Proving radical right-wing bona fides will be the undoing of the GOP presidential nominee

By Richard K. Barry

Many months ago, I made a point about how the Tea Party would drag GOP presidential candidates to the far right as these hopefuls battled it out to curry favour with this activist hard-core right-wing of the party. Conventional wisdom is that in nomination races you have to prove you are worthy of the party faithful who can have some pretty rigid views about what it means, in this case, to be a conservative. This is even more the case with the Tea Party, as we know.

In the general election, you typically have to moderate these ideological views to appeal to independent or swing voters who are more pragmatic and less impressed with your supposed purity as a standard-bearer for your party. 

It wasn't clear how this would all work out back then for the GOP, but now we know and so does the Obama campaign.

As Talking Points Memo pointed out recently:

The rise of Gingrich has forced Romney to take stands that Democrats are quite thrilled with, such as his new embrace of the Ryan Budget, which polled poorly back when the Republican House approved it. Months more of trying to win over conservative voters away from Gingrich could force Romney into more less-than-general-election-ideal stances. 

David Axelrod

That's assuming Romney wins. If the long primary results in a Gingrich nomination, well, the Obama campaign thinks more exposure for Gingrich is a good thing for them, too. 

Now, those with four year memories will recall that the epically long primary that resulted in Obama's nomination was widely seen as strengthening Obama and turning him in to a general election force to be reckoned with. Obama strategist David Axelrod said there's no danger of something similar happening to the GOP nominee that emerges from a long Gingrich-Romney slog. 

"The difference here is that we weren't being tugged to a pole in our party, we weren't being tugged to the left," Axelrod said. "They're being tugged to the right every day."

It seems likely that this Romney vs. Gingrich dust-up is going to take several months to resolve itself, which, if nothing else, assures less time for the eventual Republican nominee to focus his attention on Obama. But at least as important is all of the radical right-wing positions the GOP nominee will have blathered all over the country, which it will be really hard to walk back.  

As Axelrod says:

The agenda that the Republicans are embracing in order to win the nomination, I think they're mortgaging themselves for the general by tacking as far as they are now. I think the longer the race goes the more they're going to do that and the harder it is to scramble back.

Yes, that's the point and it wasn't hard to see coming. The Tea Party may not be the force it once was, but it set all of this in motion and now will reap what it sowed. Democrats everywhere are grateful.

(Cross-posted at Lippmann's Ghost.)

The great cave: How Obama and the Democrats are losing the battle over the Bush tax cuts

By Michael J.W. Stickings

It was being reported yesterday that the White House was prepared to cave to Republicans and renew Bush's (highly unpopular) tax cuts for the wealthy. (See Carl's post here.)

Well, not so fast.

If we are to believe noted anti-progressive David Axelrod, Obama's top advisor, what he actually said ("We have to deal with the world as we find it," etc.) was, well, misinterpreted. As he wrote in an e-mail to WaPo's Greg Sargent:

There is not one bit of news here. I simply re-stated what POTUS and [Press Secretary] Robert [Gibbs] have been saying. Our two strong principles are that we need to extend the tax cuts for the middle class, but we can't afford a permanent extension of the tax cuts for the wealthy.

Please note -- the Bush tax cuts for the wealthy will be extended, if not renewed or made permanent. Even there, on the extension, Obama has caved. Sargent writes:

The question remains, though, whether the White House will hold fast to Obama's demand last week that the extension of the tax cuts for the middle class remain permanent while extending the high end ones temporarily. The main sticking point is that Republicans won't allow the two categories to be extended for different durations, because that would force them to push for just an extension of the cuts for the rich later.

But why should the Republicans get what they want? This is an issue that many of us (notably TNR's Jonathan Chait) were writing about in great frustration before last week's elections. Why not separate the two and force Republicans to defend publicly their support for making the Bush tax cuts for the wealthy permanent?

