Time To Attempt A New Tone In Washington

Barack Obama campaigned for president to bring a new tone in Washington. He promised a new kind of politics. But it obviously takes two hands to clap. And it is not like he did not make attempts. There were major pre-emptive tax cuts in the stimulus bill. He put those in there to gain Republican support he did not get.

Now when the Republicans have the House, and credit can more equitably be distributed among both parties, it is time to attempt that new tone thing again.

It requires really listening to the other side. Ideological fervor can lead to sound bites that make no policy sense. But those emotional outbursts are necessary to the political process perhaps, and at some level have to be seen in perspective.

There is a time for campaigning and there is a time for governing. No party has a mandate to outrun the other party. But both parties have a responsibility to the people. Vigorous debates are good. But then you sit down across the table and stop posing for the cameras and craft meaningful legislation in the spirit of genuinely listening, and getting things done.

But then the president also has to draw the line if he feels like the other side has started to overreach. The people elected him for four years and will re-elect him for four more. Two years are not his full term. He has the power to attempt a new tone, and he has the power to draw the line if necessary.

This electoral outcome is an excellent opportunity for the president to attempt a new tone in Washington that was his signature on the campaign trail when he ran for president.

The new tone is about not talking past each other, but talking to each other, listening to each other, doing due diligence and working out the kinks, and attempting middle ground legislations on the big issues of the day, and yes that includes immigration reform next year.

On his part the president has to carry out the work of eliminating the deficit when the time is right, which is when the country is squarely out of the recession.

Both parties have to work to get the unemployment rate down to 5%. That is the number one item on the agenda.

New York Times

Black and Republican and Back in Congress For the first time in over a decade, the incoming class of Congress will include two black Republicans ..... While the number of African-Americans in Congress has steadily increased since the civil rights era, black Republicans have been nearly as rare as quetzal birds. .... Of all the blacks ever to serve in Congress, 98 have been Democrats and 27 have been Republicans; there are 42 African-American members in the current lame-duck Congress..... “His opponent was Pelosi-Obama liberal,” Mr. Thrasher added, “and Allen gave them a different understanding of how government could be.” .... Mr. West said he was more surprised that he won as a Republican in a district carried by the Democratic presidential nominee three elections in a row than as an African-American in a district with a white majority. But, he added, “I am honored to be first black Republican congressman from the state of Florida since Reconstruction. There is a historic aspect of it.”

Paul Krugman: The Focus Hocus-Pocus act of intellectual cowardice — a way to criticize President Obama’s record without explaining what you would have done differently ..... severe crises are typically followed by multiple years of very high unemployment ..... he could have chosen to be bold — to make Plan A the passage of a truly adequate economic plan, with Plan B being to place blame for the economy’s troubles on Republicans if they succeeded in blocking such a plan. ..... I felt a sense of despair during Mr. Obama’s first State of the Union address, in which he declared that “families across the country are tightening their belts and making tough decisions. The federal government should do the same.” Not only was this bad economics — right now the government must spend, because the private sector can’t or won’t

Barack Obama, Phone Home Nothing says “outsourcing” to the American public more succinctly than India. .... the seemingly irrational calculus of Tuesday’s exit polls. Voters gave Democrats and Republicans virtually identical favorability ratings while voting for the G.O.P. .... Traditional Republican boilerplate — lower taxes, less spending, smaller government — was chanted louder and louder, to pander to the Tea Party rebels, but with zero specifics of how it might be carried out. .... Even in victory, most Republicans can’t explain exactly what they want to do .... DeMint published a book last year detailing his view that Social Security be privatized to slow America’s descent into socialism. Paul can elaborate on his ideas for reducing defense spending and cutting back on drug law enforcement. Bachmann will explain her plans for weaning Americans off Medicare.

The Pelosi-Bachmann Conundrum Bachmann is the most visible Tea Party leadership in the House, second nationally only to Sarah Palin in terms of visibility.....our third straight “throw the bums out” election

‘Blindsided’: A President’s Story

Exporting Our Way to Stability: discovering, creating and building products that are sold all over the world. ... every $1 billion we export supports more than 5,000 jobs at home.... some of the fastest-growing markets in the world are in Asia

The Grizzly Manifesto This week, Bachmann triggered a blog explosion when she claimed, on CNN, that the president’s trip to India is going to “cost the taxpayers $200 million a day.” This is more than it costs to prosecute the war in Afghanistan. ..... Men don’t cringe on behalf of their sex when Newt Gingrich goes Islamophobic, or Carl Paladino threatens to take out a reporter.

