James Baker Advises the Republican Party

I am sure that the following is anathema to those who prefer ideological purity in the Republican party to the actual winning of elections--and to the ability to use election victories in order to claim a mandate to change policy for the better--but I happen to be enough of a heterodox thinker to believe that there is some merit to be found in Baker's advice:

There was, however, one big loser [in the government shutdown debacle]: the American people. This misguided episode cost the federal government $24bn, cost the country a potential drop in gross domestic product, and cost the GOP an opportunity to focus on the extraordinary failure associated with the ACA rollout.

Most Americans blame Republicans for the fiasco. And the fight over reopening the government and raising the debt ceiling revealed fissures within the GOP leadership. Understandably, questions have arisen about the party’s future. Will it split between Tea Partiers and its more mainstream factions? Will a third party rise from the aftermath of this schism? Is the Republican brand so tarnished that it cannot take control of the Senate in 2014 or the White House in 2016?

Having participated in presidential politics since 1976, one thing is clear to me. The party out of power is typically seen as impotent, helpless and hopeless. But just as inevitably, that same party always seems to rebound after serious soul searching.

Moreover, there has always been a wide range of interest groups in the party. For decades, we have had substantial fights between rightwing and more establishment Republicans. This infighting was particularly brutal in 1976, 1980 and 1988, and we went on to win two out of three presidential elections.

The party’s diversity, however, is a strength, not a weakness. Today, Tea Partiers bring a passion that can be an important edge in elections. But mainstream Republicans remain indispensable. It may sound trite, but it is true: united we stand, divided we fall. I think most Republicans understand that.

So what does the GOP need to do now? In the short term, remember that tactics and strategy both matter. It was a fool’s errand to tie the defunding of the ACA to a government shutdown and a debt-ceiling debate. Because Democrats control the White House and the Senate, the strategy was never going to work. To paraphrase Clayton Williams, a Republican who lost the 1990 Texas gubernatorial race after a series of gaffes: we shot ourselves in the foot and reloaded.

That does not mean that Republicans should stop criticising the ACA. It remains an example of big government at its worst: cumbersome, complicated and intrusive. The best – in fact, only – way to repeal the ACA is to control the White House, Senate and the House of Representatives. Democrats, after all, enacted the law when they controlled all three. So the focus should be on winning elections to control those levers of power.

Our Ongoing Governmental Disaster

This Ross Douthat piece is very good indeed on describing why the Republican shutdown plan was so crazy to begin with, and why indeed no method to Republican plans can be found. I would excerpt favorite parts, but really, one ought to read the whole thing.

While I am citing Douthat, here is another piece of his from which I will excerpt:

. . . I suppose one possible alternative would be for Republicans to step outside the murder-suicide context of shutdowns and debt ceiling brinksmanship, set aside the fantasy of winning major policy victories in divided government, cut a few small deals if possible and otherwise just oppose the president’s agenda on issues like immigration and climate change, and try to win the next two elections on the merits. This is how American political parties normally seek to enact their preferred policies, and the fact that the Republicans and Democrats are currently further apart ideologically than our political parties have traditionally been only strengthens the case for this old-fashioned way of doing things. Want to repeal/replace Obamacare, reform entitlements, do tax reform without tax increases? Go win a presidential election.

Well said. But of course, these days, to suggest that Republicans ought to moderate political positions in order to be able to win an election or two is to be a RiNO, utterly devoid of principles.

I do not want to make too much of the claim that the GOP's political position has become untenable. There are limits to that theory, which Nate Silver discusses in a very informative piece (isn't it interesting that Silver suddenly has fans on the right? A year ago, Silver was under attack from the right for having had the temerity to suggest that Barack Obama would win the presidential election). But as I have (plaintively) mentioned before, wouldn't it have been great if the GOP had avoided shooting itself in both feet, and instead, we had the opportunity to focus on just how incredibly embarrassed the Obama administration and just about every supporter of Obamacare must feel regarding the utterly disastrous rollout of the new health care program? Wouldn't it be better for Republican politicians if they could make fun of the Obama administration's admission that we should expect "months" of glitches with the Obamacare registration program?  Wouldn't it be better for Republican politicians to be able to focus on the fact that Obamacare is already giving consumers bad economic choices, or the fact that a former member of the Obama administration is criticizing the president's handling of the shutdown, or the fact that people like Megan McArdle are now pushing for Obamacare to have a drop-dead date for implementation?

