The GOP: Poised for a Big Comeback?

According to Reihan Salam it is. (And if you've read Nixonland by Rick Perlstein, you won't shrug this dire prediction off--even if it seems a bit over the top on the face of it.)


http://www.thedailybeast.com/blogs-and-stories/2009-08-17/the-gops-big-comeback/p/


The GOP's Big Comeback
by Reihan Salam
August 17, 2009 | 8:19am

The battle over the public option is just the beginning of the Republicans' resurgence—and Obama doesn't even see it coming.

The right is coming back. Inevitably, it's a messy and even ugly process, one that involves fear-mongering and utter falsehoods as well as legitimate concerns and old-fashioned righteous indignation. The Obama White House and left-leaning media outlets are focusing on the "nonsense feedback loop," the fears of "death panels," the outrage of Birthers—all of the outré untruths you'll hear raised at congressional town brawls. Rather more convincing arguments made by the likes of Bush economic policy advisor Keith Hennessey—arguments that influence real-world Republican policymakers—are getting short shrift. It's easy to understand why Democrats have embraced this approach. A few short years ago, the conservative media worked overtime to marginalize the anti-war movement by skewering Cindy Sheehan. Instead of focusing on the retired generals and regional experts and diplomats who opposed the war, the right spent an inordinate amount of time highlighting the lunacy of 9/11 Truthers and ANSWER activists. And it seemed to work, at least for a while. But just as this approach didn't stop a genuine anti-war upsurge from sweeping Republicans out of office, dismissing opposition to Obamacare as the work of a corporate-funded lunatic fringe won't make it go away.

Part of the problem for Democrats is that many have lost the taste for political combat. At this weekend's Netroots Nation in Pittsburgh, what had been an insurgency of disenfranchised left-wingers become something rather different: a sober, sensible gathering of confident—if not slightly smug—activists who are preparing themselves for a long stint in power. Rage against the Bush White House has given way to low-level anxieties over whether President Obama is tough enough to push through a truly progressive agenda. News that the White House has all but abandoned the public option has already been greeted by howls of derision from netroots stalwarts, but the frustration and disappointment is mostly muted. The left was energized by fierce opposition to the war in Iraq, which transformed legions of college-educated Democrats into the internet-enabled shock troops of a new and assertive political movement that promised to transform the country.

With Obama in power, that energy has dissipated. Anti-war sentiment gave progressives the unifying narrative they needed. Yet the fact that over 100,000 troops remain in Iraq and are drawing down according to a gently-paced Bush-era timetable seems to barely phase once-fired-up MoveOn members. Obama's neoconservative-approved escalation in Afghanistan has gotten a rise out of a handful of progressive bloggers and dovish congressional Democrats, but again, the progressive base seems strangely indifferent. And when Organizing for America, the Democrats' effort to institutionalize the excitement surrounding the Obama presidential campaign, tries to rally supporters to counter the right at health reform town halls, one gets the impression that its emails are going straight to spam.

If the war gave the left a sense of purpose, the exploding federal debt is doing the job for the right. There is no small irony to this, as Bush-era tax cuts and the enormously expensive wars in Afghanistan and Iraq (wars which I supported and continue to support) are responsible for much of the deterioration of America's fiscal position. It's taken an economic calamity to remind grassroots conservatives of the virtues of pre-Reaganite root-canal economics. This is not the modern, youthful, multiethnic, forward-looking GOP that Karl Rove and George W. Bush envisioned when they were plotting a run for the White House. Nor is this the highly-educated answer to the middle-class and mostly middle-aged netroots nation. Like the Perot voters who were so desperate for sincerity that they turned to an eccentric and enormous-eared billionaire, this is a movement of old, flinty, very skeptical people who don't believe President Obama when he claims that he can cover the uninsured and improve quality and lower costs long-term. They see it as their duty to save America from smooth-talking politicians.

...

So far...he's not keeping his base as happy as he could but he's not copying Bush verbatum.

So Republican yammering and lying about a whole bunch of things that are the fault of Republicans is going to vault the Republicans back into the governmental driver's seat. And yes, given the extraordinary successes that progressives have enjoyed in the last three years in dismantling the "permanent" Republican majority, it's "smug" to look at those victories with a sense of satisfaction.

Thank you for your concern, Mr. Salam.

Let Democrats get cocky and over confident and they will find themselves on the short end of the political stick. Democrats need to learn something the Republicans already seem to know: dance with the one who brought you. Democrats in Congress and the White House need to remember that it was rank and file Democrats who got out and voted and brought the Democrats to power. Than can be lost as quickly also.

