Jun
10
Politico reports that GOP leaders believe that they might actually be able to get around to taking advantage of some chinks in President Obama’s armor.
Republicans on Capitol Hill think they’ve finally found Barack Obama’s Achilles’ heel: rising public concern about government spending and the federal deficit.
While Obama’s overall job-approval ratings are up over the past month, a Gallup Poll out this week has a 51 percent majority of Americans disapproving of the president’s efforts to control federal spending and a slim 48 percent to 46 percent disapproving of his handling of the federal deficit.
Those are the only areas where Obama has negative approval ratings — Americans approve, by double-digit margins, the way Obama is handling his overall job, foreign affairs, terrorism, the Middle East and North Korea. But the GOP will take what it can get.
“The president is still popular, but his policies are catching up with him,” said Tennessee Sen. Lamar Alexander, who, as the No. 3 Republican in the Senate, is in charge of messaging for his conference. “When that happens, it helps us make our points.”
Sen. John Cornyn (R-Texas), the head of the National Republican Senatorial Committee, told POLITICO that GOP candidates in 2010 will almost certainly use the deficit to argue that Democrats own a Washington mess.
“This was not an inherited situation. This was a matter entirely of this administration’s and this Democratic leadership’s making,” Cornyn said. “In large part, I believe, 2010 will be a referendum on their performance.”
And today, we see the astonishing spectacle of GOP leaders rejoicing that “debt will bring Obama down“. This is exactly as anti-American as the anti-war nutjobs who long for the day the US is nuked as a lesson to the their enemies on the Right. It is a deeply myopic approach to our common life. The idiots now in charge of the GOP seem to neither know nor care that the debt they hope will destroy Obama will also destroy these United States–and that they share a huge role in allowing that to happen.
Errr right. Now, close reading and fair representation of what others say is not exactly Mark’s forte, but this seems especially strange to me. Nowhere are the party leaders expressing a hope that Obama’s policies lead to such an explosion of the debt, but they are merely pointing out that said results are indeed being noticed by the public and as such, can be a campaign in issue in 2010. The closest thing we get to “rejoicing” is the quote from Lamar Alexander, ““When that happens, it helps us make our points.” But that’s simply an honest assessment that Obama’s policy failures can and should be a legitamite campaign issue. What is so outrageous about that?
It’s certainly fair to point out GOP complicity in the run-up of national debt, and Democrats are perfectly entitled to scream “tua culpa” at the Republicans. But highlighting policy failures before the public is hardly an egregious action, and in fact it would be kind of silly for the Republicans not to exploit an issue which is a weakness for Obama. This is a far cry from openly rooting for an American military defeat or invasion in order to prove a point. No one (or at least no fair-minded person) could complain about the other side exploiting foreign policy debacles. What is repugnant is openly rooting for such failures. From the Politico article I don’t really see that the Republicans are necessarily engaging in such behavior.
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[...] is a celebrity. The Obamas are helping turn staid old Washington into Hollywood on the Potomac Shocking and revolting: GOP might use policy failures against Obama – crankycon.politicalbear.com 06/10/2009 Politico reports that GOP leaders believe that they might [...]
Gee, wow.
I said on my blog that the debt problem was VERY significant to GOP strategizers–about 4 months ago.
If there’s anything the American consumer understands these days, it is over-debtedness.
Yeah, holding politicians to account for their policy failures is usually not a bad thing.
Shea’s comment is bizarre, simply bizarre.
It’s certainly fair to point out GOP complicity in the run-up of national debt, and Democrats are perfectly entitled to scream “tua culpa” at the Republicans.
And is exactly what Charlie Crist’s future opponent should do, which makes Cornyn’s apparent statement “…that GOP candidates in 2010 will almost certainly use the deficit to argue that Democrats own a Washington mess” almost laughable in the case of his own hand- picked endorsee in the Florida race who not only accepted Porkulus money but did so standing shoulder-to-shoulder with President Obama with a smile on his face.
I don’t know what you could possibly mean, Terry. John Cornyn has assured us that Gov. Crist could not possibly lose this election. Do you mean to tell me that the NRSC possibly backed the wrong horse? What next, you’re going to tell me that James von Brunn isn’t really a right-winger?
Crazy talk, I tells ya.
There’s a reason I coined the term “hyperbolic asshattery”.