"Handful of Senators Don't Pass Legislation": Tax Cuts, Unemployment Benefits, and the Post-2010 Dispensation

I gather that President Obama is opting for a compromise in which long-term unemployment benefits will continue, but so will the entire spectrum of Bush-era tax cuts. I won't criticize the president harshly for this compromise; I will instead do some simple-dino thinking out loud, set (if you like) to the background music from "Eve of Destruction." I opine that there are two ways to look at the matter -- which seems best?

1. Thanks to our predictably dim-witted, memory-free electorate, the GOP now has a much stronger hand and is essentially blackmailing the entire country to benefit its own prospects for 2012 and the tiny sliver of ultra-wealthy citizens that is the party's main purpose for existing at present. Faced with such prospects, the president might be viewed as having acted appropriately and compassionately. Sure, it adds to the deficit/debt problem to the tune or almost a trillion dollars and will eventually give the conservatives an even stronger hand when it comes time to ELIMINATE all those annoying social programs ordinary people need. But it's still what I called in an earlier post "keeping a declining republic going with baling wire and chewing gum." It's either that, one might say, or run with the prospect of letting the country fall apart right in front of the current generation's eyes.

In this view, all those brilliant so-called liberal or independent voters who stayed home last November "to send a strong message" have nobody to blame but themselves, the Blinking Idiots of America. If you're amongst that honorable assembly, I've got your message right here, channeled (as near as this dino can attune its liberal sensibilities to the appropriate frequency) straight from the Grand Old Party: "If you don't have a net worth of at least eight figures, we don't care what happens to you, now or at any other time. Go straight to hell, you twenty-first-century peons, and don't bother sending us the bill for the trip."

2. President Obama might have done best to let the cuts expire, then strongly and continually advocate the proposal and reinstatement of working-class and middle-class tax cuts and an unemployment benefits extension, all the while excoriating congressional Republicans when they resolutely refuse to help millions of people whose well-being is of no interest to them. This is a difficult and painful path, especially since, if I understand the process correctly, come January House Democrats will no longer be able to drive the legislative agenda. In that body, the Republicans will have the main say in what gets proposed and voted on. The most likely scenario is two years' worth of gridlock. The up side of this strategy would be, of course, that at least the GOP would come under intense pressure not to do the worst it is clearly meditating to do. What I'm describing is something like Bill Clinton's gambit against the shutters-down of government back in the 1990's. It worked pretty well for him, I recall -- the conservatives backed down because people rightly blamed them for their juvenile temper tantrums and stalling tactics while people suffered. The president's hand might be very strong in such a case: "Do something! Stop arguing about what did or didn’t happen last month or last year! Do something, you mean-spirited rotters!" It's exactly the sort of blinkered-historical-vision, short-term, bark-it-up strategy that Republicans themselves are so good at (as when they call liberals "whiners" for reminding us that Bush 43's mistakes are partly the cause of our current troubles) -- why not turn it against them for a change to do the people a good turn?

What hath the midterms wrought?

So, what do we know about the election results?

Well, New Mexico just installed a teabagger in the governor's mansion, so where does that leave us? Well, I can be glad that I decided against a second career in the police, or as a teacher, when I got out of the military.

Then again, I'm working in a hospital, and Medicaid cuts are pretty much a certainty, so little comfort there.

GOP lapdog Steve Pearce got his old job back as Congresscritter, so at least our newly-crowned Governor Martinez won't be lonely.

On the national front, the candidates endorsed by Sarah Palin didn't fare as well as some people expected: if you discount the ones who were already shoo-ins before the Palinator bestowed her blessing on them, her batting average was about 0.5 or so. (It hardly matters - even if she'd had a 100% failure rate, her followers have long since proven themselves to be invulnerable to little things like "logic" or "reason.")

Jerry Brown has been reelected as governor of California, with just a little gap of twenty-seven years between his second and third terms.