Dancing with who got them there was a big part of getting them out and far fewer will admit they dance with Republicans.

So they admit they are nothing but a useless lame duck party that has nothing but half assed rhetoric and lies for a platform. Good for them, the first step to recovery is to admit you have a problem. :rofl: :rofl: :rofl:

2000 can't be argued by anyone. That asshole was not elected.

Comeback my arse

Political dominance in this country always shifts, the idea that one party will be permanently in power is absurd.

At some point the republicans will retake the whitehouse and probably congress. And later they will lose it, and so on.

Obamas election did not represent a major shift in political views in this country, in which the majority aren't loyal to either party and are in fact very indifferent. He only got 52.9% to mccains 45.7%. Which considering the A) being in a very unpopular war, B) having a very unpopular president, C) the economy tanking and D) doing a terrible job running a campaign on the other side, that is a remarkably low victory margin.

So yeah, the republicans will spend their time in the wilderness until they figure out how to win.

Sure, it will suck if Obama fails us. But the reason why Obama won the election is because THEY failed us--and they aren't even BOTHERING to seduce us with promises they have no intention of keeping.

More fearmongering...people don't want ANY kind of health care reform, the public option is dead, the GOP is poised for a comeback...getting sleepy...

:boring:
rocktivity

that's why they must take the fight out of us BEFORE the battle has truly begun.

:headbang:
rocktivity

Lots of chatter about this, probably trying to create a self-fulfilling-prophecy.

said so a while ago on my tee vee so it must be true.

Gotta have a footrace, no matter what the cost to the nation.

If we look back in recent history Johnson was elected with a majority, partly because the GOP put up a radical candidate that was on the fringe at that time. He was also riding on JFK's popularity.

Within 4 years he was so unpopular, not just with the GOP, they would have been opposed no matter what, but with his base because of Vietnam. Not the whole base but with a big enough part that there was no way he would be elected in 1968. Those people he alienated would have voted for an independent...and there was one in the wings.

As a result of that he was facing a very strong primary challenge from RFK who grabbed up those people (that would be me). Had he stayed in the fight, he would have ripped the democratic party apart.

Fast forward to now. If Obama does not get this back on track, he will rip the party apart. Johnson was loyal enough to drop out and try to offer a decent shot. Didn't work but he tried.

We are in a position now where our "big tent" party allows people in who have no business being in the tent. They share few of the democrats principles -- time for all you blue dogs to stand up. All the DLC cares about is numbers, not ideology. They don't care about quality, just quantity.

The only way to un-derail this movement is to get the blue dogs in line. Basically tell them if they don't get with the program we'll take away their magic decoder ring and put all our resources to whoever challenges them, including the repub. Liebermann/Lamont -- case in point. Better to have your enemies in front of you.

I think all this falls on the shoulders of Reid and the DLC. Oh, and Obama going to bed with them. He was elected by running away from them.

It may not be at the next election, but eventually they will be back in power. Any one that thinks such a well funded, cohesive and focused organization is just going to 'throw in the towel' after a loss or two is delusional. They are NOWHERE NEAR 'dead'. Assuming they are 'gone for good' will only enable their return to power sooner.

'per capita' costs of health care are per country. In the USA they are 8000 to 9000 dollars per person per year (even though 45 Million have no coverage) while in Canada the cost per person is about $3000.

Doesn't register with a common person who is looking at their own checkbook.

Most of that cost common people never see. Their insurance costs $1200 a month -- they only see $350 on their pay stub. They go into the doctors office and plop down a $20 copay. They don't realize that if it's a large office there are 3 people who deal strictly with bookkeeping and multiple billing systems, not to mention trying to figure out how to pad a bill so that they can get a reasonable return from an insurance company that is doing that "reasonable and customary" nonsense. Or cover a medicare patient whose bill they can't pad. And a hundred other complications.

Never occurs to them cause it takes more analytical requirements than watching dancing or american idol.

That's why the repubs only use very simple bumpersticker arguments. We just confuse them and make them feel stupid.

...but it may be true that they have nowhere to go but up. With the MSM pushing their agenda 24/7, they won't stay out of power forever.

If the economy gets better and the Democrats pass a good healthcare bill, the Democrats may gain in the next election. People have longer memories than they think.

With nothing to back it up, only that Broder wanted it, and the idiot Broder thought by saying it he could make it happen....what a fucking republican clown!

The GOP's politics of destruction are an absolute dead end for a country already half dead from their destructive politics.

:puke: