Blessing in Disguise for Obama? Maybe, Maybe Not
"Politically, ObamaCare has backfired. Much of the goodwill with which the president entered the White House has been squandered, and any effort to try to force a health bill through Congress now will drive what’s left of that goodwill over a cliff.
But Brown and the voters of Massachusetts have killed ObamaCare. In so doing they have provided the president a priceless second chance to adjust his political course, move toward the center, and deliver at least some of the bipartisan cooperation that was at the heart of his once-enormous appeal. If Obama seizes the opportunity that Massachusetts and its senator-elect have given him, the brightest days of his presidency may be still to come."
~Jeff Jacoby
14 Comments:
Worked for Bill Clinton in the 1990's!
If he plays it right, the Republicans can be bought off with a couple of shiny trinkets. I don't trust them either.
But luckily the Reid and Pelosi crowd seem so stuck on their priorities that it may not be possible.
Hopefully he'll stick to his agenda and maybe we'll be done with this socialism threat forever.
generally, it seems we get the best results when the executive and legislative branches are held by different parties.
it results in mostly gridlock which, sad to say, is far better than what passes for visionary government by either team red or team blue these days...
it's been 20 years since we had a party favoring small government.
David Harsanyi posted the following at the Reason site: The Idea Is the Problem...
Many more Democrats continue to convince themselves that the party's problem is flawed candidates or poorly communicated messages, as White House spokesman Robert Gibbs conceded this week—because, presumably, the idea of socializing medicine is too nuanced and intellectually rigorous for the average voter to digest.
Hardly. The predicament Democrats face is the opposite. Too many voters appreciate exactly what health care legislation entails...
Big spenders never change.
Overall popularity of Congress will sink to all time lows. The voters who are energized as seen by the results in Mass will vote out the incumbent party until someone solves problems. Republicans in the next election cycle will pick up seats but mostly likely lose ground in the 2012 elections. The political ineptitude of both parties is staggering.
Obamacare is dead!
Obamacare is dead!
They tried to shove it down our throats!
We teabagged them instead!
"While most pundits are inclined to view Scott Brown’s Senate victory in Massachusetts as a referendum on President Obama’s healthcare plan, I view it as a sign of increasing anger over the state of the United States economy . . .
It’s time for President Obama to wake up and realize that his economic team is failing him. We are repeating the mistakes of the past and the great reflation experiment is not working for the average American. This policy of print and spend hasn’t worked in the past and it’s not working now. The same men who helped get the economy into this mess (the bankers, Geithner, Summers, Bernanke, etc) are the same men who are going to bury his re-election hopes in 2012 . . . " The Pragmatic Capitalist
Juandos,
Thanks for the great link! spot on the nose.
Unfortunately, I do not believe that President Obama is a pragmatist. He would have to do the one thing that Obama cannot...admit that he was wrong. That is simply not possible for a man with an ego the size of Obama's.
I agree with QT, and others, it'll be harder for Obama to change his core philosophy of shackling the free market and enslaving the rich people (even if the GOP takes Congress). Eventually, the only significant spending cuts may be in national defense (perhaps a "peace dividend").
Taxes and prices should continue to rise, and lower income Americans may suffer the most. We have a huge expansion of government spending and the quantative easing, while capital and goods are being destroyed (although, from high levels two years ago). It seems inevitable inflation will accelerate.
If Obama keeps trying to fix the economy by adding more government funded jobs and funneling more money to his supporters via "stimulus" he's going to continue to fail on the economy. Right now he's no B+ student in economics. At best he's earning a D.
I'd love to see Obama embrace free market principles, but I'm not holding my breath. He's arrogant and fairly ignorant (despite the msm line). I don't expect him to actually abandon the bad ideas he holds. He'll just change tactics to cope with political reality.
"The same men who helped get the economy into this mess (the bankers, Geithner, Summers, Bernanke, etc) are the same men who are going to bury his re-election hopes in 2012 . . . "
************
Ahmen
> Blessing in Disguise for Obama? Maybe, Maybe Not
I think this falls into the "Not" category.
The Dems are in full denial mode and ready to double down.
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