(I know Ahnold hasn't been working out as much as he used to, but who would have thought he could be beaten by a 72-year-old former Jesuit seminarian and law clerk?)

Harry Reid held onto his seat, despite a particularly mendacious campaign by teabagger favorite Sharron Angle. In fact, the Tea Party candidates didn't do well overall - not a single teabagger picked up a contested seat in the Senate, with national jokes like Angle, Joe Miller and Christine O'Donnell going down in flames. (Admittedly, Kentucky elected Rand Paul, but that's more a symptom of inbreeding than anything else.)

To counteract the GOP depression brought on by Reid's continued presence in the Senate, Alan Grayson lost his House reelection bid, which probably gives John Boehner as much of an erection as he can get since that horrible melanin overdose.

Regarding the "traditional wisdom" of Grayson losing because he was an "outspoken liberal," Southern Beale pointed me to an analysis by Digby, who said:

Regarding Grayson, well, we have a little controlled experiment. His neighboring first term Democratic congresswoman Suzanne Kosmas, in a very similar district, took the opposite approach to Grayson. She ran as hard to the right as she could get away with, never had a controversial thought much less uttered one, was rewarded with big money and support from the DCCC --- and she lost too. This race was bigger than both of them. Florida is turning hard right.

But more than that, having landed on Digby's Hullabaloo, I was led to this statistical recap of the election by Ed Kilgore.

Finally, something must be said about the electorate that produced these results. According to national exit polls, 2010 voters broke almost evenly in terms of their 2008 presidential votes; indeed, given the normal tendency of voters to "misremember" past ballots as being in favor of the winner, this may have been an electorate that would have made John McCain president by a significant margin. Voters under 30 dropped from 18% of the electorate to 11%; African-Americans from 13% to 10%, and Hispanics from 9% to 8%. Meanwhile, voters over 65, the one age category carried by John McCain, increased from 16% of the electorate to 23%.

These are all normal midterm numbers. But because of the unusual alignment of voters by age and race in 2008, they produced a very different outcome, independently of any changes in public opinion. Indeed, sorting out the "structural" from the "discretionary" factors in 2008-2010 trends will be one of the most important tasks of post-election analysis, since the 2012 electorate will be much closer to that of 2008. That's also true of the factor we will hear most about in post-election talk: the "swing" of independents from favoring Obama decisively in 2008 to favoring Republicans decisively this year. Are these the same people (short answer: not as much as you'd think), or a significantly different group of voters who happened to self-identify as independents and turned out to vote?

Or to put it another way, the party in power always loses in the midterms. It is as it always has been. Nothing new going on here.

And in barely related news, McDonald's has brought back the McRib sandwich, which is an interesting coincidence: with Republicans on the rise again, pork is back in fashion. Imagine that.
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Update (11/4/10): It has been suggested that Ahnold wasn't running against Jerry Brown; Meg Whitman was. Noted. However, I refuse to give up on a perfectly good joke based strictly on something as minor as "reality."

Election 2010: Not Exactly a Knockout

The bad news is that the Democrats took some solid punches in the midterm elections; the good news is that  the injuries aren't life threatening.

There was significant voter turnout, especially for midterm elections, but the numbers weren't as good in some states as in 2006. I've been reading blog posts, mostly from the young folks--the 35 and under crowd--which called for showing the Democrats their displeasure by not voting. A lot of these calls for desertion of the Democrats came from young African-Americans and Latinos who have decided that President Obama has betrayed them. They have all the impatience of youth and and want everything yesterday.

One young blogger refers to Obama as the Changeling, the mythical creature from the fairy tale who replaces the human child and has evil intent on the unsuspecting family. It's an interesting but inaccurate metaphor.

In order to make a statement to Obama about his imagined betrayal and to teach the Democrats not to take them for granted, there were a number of folks who advocated not voting at all. I'll try and remember to ask them in about two years how that "I'll show those Democrats" thing has worked out for them.

In the meantime, the Democrats have a few moments of glory from Tuesday night. It appears that reason prevailed and Chris Coons defeated  "I am not a witch" Christine O'Donnell in Delaware. Harry Reid pulled the rabbit out of the hat and managed to wrestle a win away from mad hatter Sharron Angle.  Blumenthal out wrestled Linda McMahon in Connecticut. Jerry Brown is back as governor of California and Barbara Boxer managed to hold on to her senate seat. (Click for NY Times' Election Results)

There are a lot of serious bruises. Republicans have gained 60 seats giving them control of the House with a possibility of gaining four more when all the counting is done. In comparison, the Republicans gained 54 House seats in 1994 (Clinton administration). In 1946, the Republicans gained 56 House seats and in 1938 a record 80 House seats.

However, although the Republicans gained Senate seats, the Democrats continue to control the Senate and Harry Reid still holds his position of power in the Senate.

Two states were still too close to call as of 6:30 a.m. --Colorado and the state of Washington. In Alaska, it appears that the write in candidate has the most votes. The only candidate running as a write in candidate was Murkowski, but Alaska has some law that prohibits identifying the write in candidate until the ballots are counted. Of course, Murkowski has been all over the news thanking her supporters. Go figure!

I read a comment on Facebook by a 35-year-old who declared that all was lost and that we (progressives) were done and may as well accept that there is no hope. I'm far from Pollyanna but I think that's pretty extreme. Unless you're planning on dying today, how can anyone be done? It's an election and there will be other elections. The political scene changes like the wind; you never know which way it's going to blow. 

The Republicans cannot do most of the things that they touted in their campaigns; even if they get legislation through the House, they still have to get the necessary Senate votes. If they succeed in getting it through the Senate to the president's desk, he can veto it. They can override his veto if they can get enough votes (a 2/3 vote in each chamber) to do so in both the House and the Senate. If they adjourn before the president decides to sign or not to sign, then the president has effectively killed the legislation with a pocket veto. Isn't politics fun? 

What does their win mean? Probably a lot of deadlock where nothing much gets done and what is accomplished is done very slowly. In other words, business as usual.

P.S. Don't worry about the Republican threat to repeal the Health Care bill. I doubt that they want to tell the American public that they've decided to allow the insurance companies to end coverage for all those newly insured folks with preexisting conditions and are taking away grandma and grandpa's Medicare donut hole benefits. 

Teabaggers everywhere

So, as we approach November, everybody's watching the biggest clowns - the Nazi fanboy in Ohio, the militia supporter in Alaska who has reporters beaten for asking questions, and (certainly my favorite) the Delaware Trainwreck herself, the performance-art-made-flesh, Christine O'Donnell (I mean, can you beat a 40-year-old unmarried woman who's vocally, violently opposed to masturbation? She's either a liar, or more twisted than a Catholic priest in a room full of altar boys).

As time goes on, the Teabaggers are gradually proving themselves to be both blatantly racist and the last true descendants of John Birch. (I mean, come on! This is the public face of the Tea Party - what is it that they aren't willing to say in public?) But what midgets are hiding behind the massive sacks of crap in the front?

Well, for that, we should probably turn to that unfettered fount of fecal matter, Sarah Palin. So what lesser-known candidates does she like?

Sean Bielat for Massachusetts’ 4th Congressional District

It's hard to tell much about Bielat. He stays pretty well under the radar. He has been smart enough to release a viral video about Barney Frank, but that's about it.

Of course, Barney Frank is every Republican's worst nightmare. He's an effective, sarcastic, openly-gay Democrat - he gives them nightmares. They'd pretty much back Satan Himself against Frank, if they thought He had a chance of winning. ("Of course He's a good church-going person! Just ask his minister, the Reverend LeVey!")

(Are you supposed to capitalize the pronouns referring to Satan? I'm not even clear where you'd go to look that up, but I suspect you don't...)