Obviously, the Democrats aren't in the position they were before the elections. There's only so much they can do without control of the House. But Obama should stand firm and make sure that Republicans are identified, first and foremost, with what is deeply unpopular. Axelrod may talk up reality, but reality also means securing political wins even where policy wins may not be possible.

This is still a great issue for Democrats. Which means we can count on them to fuck it up. (And fucking it up they are.)

And you should forgive us if we don't entirely trust anything that comes out of the White House. While I hope that Axelrod is serious, the caving is already well underway.

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By the way, Senate Minority Leader (and hyper-partisan Republican) Mitch McConnell said yesterday that he was "willing to listen to what the President has in mind for protecting Americans from tax increases," that is, that he might be open to compromise on the Bush tax cuts (including possibly only a temporary extension for the tax cuts for the wealthy). 

Don't believe a thing he says. For Republicans, compromise is not on the table.

Whoever shall replace Axelrod and Emanuel?

By Michael J.W. Stickings

The Obama White House will look a lot different in 2011 than it does today -- hopefully for the better. Larry Summers, director of the National Economic Council, is taking his smug arrogance and conflicted Wall Street ties back to Harvard. Obama Senior Advisor David Axelrod, will be doing some "hippie punching" out on the campaign trail, and Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel, expected to be the next major player out the door, will likely be heading back home to Chicago, where it is expected he'll run for mayor.

So who will the new faces be? Who knows? (Who cares?) Howard Kurtz tweeted that, according to CBS, Press Secretary Robert Gibbs could replace Axelrod. But, honestly, does it matter?

Given what we've come to expect from Obama so far in his presidency, which is disappointment after maddening disappointment, I wouldn't be surprised if he re-populated his inner circle with a bunch of pro-DADT, pro-Bush-Cheney national security state, pro-Wall Street neocon-lite Republicrat Blue Dogs just to stick it to his liberal-progressive base and ensure that his policy agenda is solidly moderate Republican and uncompromisingly untransformative.

Pardon my mood, but that whole "change we can believe in" rhetoric now seems like a steaming pile of horse manure.

Quote of the Day: David Axelrod on Republicans

By Michael J.W. Stickings

"Obama Prepared to Move Agenda Forward With or Without GOP," headlines ABC News.

The odds for "with" are probably so high that a responsible bookie wouldn't even take a "without" bet.

Anyway, here's Axelrod:

I haven't given up on Republicans. I do believe that there are Republicans of good conscience who want to work together on issues.

Really? Name five of them. Seriously. Start with five "of good conscience." Then "who want to work together on issues."

Snowe or Collins? Nope. Brown? Not likely, though maybe here and there. Graham? Maybe on climate change, sort of. Cao? Only because he wants to win re-election a Democratic district. Who else is there? Once upon a time, maybe McCain, but no more, not with him veering ever further to the right to ward off a right-wing primary challenge back home.

But that's about it. Look what they did, unanimously, on health-care reform.

I'd say that Axelrod is full of shit, but of course he's not. He knows full well that bipartisanship isn't possible with the Republicans the way they are.

But I suppose he has to say the right things, what with the media's love-in with bipartisanship, and he certainly doesn't want the White House, and his boss (who's certainly smart enough to know what's going on and who plays up bipartisanship because he knows it plays well with the American people -- and if it works, it works, but if it doesn't, the Republicans look bad), to come across as intransigently partisan.

In the end, Democrats will have to go it alone, as they did on health-care reform. You have to be ignorant of political and ideological reality to think otherwise.

Encore, Sen. Franken, encore!

By Michael J.W. Stickings

Politico:

Sen. Al Franken ripped into White House senior adviser David Axelrod this week during a tense, closed-door session with Senate Democrats.

Five sources who were in the room tell POLITICO that Franken criticized Axelrod for the administration's failure to provide clarity or direction on health care and the other big bills it wants Congress to enact.

It's possible that "ripped into" is an exaggeration. Still, we need much more of this. Democrats shouldn't take shit from anyone, including from the president, who needs to show a hell of a lot more leadership if he wants to keep his agenda from ending up in the dustbin of history.