How Obama Saved Capitalism and Lost the Midterms the presidency of George W. Bush produced the worst stock market decline of any president in history. The net worth of American households collapsed as Bush slipped away. And if you needed a loan to buy a house or stay in business, private sector borrowing was dead when he handed over power..... More than 1 million jobs would have disappeared had the domestic auto sector been liquidated. .... “An apology is due Barack Obama,” wrote The Economist, which had opposed the $86 billion auto bailout. .... Corporate profits are lighting up boardrooms; it is one of the best years for earnings in a decade. ..... Of course, nobody gets credit for preventing a plane crash. ..... Billions of profits, windfalls in the stock market, a stable banking system — but no jobs. .... He should hector the companies sitting on piles of cash but not hiring new workers.

Jobs Data Highlights the Challenges for Washington Nearly 15 million people are still out of work, and the unemployment rate remains stubbornly high at 9.6 percent..... Economists themselves cannot agree about what kinds of policy measures would rescue the job market. .... battle cries over “currency wars” ..... many of the nation’s long-term unemployed have become increasingly desperate.

What’s a Pooled Trust? A Way to Avoid the Nursing Home
Yes, a Recovery Did Begin
Is the Recovery Losing Steam?

Telling Ads

I have not paid too much attention to this election except to root a little bit for a guy I rooted a lot for in the 2008 election cycle. But it is not like I have not paid any attention at all. Everyone seems to be resigned to the Republicans taking over the House. The pendulum of democracy is about to swing, looks like. But if that be the outcome, it will shake the Republican establishment as much as the Democratic establishment. Cost cutting is going to get more politically urgent.

Precisely The Time For Progressive Fervor
The Tea Party Is Getting America Talibanized










Source: Foreign Policy: 'The Arabs (and Indians and Chinese) Are Coming!'

Getting There

The Guardian: Barack Obama fights to avert Republican avalanche
New York Times: Democrats Hold Out Some Hope
CNN: Can Democrats and Republicans work together after the election?

Bill Clinton In His Element

Source: CNN

This Is Not 1994

I am sick and tired of people suggesting the Republicans are going to storm the House like they did in 1994. 2010 is not 1994. Barack Obama is not Bill Clinton. Here are some reasons why.

1. There is no Newt Gingrich in the picture. 
2. There is no Contract On America. There is not likely to be one. The only things the Republicans have is obstructionism and the Bush policies. The voters already decided in 2008 how they felt about the Bush policies. And obstructionism does not get you votes. You have to have a positive agenda. The Republicans don't have one. 
3. Barack Obama is not Bill Clinton. Bill Clinton's economic record was outstanding, but Obama has beat Bill Clinton in the greatness department. To me that was a foregone conclusion on the campaign trail itself. And the greatness went official after he passed health care reform, something presidents struggled over for half a century. 
4. Bill Clinton's health care reform had failed as he headed into November 1994. Barack Obama's health effort passed. That is his backdrop as he heads into November 2010.
5. Barack Obama has been compared with JFK, with FDR, but never with Bill Clinton. Now is not the time to start on that. Clinton and Obama are just different. Their styles are very different. 
6. Bill Clinton did not campaign much for 1994. He was considered too unpopular to be effective. Barack Obama's popularity is not the same it was in December 2008, but it is still good. 
7. Barack is going to be able to explain that the Wall Street meltdown was an unexpected inheritance. The bailout happened before he got there. He is going to be able to explain the stark necessity of the stimulus bill. Without it the country would have been in Great Depression II right now. The unemployment rate would have been closer to 30% than 10%. The American people are going to understand that.  
8. He is going to be able to say he wants to focus on Congress reform and immigration reform in 2011. That he is a foe of debt and deficits and they will be at the center of his 2012 agenda going into the second term. But these past two years have not been the time for balanced budgets. These past two years have been the biggest economic crisis in 70 years. And the government had to step in to avoid Great Depression II. 
9. The Tea Party "movement" has made the GOP even more of a minority party. The harsh voices that are known to alienate people in the mainstream have taken over.
10. Barack is going to be able to energize the Obama surge crowd of 2008, not to the same extent perhaps as 2008. But he is going to make the case and they are going to come out in large enough numbers. One important point he has to make is that grassroots electioneering is not the same as grassroots governance. The netroots/grassroots need to acquire governance literacy. You can't attain power and then lose interest in it once you have it. But governance does require that you become more knowledgeable of the contours of power, of the compulsions of the opposition party, the compulsions of the various interest groups within your own party. Energizing people to show up to vote one day is comparatively simple. But governance is about conducting complex transactions on a daily basis. And the grassroots has to take an interest in that exercise of power like it took great interest in attaining that power. So far the grassroots has not lived up to the idea of grassroots governance. It does not have to be that way. You got to act like a party that feels being in power is but natural to you. You can't be feeling awkward and out of place once in power as if you miss being in opposition. Some of the netroots/grassroots act like they miss being in opposition. That has to go. 

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State Of The Union: In Good Hands

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