Butch Otter for Governor of Idaho

Wow. So the man's first elected position was two terms with the Idaho House of Representatives. Then he was on the Idaho Republican Party Central Committee and Chairman of the Canyon County Republican Party. He served four terms as Lieutenant Governor, three terms in Congress, and he's been governor of Idaho since 2007. I thought the Tea Party was opposed to career politicians?

You know, as a convicted drunk driver himself, he's awfully hard on aides who get caught for the same offense. But it's obvious why Sarah likes him: he gets off on killing wolves too.

Stephen Fincher for Tennessee’s 8th Congressional District

An interesting choice for Ms. Palin. He takes potentially illegal campaign loans, but considering Palin's history with campaign funds (and, you know, $150,000 wardrobes that are still unaccounted for), that one would be easy for her to overlook. Fincher has refused to comment. On any issue.

But then, Sarah supports that idea, too. Because it was when she actually spoke to people that she got in trouble. Better to avoid speaking entirely...

Randy Hultgren for Illinois’ 14th Congressional District

Randy is another cipher. He talks a great game, but...

See, here's the thing. He's running against Bill Foster. An acknowledged science wonk, known for being a true centrist, more interested in the people and the result than in sheer partisan bickering. To most people, you'd think this would be a good thing. But to Sarah Palin, he's the Black Hole of Evil.

A true centrist is the last thing she wants. Someone who pays attention to the realities of a situation, and not the political implications? She can't have that! We must have strict partisan divides!

This is pretty much what Sarah does. She supports ciphers who've said they support any kind of stupid right-wing crap, as long as it gets them elected. But Sarah doesn't always go with that "due diligence" thing. You know, like in an earlier list, where Sarah plugged a "great" West Virginian candidate, John Raese.

She supported Raese for a while now (you know, despite the fact that even his wife won't be voting for him), although... well, OK, she was giving her support to him for a race where he wasn't running. She thought he was from Pennsylvania, as it shows in this Twitter post that she has since scrubbed from her website.But it's an understandable mistake. After all, for Raese's West Virginia political ad, he went to Philadelphia, and put out a casting call for "coal miner/trucker" types with "a ‘Hicky’ Blue Collar look."

(Apparently, those types of people are thin on the ground in West Virginia.)

The Dino Voter's Brief and Simple Guide to This November's Elections

Reading the accounts of the Coming Electoral Apocalypse – or so the pundits are forecasting, if one takes them seriously – is an exercise in frustration for anyone who values basic rationality.

I can understand someone being a Republican born and raised and always voting that way by force of habit or perceived affinity of interest, but anyone who thinks handing over control of even part of the government to the Grand Old Pachyderm is going to restore equilibrium or "shake things up" fails to understand the nature of that particular elephant. It's sort of like handing over your ship to a passing crew of pirates because you're dissatisfied with the way your captain runs the boat.

I suspect that underlying the shake-em-up rationale is the notion that the Republicans know best how the economy works. Nothing could be more distant from the truth – as a general rule, THEY UNDERSTAND ABSOLUTELY NOTHING ABOUT HOW A SUSTAINABLE CAPITALIST ECONOMY WORKS, which you can see by the way most of them behave every time they gain a working majority in Congress. They act like pirates, slashing and hacking the tax base and raiding the public treasury for the benefit of their wealthiest backers before the dullards who voted them in start to catch on, however fleetingly, to what's happening. If the Republicans regain the House, I'll not trouble myself much with politics for the next few years because I think I've come across this script before, and it's just not worth hearing or watching.

So here's the simple-dino line: O Human Democrats, quit nattering and yammering, just vote. Vote, and thereby limit the damage Republicanist piracy can do -- for the umpteenth time -- to our country. Doesn't matter if you're dispirited or not entirely happy with the Dems, just do it.

SHAW EXPOSES IDENTITY THEFT AND RIGHT WING CYBER-TERRORISM RING