Well yes, all of this would be better. But instead, what we have is a war between the establishment and the Tea Party (and yes, because of the way in which the Tea Party botched strategy and tactics for Republicans, I most certainly do have sympathy for the establishment in this fight, and note that the establishment is not made up of Gerald Ford Republicans, but people like former New Hampshire governor John Sununu, who is no one's idea of a moderate or RiNO). Instead, what we have are concerns that the default has already begun, and while I don't think that any evaporated faith in the United States government "will never return," I certainly think that in the short term, this entire dumb fight has caused a lot of damage to the United States government. At the end of the day, Republicans are going to have to give a lot of ground in negotiations in order to allows the government to re-open and in order to prevent any kind of default, and the tragedy is that the upcoming Republican capitulation would never have been necessary if Republicans did not try to demand things from this fight that they were never going to get in the first place.

I have said before that the Republican stance in forcing the government shutdown, in flirting with a debt ceiling default, and in demanding concessions that they never had any realistic chance of getting was political malpractice of the first order, given the way in which Republican bumbles and stumbles took attention off of the failed Obamacare rollout. I see no reason to back away from that statement.

Republicans and the Right Continue to Bumble and Stumble

Don't look now, but there finally appears to be some work getting done in order to reopen the government and get some kind of deal achieved on increasing the debt ceiling through meetings between the White House and congressional Republicans. But Republicans are hardly negotiating from a position of strength. Note that the story points out that "the White House and its Democratic allies in Congress were all but declaring victory at the evidence that Republicans — suffering the most in polls, and pressured by business allies and donors not to provoke a government default — were seeking a way out of the impasse." That part about "suffering in the polls" is no joke, by the way:

The Republican Party has been badly damaged in the ongoing government shutdown and debt limit standoff, with a new NBC News/Wall Street Journal poll finding that a majority of Americans blame the GOP for the shutdown, and with the party’s popularity declining to its lowest level.

By a 22-point margin (53 percent to 31 percent), the public blames the Republican Party more for the shutdown than President Barack Obama – a wider margin of blame for the GOP than the party received during the poll during the last shutdown in 1995-96.

Just 24 percent of respondents have a favorable opinion about the GOP, and only 21 percent have a favorable view of the Tea Party, which are both at all-time lows in the history of poll.

I would like to use this blog post in order to thank the shutdown caucus for bringing about this unmitigated political/public relations disaster for the Republican party, and for the right in general. No Democrat or liberal, actively working to undermine the starboard side of American politics, could possibly have done a better job than the suicide squards of the right did with the GOP's reputation.

The good news for Republicans is that they have over a year until the 2014 elections. The bad news is that the Republicans have over a year to think to themselves "gee, how else can we make ourselves less popular than the bubonic plague," come up with answers, and then merrily set about implementing them--to the shock and delight of Democrats everywhere. I for one have no doubt that Republicans will rise to the occasion.

To the extent that congressional Republicans are able to get themselves out of the political jam they have created for themselves, it may be because of the efforts of Paul Ryan, who doubtless will be considered a RiNO and an apostate in short order for actually trying to be responsible instead of doing something crazy like urging default on the debt, or working to get the GOP's approval ratings in the single digits.

Of course, if congressional Republicans wanted a blueprint on how to act halfway intelligent, they might have listened to Megan McArdle. The following excerpt revolves around a point I have tried to make myself:

The shutdown is eclipsing the horrifyingly inept rollout of the federal exchanges. Republicans should be basking in schadenfreude while a grief-stricken administration watches its poll numbers plunge. Instead, Obama and his deputies are getting front-page stories every day where they get to claim to be the grown-ups in the room. Again, I don’t care whether this is because the mainstream media is biased, unless you have a negotiation scenario where the MSM disappears at the stroke of midnight and is replaced by the staff of the National Review and the Daily Caller.

To amplify McArdle's point, the GOP could have spent time chortling over the fact that only five people in Iowa have signed up for Obamacare. No, that's not a typo; only five people in the entire state of Iowa have signed up for Obamacare. But, you know, God forbid that congressional Republicans should listen to reason, get themselves out of the line of fire, and let the storyline focus on all of the problems with the Obamacare rollout.

