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.

Epic Defeat

So, Congress has voted to raise the debt ceiling and reopen government, which is the good news for anyone who cares about decent and responsible policymaking. The bad news is that in a few months, we may end up repeating the entire fight. I can't wait to see what that does to our credit rating. I also can't wait to see the people who thought that the current shutdown and flirtation with debt ceiling disaster was A Compendium of All the Wonderful Things tell us a couple months down the line that we have to tilt at windmills again because . . . well . . . something.

Of course, it would be nice if congressional Republicans avoided making the same mistake again. Perhaps they could listen to one of their own:

Rep. Mick Mulvaney (R-S.C.), one of the more conservative voices in the House GOP caucus, told CNN on Wednesday afternoon: “We lost. That’s it. You’re absolutely right. The folks who said we were going to lose turned out to be correct. I can’t argue that.”

I pray that Rep. Mulvaney isn't going to get primaried for these comments at some point before the night is over.

The only thing that Republicans got in the deal legislative deal that brought this entire horror show to an end is a commitment to verify the incomes of those seeking subsidies in order to enroll in Obamacare. Of course, income verification was already part of the bill authorizing the Affordable Care Act, so this means that Republicans got absolutely nothing whatsoever of any substance or value from the shutdown. This is what happens when an incredibly weak hand gets ridiculously overplayed.

It is time for some serious self-examination on the right, and to that end, I am glad to give the microphone to Peter Wehner. Read the whole thing that he wrote. Also, read John Podhoretz:

Apologists for [Senator Ted] Cruz and [Senator Mike] Lee say they drew attention to ObamaCare. This is nothing short of demented. ObamaCare has been pretty much the sole subject of Republican domestic- policy politics over the past three years. It didn’t need them to call attention to it.

If anything, as it turns out, they drew attention away from it.

Had they not created the shutdown, the political discussion in the United States these past two weeks would have been entirely dedicated to the disastrous launch of ObamaCare — something so disastrous, in fact, that liberal journalists have been unable to avoid the subject and have instead taken to whining about it.

But no. Instead, we spent the two weeks before the launch watching Ted Cruz rally the Republican faithful with a fantasy scenario in which the public would stage an uprising against ObamaCare and force a bunch of Democratic senators to vote to defund it.

Well, that didn’t happen.

But once the conservative base became convinced the defunding of ObamaCare was a possibility, the Republican House found it impossible not to join in the really futile and stupid gesture. Shutdown ensued.

Well, that’s over with. And maybe the damage will not be very great. But doing really futile and stupid things is never a good idea, and for a political party, it is disastrous.

Such behavior convinces people who are not firmly fixed in your party’s corner that you don’t care about the good working ­order of the United States, that you’re only out to satisfy your own ideological fantasies, and that you’re actually unserious.

Listen: Not enough people are voting for Republicans. That’s why the GOP has lost the popular vote in five out of the last six national elections. What happened over the past two weeks will only harm the effort to convince those who can be convinced to vote Republican that doing so is wise and prudent.

You would think that all of this was obvious to begin with. You would think that an entire column in the New York Post would not have to be devoted to explaining the obvious to very smart politicians.

You would think wrong.

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.

Congressional Republicans Are NOT Retreating. They Are Simply Advancing in Reverse. And Don't Anyone Dare Claim Otherwise.

Those who carefully peruse this op-ed by Paul Ryan will find upon careful reading--or via the Ctrl-F option--that the word "Obamacare" is not used once by Ryan. In writing on how Republicans and the Obama administration can come to some sort of agreement that will get the government open again, Ryan proposes the following:

Here are just a few ideas to get the conversation started. We could ask the better off to pay higher premiums for Medicare. We could reform Medigap plans to encourage efficiency and reduce costs. And we could ask federal employees to contribute more to their own retirement.

The president has embraced these ideas in budget proposals he has submitted to Congress. And in earlier talks with congressional Republicans, he has discussed combining Medicare's Part A and Part B, so the program will be less confusing for seniors. These ideas have the support of nonpartisan groups like the Bipartisan Policy Center and the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget, and they would strengthen these critical programs. And all of them would help pay down the debt.

We should also enact pro-growth reforms that put people back to work—like opening up America's vast energy reserves to development. There is even some agreement on taxes across the aisle.

Rep. Dave Camp (R., Mich.) and Sen. Max Baucus (D., Mont.) have been working for more than a year now on a bipartisan plan to reform the tax code. They agree on the fundamental principles: Broaden the base, lower the rates and simplify the code. The president himself has argued for just such an approach to corporate taxes. So we should discuss how Congress can take up the Camp–Baucus plan when it's ready.

Reforms to entitlement programs and the tax code will spur economic growth—another goal that both parties share. The CBO says stable or declining levels of federal debt would help the economy. In addition, "federal interest payments would be smaller, policy makers would have greater leeway . . . to respond to any economic downturns . . . and the risk of a sudden fiscal crisis would be much smaller."

To be sure, Ryan does make reference to health care policy, but this is how he does it:

This isn't a grand bargain. For that, we need a complete rethinking of government's approach to helping the most vulnerable, and a complete rethinking of government's approach to health care. But right now, we need to find common ground. We need to open the federal government. We need to pay our bills today—and make sure we can pay our bills tomorrow. So let's negotiate an agreement to make modest reforms to entitlement programs and the tax code.

One senses a shift in negotiating posture by congressional Republicans via this op-ed, which surely must have had the blessings of the congressional Republican leadership, and which may well have had the blessings of certain elements of the Tea Party for all I know. Ryan believes that we need to reform health care policy post-implementation of Obamacare, but he clearly does not want to make a fight over health care part of any negotiations that will lead to re-opening the government. His demands--and dare I say those of a host of other congressional Republicans who look to Ryan for intellectual leadership?--revolve around pledging to make "modest reforms to entitlement programs and the tax code" as a price for re-opening government. And this shift in negotiating posture appears to be confirmed by this story:

A fight over Obamacare? That’s so last week.

With the government shutdown firmly in its second week, and the debt limit projected to be reached next Thursday, top House and Senate Republicans are publicly moving away from gutting the health care law — a practical move that could help resolve the stalemate and appear more reasonable in the eyes of frustrated voters.

In a private meeting among Senate Republicans, Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) expressed openness to a plan by Sen. Susan Collins (R-Maine) that includes a repeal of Obamacare’s medical device tax but nothing else related to the health care law.

With polls showing their party is suffering the brunt of the blame for the shutdown, many top Republicans are quietly moving past the Obamacare debate. Many Senate Republicans’ demands do not include changes to Obamacare, but rather cuts to Medicare, Social Security and changes to the Tax Code. House Republicans are also considering a short-term debt hike, but no one expects that it will be accompanied by changes to Obamacare.

“I’d like to get rid of Obamacare, no question about that, but I think that effort has failed,” said Sen. Orrin Hatch (R-Utah), the veteran member of the Senate Finance Committee. “And we’re going to have to take it on in other ways.”

Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) said bluntly: “We took an unpopular law and chose a more unpopular tactic to deal with the law.”

“Why don’t we focus on entitlement reform, Tax Code reform, regarding the debt ceiling and continue to fight on Obamacare [separately], because there’s not a consensus there,” Graham said.

House Majority Leader Eric Cantor (R-Va.) wrote an opinion piece that appeared on The Washington Post’s website Wednesday that simply urged President Barack Obama to negotiate with Republicans.

So, congressional Republicans no longer appear to be fighting to defund Obamacare. And when one considers the state of the polls, one can hardly be surprised by the fact that Republicans have chosen to change their negotiating objectives:

With the Republican-controlled House of Representatives engaged in a tense, government-shuttering budgetary standoff against a Democratic president and Senate, the Republican Party is now viewed favorably by 28% of Americans, down from 38% in September. This is the lowest favorable rating measured for either party since Gallup began asking this question in 1992.

The Democratic Party also has a public image problem -- although not on the same elephantine scale as that of the Republican Party -- with 43% viewing the Democratic Party favorably, down four percentage points from last month.

These findings come from a Gallup poll conducted Oct. 3-6 that followed the Oct. 1 partial government shutdown after lawmakers in Washington were unable to pass a spending plan for the federal government.

More than six in 10 Americans (62%) now view the GOP unfavorably, a record high. By comparison, nearly half of Americans (49%) view the Democratic Party unfavorably. Roughly one in four Americans see both parties unfavorably.

To be sure, these polling numbers don't make any particular party look especially good, but Democrats will sleep more easily than Republicans will.

"That's okay, Pejman," I hear you retort. "The Republican party is made up of squishes and moderates who are also squishes, who act very moderately. It's fine and good if the party goes the way of the dinosaur." To which I retort by giving the microphone to John Podhoretz (who likely will be denounced as a RiNO for writing what he has written):

Every piece of evidence we have so far on the government shutdown shows the public is blaming Republicans most of all for the standoff. On Monday, an ABC poll showed 71 percent fault the GOP; 61 percent fault Congressional Democrats; 51 percent fault President Obama.

Yes, Democrats look bad. Yes, Obama is probably doing himself no favors by saying he won’t negotiate when the public wants politicians in Washington to work together.

But Republicans look considerably worse. And for the Right, the Republican Party is the only game in town.

This is what my fellow conservatives who are acting as the enablers for irresponsible GOP politicians seem not to understand. They like this fight, because they think they’re helping to hold the line on ObamaCare and government spending. They think that they’re supported by a vast silent majority of Americans who dislike what they dislike and want what they want.

I dislike what they dislike. I want what they want. But I fear they are very, very wrong about the existence of this silent majority, and that their misperception is leading them to do significant damage to the already damaged Republican “brand.” (Forgive me for making use of that horribly overused term, but it’s the only one that fits.)

The belief that the public is with them is based on two data points: First, twice as many people say they’re conservative as say they are liberal. And second, ObamaCare is viewed unfavorably by a majority of the American people.

Both are true.

But it has been true for more than 20 years that Americans are twice as likely to call themselves conservative — and in that time Republicans have lost the popular vote in five out of six national elections. The statistic tells us little about how Americans vote or what they vote for.

And it is true that, according to Real Clear Politics, Americans disapprove of ObamaCare, 51 percent to 40 percent. It is unpopular. But it is not wildly, devastatingly unpopular — though given the fact that it is now rolling out and appears to be as incompetently executed as it was badly conceived, it may yet become so.

If ObamaCare had been as unpopular as conservatives believed, their plan for the shutdown — that there would be a public uprising to force Democratic senators in close races in 2014 to defund it — would’ve worked. It didn’t. Not a single senator budged.

Their tactic failed, and now what they are left with is House Speaker John Boehner basically begging the president of the United States to negotiate with him.

I further retort by giving the microphone to Ross Douthat as well:

. . . There was, as I’ve noted before, some kind of plausible populist case for threatening a shutdown around the health care law, as a kind of exercise in noisemaking and base mobilization. But the shutdown itself is just a classic march of folly. From RedState to Heritage to all the various pro-shutdown voices in the House, nobody-but-nobody has sketched out a remotely plausible scenario in which a continued government shutdown leads to any meaningful, worth-the-fighting-for concessions on Obamacare — or to anything, really, save gradually-building pain for the few House Republicans who actually have to fight to win re-election in 2014, and the ratification of the public’s pre-existing sense that the G.O.P. can’t really be trusted with the reins of government.

Sure, the polling could be worse. Sure, assuming cooler heads ultimately prevail, it’s not likely to be an irrecoverable disaster. But something can be less than a disaster and still not make a lick of sense. And that’s what we have here: A case study, for the right’s populists, in how all the good ideas and sound impulses in the world don’t matter if you decide to fight on ground where you simply cannot win.

I presume that despite the shift from demanding the defunding of Obamacare, despite the horrible poll numbers for the Republican party, despite the fact that the weakening of the Republican party means--as Podhoretz points out--the weakening of the conservative movement, and despite the fact that as Douthat writes, the shutdown strategy simply has not been thought through with any degree of care, there will be those who protest that I am in the wrong by declaring, as I have consistently declared, that the shutdown will not advance the goals of the right. Let me anticipate your objections to my post--and to me--with the following bullet points:

• I am a RiNO.
• I am a squish.
• I am a quitter.
• I am violating Reagan's Eleventh Commandment by taking issue with the Republican strategy in the shutdown confrontation.
• Polls don't matter.
• Have we mentioned that I am a RiNO and a squish?
• Winning elections is not important.
• I am a moderate.
• "Oh yeah? Well, Mitt Romney, John McCain, and George H.W. Bush lost!"
• I am an "establishment Republican."
• Blog posts like mine are the reason why the shutdown strategy is failing. Democrats get together in their cloakrooms and excitedly whisper amongst themselves "Yousefzadeh is down on the Republicans. You see? That proves that the GOP is divided! We've got 'em right where we want 'em!"
• I am completely mistaken about the current state of play because, shut up.
• I am secretly a Democrat whose job it is to destroy morale on the right.
• I am secretly a communist whose job it is to destroy morale on the right.
• I am secretly Mephistopheles, whose job it is to destroy morale on the right.
• I am secretly Tokyo Rose, whose job it is to destroy morale on the right.
• I am secretly Brett Favre, whose job it is to destroy morale on the right
• I am secretly Aaron Rodgers, whose job it is to destroy morale on the right
• I am a pessimist who simply shouldn't be listened to, because, shut up.
• I am from Chicago. Barack Obama is also from Chicago. Coincidence?

I have done my best to anticipate as many objections as I could. If I have forgotten any, I beg your indulgence and forgiveness. Must be my RiNO/squish/moderate nature to be careless.

Elections Have Consequences

Consider some of the ways in which the rollout of Obamacare has played in the news over this past week:

• We are informed by Todd Park, the chief technology officer of the United States (yes, we have one), that the reason there have been bugs in the health care exchange websites that have made it all but impossible to sign up for health insurance is that there have been oh-so-many people who have tried to sign up. Apparently, the fault for the bugs lays not with those who designed and rolled out the sign-up system, but with those who actually tried to sign up. Or, in Park's words "These bugs were functions of volume. Take away the volume and it works." There you have it; if only people didn't try to sign up for the health insurance exchanges, the websites for the health insurance exchanges would be functioning just fine. This is one of the more Scooby-Dooish statements I have ever had the misfortune of stumbling upon. If the Obamacare rollout were an animated television show, Park would be the one at the end of the episode who shakes his fist, declaring that "the health insurance exchange websites would have worked too, if it weren't for you crazy kids trying to sign up!"
• Meanwhile, the secretary of the treasury desperately tries to avoid telling us whether anyone actually has signed up for Obamacare. He even tries to tell you that the issue isn't his "primary area of responsibility." This isn't quite true, given the fact that the IRS is responsible for taxing people who don't get health insurance and that the IRS is part of the Treasury Department, but never mind, I guess; Jack Lew clearly wants to wash his hands of this entire mess.
• And just out of curiosity, do you think that there are other stories out there like this one? Me too.

Now gee, if only there were a way to get the media to focus on all of these problems instead of allowing the media's attention to be divided by, oh . . . say . . . a government shutdown that has no strategy or tactics behind it. Yes, I know, much of the media is biased against Republicans and in the best of times, it is like pulling teeth to get reporters to cover stories that my feature the Obama administration making a boo-boo or several. But that doesn't mean that Republicans have to give the media an excuse not to cover the failures of Obamacare's implementation by giving the media targets to shoot at on the Republican side.

A number of people in this cross-posted thread protested my rant, because they believe that I am not providing constructive suggestions on how Obamacare can be repealed. Fair enough. I am glad to provide constructive pieces of advice. Here is one: Win elections.

"Well, duh, Pejman," I hear you cry. But the point is worth making, given the fact that Republicans have increasingly opted for ideological purity over being able to get moderates and independents to join Republicans in a coalition on general election days in order to get Republicans into political offices. I know that there are people out there who are sick and tired of hearing about Christine O'Donnell, Todd Akin, Sharron Angle and Richard Mourdock, but let me tell you about Christine O'Donnell, Todd Akin, Sharron Angle and Richard Mourdock. They all won Republican primary elections they had no business winning if the Buckley Rule were still being observed with any degree of faithfulness.

To be sure, the people spoke in all of those Republican primary contests, and I respect the people's wishes, but if the people wanted to choose candidates who could win Senate seats in Delaware, Missouri, Nevada and Indiana, they chose . . . poorly. O'Donnell spent much of the election trying to convince people that she wasn't and isn't a witch (not exactly the kind of thing that a candidate dreams of discussing in his/her stump speech). Akin poured gasoline on his campaign and set it on fire (thus helping Claire McCaskill, who was, by far, the weakest Senate incumbent in the 2012 elections win by over 15 points on election day). Angle allowed a very vulnerable Harry Reid return to the Senate so that he could continue to be a noxious presence on the national stage. And Mourdock looked at Akin's campaign and said to himself, "self, that fellow seems to have some good ideas about how to lose an election," and followed through in implementing those ideas. In Mourdock's case, it is worth noting that he denied former Senator Richard Lugar a renomination to run in 2012. Lugar--does anyone really need to point this out?--would have won the general election in a walk and would have allowed Republicans to focus their energies on helping other candidates in other races. Instead, Mourdock ended up losing the general election, and as everyone and their pet canaries know, once incumbents get into office, it is very, very, very hard to get them out. The Indiana senate seat once occupied by Lugar may be in Democratic hands for a long time.

Lest anyone think that this shift away from electability is an accident, bear in mind that it is actually being encouraged by higher-up muckety-mucks in the conservative movement, with former Senator Jim DeMint being the most visible among the higher-up muckety-mucks in question. DeMint has said in the past that he would rather have candidates who adhere to conservative principles than have a Senate majority. I am all for smart candidates with conservative principles, just as I am all for smart candidates with libertarian principles as well. But not every state is as open to conservative or libertarian principles as DeMint or I would want those states to be. So--gasp!--sometimes, the Republican candidate is going to have to be less conservative than Jim DeMint would like in order to win an election.

I know, I know, grab the smelling salts; sometimes, we may have to make common cause with people who are less conservative than Jim DeMint would like. Well, it's either that, or Republicans will have to be a permanent minority in the Senate, and the House of Representatives as well, if DeMint's principles extend there. And hey, if DeMint would rather have a conservative presidential candidate than win the White House, then say goodbye to 1600 Penn. Ave. if anyone has the temerity to offer a more pragmatic course of action that may help Republicans win a presidential election. All of this, of course, would give Democrats a free hand to implement policies of their choosing with little to no organized Republican opposition. And once those policies are in place, they will be very difficult to dislodge.

So, while "win elections!" would seem to be really obvious advice, there are, alas, Republicans and conservatives out there who do not have a grasp on the obvious. And that is costing Republicans--and the right-of-center movement in general--very dearly.

Larry Summers Will Not Be Chairman of the Federal Reserve

I am late to this, but as those who have been covering the horserace for the chairmanship of the Federal Reserve already know, Larry Summers has taken himself out of the running. Sarah Binder makes some good points regarding the rise and fall of Summers' prospects as a candidate for the chairmanship. You should read her entire post, but the following especially caught my eye:

• The White House allowed the Summers nomination to twist in the wind publicly for too long, and by not actually nominating Summers, the White House "left his opponents in control of the confirmation contest." Assuming that the conventional wisdom is true and that the president wanted Summers all along, this is an especially cruel way to treat someone who was a member of the Obama administration, and who was the president's first choice for the position of chairman of the Federal Reserve.
• Quite obviously, this is a big win for the liberal wing of the Democratic party, which took the lead in sinking the Summers nomination.
• I agree with Binder that Federal Reserve nominations will become a whole lot less acrimonious when the economy finally starts humming along.

Paradoxically, of course, those who worked to sink the Summers nomination in order to get the president to nominate Janet Yellen instead might have done her candidacy some harm as well. The president may not like being seen as capitulating to the demands of the liberal wing of his party; it would make him look weak, after all. I think that Yellen is the frontrunner now, but it would not surprise me if Barack Obama chose a different candidate in order to signal to liberals that he cannot be pushed around.

Edward Luce argues that Summers and Yellen were not as far apart on the issues as Summers' opponents liked to claim that they were. Of course, policy similarities and differences are in the eye of the beholder to a very large extent, but this is worth noting nonetheless.

Guess Who Thinks Obamacare Might Need to Be Repealed

If you guessed "Tea Party Republicans," you only get partial credit.

Incidentally, while I am pleased that the New York Times is covering this story, my guess is that if a key portion of a Republican president's political base rebelled against one of said president's key policy initiatives, we would be hearing about it nonstop from just about every news media outlet there is.

The Incredibly Bad American Job Market

In all of its terribleness. The press would be more willing to take the White House to task for paltry and pathetic job growth if a Republican currently lived in 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue.

Tom Edsall on Republican Political Prospects

Tom Edsall's writings make clear that he is on the port side of the partisan divide, but my political differences with him notwithstanding, he is honest and thorough in this piece, which discusses how Republicans can reverse their recent electoral misfortunes. I certainly liked the sentence with which Edsall closed his piece: "The compelling mandate for a national political party in the United States is not to serve as ideological advocate, but to win."

A nice thing for Republicans to remember. Alas, the party is currently in its George McGovern stage, during which time it has sacrificed winning for ideological advocacy. It may well have to pass through its Jimmy Carter, Walter Mondale and Michael Dukakis stages before a Republican Leadership Council--or some such vehicle--teaches it how to win again.

From the Department of Simple Solutions to Problems that Never Should Have Existed in the First Place

I see that there are complaints in various and sundry places regarding the dearth of Republicans at the 50th anniversary commeration of the March on Washington. May I suggest that in the future, if one wishes to get certain elected officials to a particular gathering, one ought to give them plenty of advance notice by way of invitation?

Not a single Republican elected official stood on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial on Wednesday with activists, actors, lawmakers and former presidents invited to mark the 50th anniversary of the March on Washington — a notable absence for a party seeking to attract the support of minority voters.

Event organizers said Wednesday that they invited top Republicans, all of whom declined to attend because of scheduling conflicts or ill health.

But aides to some GOP congressional leaders said they received formal invitations only in recent weeks, making it too late to alter their summer recess schedules.

[. . .]

House Speaker John A. Boehner (Ohio), the highest-ranking Republican in Washington, was invited to attend Wednesday’s gathering but declined because of a scheduling conflict, aides said.

Boehner was in Jackson Hole, Wyo., and had no public schedule Wednesday but has been headlining dozens of GOP fundraisers nationwide this month. Aides noted that he led an official congressional commemoration of King’s “I Have a Dream” speech on July 31 at the U.S. Capitol that other top congressional leaders attended.

House Majority Leader Eric Cantor (R-Va.) received an invitation to attend 12 days ago, which was too late to change scheduled political appearances Wednesday in North Dakota and Ohio, aides said.

Cantor led a congressional delegation to Selma, Ala., in March to observe the 50th anniversary of the “Bloody Sunday” march at the invitation of Rep. John Lewis (D-Ga.), the only surviving speaker from the 1963 March on Washington.

Daughtry said Cantor tried hard to find another GOP lawmaker to take his place but was unsuccessful. Sen. John McCain (Ariz.) also was invited to speak but declined for scheduling reasons, she said.

Now, it is possible that "scheduling reasons" may have been an all-purpose excuse for people who didn't want to go to the commemorations under any circumstances. But why not give those people plenty of advance notice so that they would have had no excuse whatsoever for not attending? If it is indeed true that Boehner, Cantor, McCain and other Republicans received invitations only at the last minute, then no one who is familiar with the calendars of politicians should have been surprised when those politicians were unable to RSVP in the affirmative.

Oh, and am I supposed to applaud this?

Some Republicans noted that organizers did not invite Sen. Tim Scott (S.C.), the only black Republican senator, who was appointed to his seat this year. Aides said Scott planned to attend a church service honoring King on Wednesday night in North Charleston, S.C.

What possible justification could there have been for this?

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.

Some More Stray Thoughts on Syria

In no particular order:

• Unless there is some serious head-faking going on--and I doubt that there is--maybe it's not such a great idea for our government to leak its operational plans. Of course, the leaking shouldn't surprise us; the Obama administration continues to believe, apparently, that telling national security secrets out of school is a bad thing unless it is being done to make the president look good in the eyes of the general public.
• Like all good dissents, this one will likely turn into a majority opinion relatively soon.
• All of the sudden, illegal wars are all the rage. I am shocked--shocked!--to contemplate that this might have something to do with a Democratic president getting the kind of pass no Republican president would get in similar circumstances.

Someone Please Listen to Ramesh Ponnuru

Comme d'habitude, he makes a lot of sense:

Newt Gingrich is telling Republicans not to fear a government shutdown because the last one went so well for them. This is pure revisionist history, and they would be fools to believe him.

Some Republicans are urging the party to refuse to back any legislation to keep the government operating unless funding for President Barack Obama’s health-care overhaul is stopped. Other Republicans say this tactic will fail, citing the conventional wisdom that the government shutdowns of 1995-96 helped President Bill Clinton and hurt congressional Republicans.

The former speaker of the House is off message, or rather is revealing a contradiction in the political strategy of his current allies. Their public line is that any shutdown would be the unfortunate product of Democrats’ obstinate refusal to give in to the Republican demand to defund Obamacare. But it’s not easy to convey that message when prominent Republicans are saying that shutdowns are good for their party.

More important, Gingrich’s current spin on the events of 1995-96 is just wrong. The election of a Republican Congress in 1994 put government spending on a lower trajectory, as the election of a Republican House did again in 2010. Whether the shutdowns contributed to that result is a different matter.

The irony, of course, is that Gingrich is a historian by training--as he so often reminds us. I can get better history lessons from a coffee table, and for that matter, so can the current batch of congressional Republicans.

The Falsehoods Surrounding the IRS Scandal

Tired of being told that the IRS scandal is a "fake" one? So is Bradley Smith, who takes apart false claims surrounding the issue:

The Internal Revenue Service's scandalous targeting of tea party and conservative groups refuses to die, as one by one the administration's explanations prove untrue.

We were told that the White House, like the rest of the country, learned about the program on May 10 through a planted question asked of then IRS official Lois Lerner at an American Bar Association conference. Turns out the White House knew earlier. We were told the targeting was the work of a few rogue IRS employees in Cincinnati. Then those employees insisted that they were being managed from Washington.

We were told that no political appointees were involved, but now we know the scandal goes at least to the office of Obama appointee and IRS Chief Counsel William Wilkins. We were told that liberal groups were targeted, too. But then the IRS's inspector general, whose report exposed the harassment, clarified that only conservative groups were targeted.

Now the administration line is that the scandal is nonetheless "phony." That assertion is part of a Democratic counteroffensive contending that the tea party and conservative groups applying for "charitable" tax status never should have sought such IRS approval.

Rep. Xavier Becerra (D., Calif.), chairman of the House Democratic Caucus, argued on "Meet the Press" on May 19 that conservative groups were, "under the guise of a charity, [using] undisclosed millions of dollars to do political campaigns." At a May hearing, Sen. Bill Nelson (D., Fla.) claimed that the groups were supposed to spend their money on "charitable activities," and demanded of the IRS, "How could you all in the IRS allow the tax breaks funded basically by the taxpayer [to be spent] on these political campaign expenditures?"

Liberal columnist Jeffrey Toobin has also taken up the theme that the groups were seeking improper tax advantages. Writing in the May 14 issue of the New Yorker, Mr. Toobin argued that if approved by the IRS, the tea party groups would not pay taxes on contributions received. "In return for the tax advantage," he wrote, these groups "must refrain from traditional partisan political activity, like endorsing candidates."

This attack is wrong on the law, and cynical as politics. As these IRS apologists well know, liberal groups, such as Moveon.org, have long had the same tax status as that requested by the tea party and conservative groups—and that status is not of a "charity."

Thank Goodness that Charles Krauthammer Can Strategize, Because Many Republicans Can't.

There is talk amongst Republicans about forcing a government shutdown in order to defund Obamacare. Krauthammer shows why the idea should be a complete non-starter:

This is nuts. The president will never sign a bill defunding the singular achievement of his presidency. Especially when he has control of the Senate. Especially when, though a narrow 51 percent majority of Americans disapproves of Obamacare, only 36 percent favors repeal. President Obama so knows he’ll win any shutdown showdown that he’s practically goading the Republicans into trying.

Never make a threat on which you are not prepared to deliver. Every fiscal showdown has redounded against the Republicans. The first, in 1995, effectively marked the end of the Gingrich revolution. The latest, last December, led to a last-minute Republican cave that humiliated the GOP and did nothing to stop the tax hike it so strongly opposed.

Those who fancy themselves tea party patriots fighting a sold-out cocktail-swilling establishment are demanding yet another cliff dive as a show of principle and manliness.

But there’s no principle at stake here. This is about tactics. If I thought this would work, I would support it. But I don’t fancy suicide. It has a tendency to be fatal.

As for manliness, the real question here is sanity. Nothing could better revive the fortunes of a failing, flailing, fading Democratic administration than a government shutdown where the president is portrayed as standing up to the GOP on honoring our debts and paying our soldiers in the field.

How many times must we learn the lesson? You can’t govern from one house of Congress. You need to win back the Senate and then the presidency. Shutting down the government is the worst possible way to get there. Indeed, it’s Obama’s fondest hope for a Democratic recovery.

I would only add that the GOP is not bothering to sell the American public on alternatives to Obamacare--and yes, excellent alternatives can be adopted and should be pointed to in order to show that Republicans have a plan on health care reform. Ramesh Ponnuru and Yuval Levin took the time to craft such a plan. (Ponnuru, it should be noted, is on Krauthammer's--and my--side in saying that any effort to force a government shutdown in order to defund Obamacare is a terrible idea that will backfire on Republicans.) If Republicans want to replace Obamacare, it would be helpful if they could point to an actual plan that would serve as an acceptable substitute. Until they do so, their efforts against Obamacare will be quixotic at best.

A Much Needed History Lesson on DOMA

Many of the Democrats celebrating the Supreme Court's decision on DOMA would have you believe that they opposed the law from the outset. Zenon Evans performs a mitzvah by reminding all and sundry of what those Democrats desperately want all and sundry to forget:

. . . In response to the ruling, Bill Clinton tweeted that he is “grateful to all who fought tirelessly for this day.” He also released an official statement condemning the discriminatory nature of DOMA. What Clinton failed to mention was that he signed the act into law.

He wasn't alone in his silence. Other leading Democrats who supported it include Vice President Joe Biden, who voted for DOMA as a senator. Sen. Harry Reid (Nev.), who said, “The idea that allowing two loving, committed people to marry would have a negative impact on anyone else, or on our nation as a whole, has always struck me as absurd,” also forgot to note that he voted for DOMA. Sen. Chuck Schumer (N.Y.) released a statement praising the forward thinking of the Supreme Court. “The march towards equality... moved forward again today... The Supreme Court did the right thing here and helps us understand that the march to equality in America is unstoppable.” He made no mention of the fact that he, too, voted for the act and against "the march to equality." Sen. Bob Menendez (N.J.) patted himself on the back: “As a member of Congress who signed the amicus brief urging this decision [to repeal DOMA], I am thrilled that the Supreme Court took a strong stand for marriage equality." Menendez saw no need to clarify that this was only after he voted for DOMA in the first place. Sen. Tom Harkin (Iowa) voiced his support yesterday saying, "I am glad that the court recognized that all American families deserve the same legal protections," but made no mention of why his point of view flipped.

As in so many such cases, it is as though some people believe that their past positions cannot be accurately Googled by others.

Why Democrats Have Turned Away from President Obama

Chris Cillizza and Sean Sullivan discuss.  One reason they cite is the fact that the presidential election is over, and Democrats no longer feel as much of a need to rally around the president. But here are the other reasons:

2. No big second term accomplishments. President Obama devoted the most powerful moments of his 2013 State of the Union address to the necessity of Congress passing gun control legislation. That push became a touchstone for Democrats across the country. It failed. While immigration reform remains in process, there’s not much he can point to that excites his base at the moment.

3. The whiff of scandal. The Internal Revenue Service’s targeting of conservatives and the revelations regarding the widespread surveillance of data and phone records by the National Security Agency left Obama playing defense. While neither story turned Democrats away from Obama, they may well have cut at the enthusiasm that members of his party expressed for him.

Hope and Change have pretty much gone by the wayside, haven't they?

Corporations and Other Business Entities Should Be Treated Like Natural Persons

Senators Jon Tester and Patty Murray are out to deprive corporations and corporate entities of constitutional rights. Eugene Volokh explains why this is an absolutely terrible idea. From his conclusion, discussing what would happen if the Tester-Murray amendment is adopted:

. . . goodbye, First Amendment protection for the New York Times, CNN, the ACLU, the NRA, and the Catholic Church. Goodbye, any right to just compensation when a corporation’s property is taken — whether the corporation is a large business or a small mom-and-pop company. Goodbye, any rights to due process when a corporation’s property is seized. Goodbye, any protection for corporations (again, even small family-run businesses) from unreasonable searches and seizures, or excessive fines. That’s what Senators Tester and Murphy’s amendment calls for.

Read the whole thing to see why the conclusion is entirely justified. And remember: Those who call for the curbing of corporate rights and the rights of other business entities as a way of enhancing the rights of natural persons will only end up trampling on the rights of both corporations/business entities and natural persons.

We Passed Health Care Reform . . .

And now, we are finding out what is in it: 

Democrats continue to try to dismiss the evidence that Obamacare will dramatically increase the cost of insurance for people who buy it on their own. But on Thursday, the Ohio Department of Insurance announced  that, based on the rates submitted by insurers to date, the average individual-market health insurance premium in 2014 will come in around $420, “representing an increase of 88 percent” relative to 2013. “We have warned of these increases,” said Lt. Gov. Mary Taylor in a statement. “Consumers will have fewer choices and pay much higher premiums for their health insurance starting in 2014.”

The rates that Ohio reported are proposed rates; the Department of Insurance still has to formally approve them. “A total of 14 companies proposed rates for 214 plans to the Department. Projected costs from the companies for providing coverage for the required [by Obamacare] essential health benefits ranged from $282.51 to $577.40 for individual health insurance plans.”

It’s called “rate shock,” but it’s not shocking to people who understand the economics of health insurance. In August 2011, Milliman, one of the nation’s leading actuarial firms, predicted that Obamacare would increase individual-market premiums in Ohio by 55 to 85 percent. This past March, the Society of Actuaries projected that the law would increase premiums in that market by 81 percent. Like good players on “The Price is Right,” they both came in just under the Dept. of Insurance’s figure.

I am pretty sure that the actuaries wish that they were wrong. But it would appear that they might have been all too accurate. My question is why we didn't hear more about this when Obamacare was being debated in Congress? I mean, I would hate to think that supporters of the Affordable (ha!) Care Act just decided to ram the bill through without letting the American people hear about the consequences that would fall on the country if the bill passed. That wasn't what all those honorable representatives and senators were aiming to do, was it?