not. As with the Harry Reid and Ronald Reagan examples above, it's just starting point for negotiating. But it's what you do.

Why must we sound conciliatory while they never do? Granted, we're not going to get a headline from the New York Times that says "If Harry Reid is trying to seem conciliatory, he’s not doing a great job of it." But that shouldn't dictate our approach. Take the hardline stance and work back from there. Be conciliatory at the end, not at the beginning.

All this is to say Boehner has to go. I like him, and he's a good man, but he has been out of his depth with Reid, and Pelosi, and the White House. High stakes deal-making is not something he is well-suited for. It comes naturally to some people. To others, it does not.

Coffee is for closers (NSFW).

Follow me on Twitter.

digg this
posted by rdbrewer at 04:02 PM

| Access Comments




Recent Comments
Seems Legit: "How odd, I thought everyone understood that electr ..."

rickb223 Gold & Silver Spot Prices [s][/b][/i][/u]: "You’d think they would’ve come up with ..."

Commissar of Plenty and Lysenkoism in Solidarity with the Struggle : "MiG-29 has two sets of intakes Bonus hole. ..."

It's me donna : "270 242 To be fair, Elon did advise that there isn ..."

West Frisian Women's Auxiliary : "The red head gene mutation also enables them to dr ..."

eleven: "If there wasn't a steel re-enforced concrete wall ..."

SMOD: "DC_Draino @DC_Draino Think about this If Tr ..."

Sponge - F*ck Joe Biden: "[i]thus, his push to ship congolese lithium mining ..."

garrett: "What is the increased Mass of an Electric School B ..."

Thomas Paine: "242 To be fair, Elon did advise that there isn't e ..."

Skip : "Bet they won't get 10 years of use out of a EV Bus ..."

Sponge - F*ck Joe Biden: "[i]They handle 25% more pain than others, and repo ..."

Recent Entries
Search


Polls! Polls! Polls!
Frequently Asked Questions
The (Almost) Complete Paul Anka Integrity Kick
Top Top Tens
Greatest Hitjobs

The Ace of Spades HQ Sex-for-Money Skankathon
A D&D Guide to the Democratic Candidates
Margaret Cho: Just Not Funny
More Margaret Cho Abuse
Margaret Cho: Still Not Funny
Iraqi Prisoner Claims He Was Raped... By Woman
Wonkette Announces "Morning Zoo" Format
John Kerry's "Plan" Causes Surrender of Moqtada al-Sadr's Militia
World Muslim Leaders Apologize for Nick Berg's Beheading
Michael Moore Goes on Lunchtime Manhattan Death-Spree
Milestone: Oliver Willis Posts 400th "Fake News Article" Referencing Britney Spears
Liberal Economists Rue a "New Decade of Greed"
Artificial Insouciance: Maureen Dowd's Word Processor Revolts Against Her Numbing Imbecility
Intelligence Officials Eye Blogs for Tips
They Done Found Us Out, Cletus: Intrepid Internet Detective Figures Out Our Master Plan
Shock: Josh Marshall Almost Mentions Sarin Discovery in Iraq
Leather-Clad Biker Freaks Terrorize Australian Town
When Clinton Was President, Torture Was Cool
What Wonkette Means When She Explains What Tina Brown Means
Wonkette's Stand-Up Act
Wankette HQ Gay-Rumors Du Jour
Here's What's Bugging Me: Goose and Slider
My Own Micah Wright Style Confession of Dishonesty
Outraged "Conservatives" React to the FMA
An On-Line Impression of Dennis Miller Having Sex with a Kodiak Bear
The Story the Rightwing Media Refuses to Report!
Our Lunch with David "Glengarry Glen Ross" Mamet
The House of Love: Paul Krugman
A Michael Moore Mystery (TM)
The Dowd-O-Matic!
Liberal Consistency and Other Myths
Kepler's Laws of Liberal Media Bias
John Kerry-- The Splunge! Candidate
"Divisive" Politics & "Attacks on Patriotism" (very long)
The Donkey ("The Raven" parody)
Powered by
Movable Type 2.64