This is political malpractice at its worst. And it has been brought about by "thought leaders" on the right who wouldn't know a good thought if it confronted them and slapped them in the face. Whether activists on the right--both in and out of Congress--actually genuinely believed that it would be a good idea to shut the government down and play chicken with the debt ceiling over unrealistic negotiating demands, or whether those activists knew that this would be a disaster, but felt that it would profit them to curry favor with the Tea Party, there needs to be a serious examination on the right regarding the kind of leadership it has been saddled with. Specifically, anyone who argued that the shutdown strategy and threats of not raising the debt ceiling were good ideas needs to be ousted from any position of leadership on the right. It is high time for the grownups to take charge. As things stand right now, the GOP's/right's brain trust is short on brains, and shouldn't be afforded any trust whatsoever.

In Which I Write the Blog Post that Gets Me Called a RINO/CINO/LINO/Whatever-the-HeckINO*

With the shutdown of the federal government, we the citizenry were treated to ironclad promises and Namathian guarantees from congressional Republicans that at last, at long last, we had finally found a way to undo Obamacare. All that was required was for us to "hang tough," and mysteriously, magically, miraculously, the president of the United States would be persuaded to agree to defund his signature legislative achievement. You know, the achievement that Democratic presidents since Harry Truman yearned to get Congress to pass. The achievement that he believed and still believes will vault him into the Pantheon of Great American Presidents. The achievement that has won him rapturous support among members of his own base. All of this Barack Obama was supposedly going to forsake in order to end a government shutdown.

Now, congressional Republicans--who cannot see more than one move ahead in any battle of wits if their lives depend on it--are shocked, shocked to find out that the president of the United States is not quite prepared at all to give up his signature legislative achievement. What's more, he's not even prepared to negotiate with congressional Republicans over any changes to Obamacare until and unless the government is re-opened for business, and perhaps not even then. I am sure that many the congressional Republican is howling in anger and protest at the White House's stubbornness on this issue, but whatever his faults and shortcomings, Barack Obama cannot be blamed if congressional Republicans ignore poll after poll after poll after poll after poll indicating that whatever the American people think about Obamacare, they don't want the government to be shut down over an effort to defund it. Furthermore, Barack Obama cannot be blamed for basing his response strategy on a position that sells in the polls, and Republicans can hardly be surprised that the president will take public opinion into account when thinking about how best to counteract Republican demands (though congressional Republicans continue to amaze me by finding ways to be surprised by the bleeding obvious).

For a group of tough talkers, preening swaggerers and would-be political gladiators, congressional Republicans have made it abundantly clear that they don't have the first clue how to fight and win political battles anymore. Much of the problem has to do with the fact that much of the congressional Republican caucus is made up of members who simply aren't the swiftest Porsches in the garage. Ineptitude and stupidity appear to be the Chekhov's gun of congressional Republicans; they are plainly in view on the political stage and at some point during the drama, as sure as the rising of the sun in the east, congressional Republicans will reach for, grasp and employ ineptitude and stupidity in their battles with Democrats. If congressional Republicans were a police force, they would be the Keystone Kops. If, as Dante Alighieri said, names are the consequence of things, then many members of the congressional Republican caucus would be named Moe, Larry, Curly and/or Shemp, irrespective of the gender of the congressional Republican in question. If American politics were analogized to the Godfather movies, congressional Republicans would be a collective Fredo Corleone. If American politics were analogized to World War II, congressional Republicans would be the Maginot line.

Consider the fact that one GOP representative, Marlin Stutzman of Indiana, has decided that it would be oodles and oodles of fun to plague his fellow Republicans with migraine headaches by declaring that Republicans are "not going to be disrespected. We have to get something out of this. And I don't know what that even is." (Emphasis mine, though perhaps emphasizing was entirely unnecessary.) When I was but a mere boy, I was taught that one never enters a negotiation without know what one wants, what one is prepared to give up in order to get what one wants, what one will never give up, and what one's best alternative to a negotiated agreement happens to be. Marlin Stutzman--who, remember, was elected to represent actual Americans in Congress and to negotiate on their behalf from time to time--has made it abundantly clear that he has not learned these lessons. And that means that Marlin Stutzman is a rube. An easy mark. A bamboozlee waiting to be bamboozed by the nearest bamboozler. And thus, the perfect mascot for the congressional Republican caucus, who in deed have demonstrated that they too don't have any idea whatsoever what they want out of any negotiations with the White House.

Oh sure, at the beginning, it was all about defunding Obamacare. But that was never going to happen, and no, it doesn't take hindsight to see that. Now, congressional Republicans say that they might be prepared to settle for an amendment to or repeal of the medical device tax, or a one year delay in the mandate for health insurance. Raise your hand if you believe, after the display we have been treated to this past week, that the White House will suddenly decide to fold like a cheap tent and give congressional Republicans even this victory. And even if the device tax is repealed (you can forget about the mandate going away), will any congressional Republican be able to sell the public on the idea that it was worth shutting down the government just for this?

The Hindenburgian/Titanicesque calamity that has been brought about by the performance of congressional Republicans has understandably left Republican leaders with few options. So now, we are told that Republicans are considering a "Hail Mary," which for non-football fans, is what happens when a team is behind, with almost no time on the clock, and in desperate need of nothing short of a miracle in order to win. The Hail Mary in question is the ever-elusive "grand bargain" on fiscal issues, "a budget deal that would include entitlement reforms, tax reform, and a new budget agreement, while also restoring government spending and raising the debt ceiling." Like Bigfoot, the Abominable Snowman, and Iranian political moderates, the "grand bargain" has been much discussed around campfires by people snacking on smores, but thus far, no evidence has been introduced that a grand bargain exists anywhere but in the imaginations of congressional Republicans. And yet, we are supposed to believe that one is achievable, despite the fact that congressional Republicans have not succeeding in repealing or defunding Obamacare. If they cannot do that--and remember, they promised us that they could if only we indulged the shutting down of the government!--how can we possibly expect them to deliver on some kind of "grand bargain" that brings us fiscal sanity, allows us to raise the debt ceiling so that the nation can pay its bills (more on this later), and gives all Americans a unicorn?

The grand bargain's reappearance on the political scene is due to the fact that "[m]ost House Republicans privately concede they’re fighting a battle they’re unlikely to win, and to avoid a prolonged shutdown and a disastrous debt default, Washington has to create a package so big that lifting the borrowing limit and funding the government is merely a sideshow." So, essentially, the grand bargain is a trick play designed to distract us from the fact that congressional Republicans utterly and completely botched their battle with the White House, which surely does little to restore one's faith in the intelligence of congressional Republicans--though it does much to reinforce my disdain for their critical thinking skills.

To be fair to congressional Republicans, part of the problem doesn't stem from the fact that they are bereft of field generals who are worth a damn. Part of the problem stems from the fact that if congressional Republicans do not hew to rigid ideological principles--irrespective of the facts on the ground and irrespective of how much rigid ideological principles might interfere with the crafting and implementation of pragmatic negotiating positions--then congressional Republicans will be challenged in primaries by people to their right. I am fine with the occasional primary challenge to congressional Republicans--people need to be kept honest, after all--but threatening primary challenges simply because some Republican somewhere decides to be practical about things every once in a while does not constitute the upholding of principles. Rather, it constitutes a sort of political cannibalism that makes Republicans look utterly and completely unreasonable to the American people, backs them into exceedingly uncomfortable corners, and lays waste to the Republican negotiating position in any talks with Democrats. From time to time, Republicans need to have sufficient ideological elbow room to strike deals. They cannot run the government on their own. But try telling that to activists who see pragmatism as heresy.

And what has all of that activism wrought? Has it wrought unity amongst congressional Republicans? Has it wrought any kind of desirable espirt de corps? Have congressional Republicans settled on a coherent battle plan and are they prepared to implement it? Hardly. Congressional Republicans are at each other's throats, don't know how to get themselves out of trouble, and are providing endless amounts of entertainment and mirth for congressional Democrats. The GOP has become one big, giant clown show.

And as though all of this is not enough, congressional Republicans are now planning to fight an increase on the debt ceiling (I told you that we would get to this issue). For those wondering about my sentiments on this scheme, let me spare you the suspense: Refusing to increase the debt ceiling is a fantastically stupid idea. In the annals of stupid ideas, it may rank as one of the stupidest. The United States would become a deadbeat nation. Financial markets would be thrown for a loop by the news that America cannot pay its bills. Interest rates on borrowing--and every nation borrows money; if the United States simply stopped borrowing money and lived only on tax revenue, you would see a dramatic and alarming drop in the standard of living for the American people--would rise alarmingly, something we absolutely, positively do not need with the economy still weak and with labor markets still very, very hobbled. The financial crisis of 2008 may look like a walk in the park by comparison, and the effects would be worldwide. The human misery would be staggering to behold. And I choose my words very carefully when I write all of this.

"But Pejman," I hear you cry, "we simply cannot afford more debt!" Well, here's some good news, for a change: Raising the debt ceiling will not put us further in debt. And refusing to raise the debt ceiling does not mean that we have decided to control government spending. Raising the debt ceiling is needed to pay bills that the United States has already incurred, just as having a job and bringing home a paycheck is needed to pay bills for your household. Refusing to raise the debt ceiling is not--repeat, not--like going to a big spender and cutting up his/her credit card and telling him/her that s/he has to live within means. Rather, it is like going up to someone who relies on a job in order to pay bills and telling him/her that s/he would no longer get paid for work that s/he did, which means that s/he will not be able to pay bills, get food, get gas, keep a roof over his/her head (and those of his/her loved ones). Refusing to raise the debt ceiling will not bring about financial responsibility. It will bring about the very opposite of financial responsibility, in fact; it will cause the United States to be unable to pay its bills. I thought that paying one's bills on time and in full was a sign of maturity, responsibility, a willingness to do the right and adult thing. I thought that these were conservative/right-of-center libertarian/Republican virtues. When did Republicans suddenly decide that these were vices?

One of the biggest tragedies associated with this SNAFU Brought to You by Congressional Republicans is the fact that it overshadows the utter, total, complete, absolute, stark-raving-hysterical failure that has been the rollout of the health insurance exchanges that are supposed to help make Obamacare The Next Awesome Thing in the History of Ever. Quite laughably, the Obama administration compares the health insurance exchange websites with Apple products and tells us that but for a glitch here and there--and thanks to the overwhelming and rapturous popularity that has greeted the implementation of health care "reform," popularity that has simply overloaded the poor widdle websites with which one is supposed to sign up to be part of the health insurance exchanges--the exchanges would be up and running and we would find unicorns, Bigfoot, the Abominable Snowman, Iranian political moderates and fiscal grand bargains along with our Glorious and Unstoppably Fantastic Health Care Reform. Don't believe a word of this fatuous nonsense; the job of the people who prepared the health insurance exchange websites was to prepare for heavy traffic starting on October 1. If they botched that job, who knows what other shenanigans we will have to put up with when, you know, we actually go to doctors' offices for necessary--and perhaps life-saving--procedures. Much political hay could have been made about the Obama administration's lack of readiness when it came to rolling out the health insurance exchanges, not to mention the ridiculous attempts to compare their Internet-work with Apple products. But unfortunately, the political clumsiness of congressional Republicans--who on their best days have trouble catching a break from a partisan media--helped ensure that far less attention would be paid to the Obama administration's bungling of the exchange rollouts this week.

So, here's three hearty Bronx cheers for congressional Republicans, who remind us why Bobby Jindal was forced to tell the GOP that it should stop trying to be the Stupid Party. Too bad that congressional Republicans refused to listen to Jindal's instruction. This week, they have snatched defeat from the jaws of victory, catastrophe from the jaws of temporary defeat, and a spate of night terrors from the jaws of brief and minor frights. No mean trick, that. Maybe someday, congressional Republicans will collectively grow a brain. Too bad that I will likely have died of old age well before anyone has the chance to witness that particular phenomenon.

*Republican in Name Only, Conservative in Name Only, Libertarian in Name Only, [INSERT VIRTUOUS APPELLATION HERE] in Name Only.

This Again?

We appear set to have yet another debt ceiling fight, so let me repeat what I have said in previous situations when a debt ceiling fight was pending: Having a debt ceiling fight is a terribly dumb idea. It brings about financial uncertainty, it flirts with yet another downgrade of America's credit rating, and failing to raise the debt ceiling only serves to make our country a deadbeat. We are not, after all, raising the debt ceiling in order to have money for new spending, rather, we are raising the debt ceiling in order to have money to pay for all of the things we have already charged to the national credit card.