What Lessons of Election Day?

[kentuck]

<snip>
One of the myths of this stunted political moment is that Barack Obama "tried to do too much," and that purist, ungrateful liberals are mad at him over things like the absence of a public option in his heath bill. This is dangerous nonsense, and it matters because these widespread views among the pundit class will influence what lessons the media and Obama himself draw from what is likely to be an epic partisan defeat on Tuesday.

<snip>
For starters, liberals are dismayed with Obama not because this or that initiative was insufficiently lefty. They are mad at Obama for blowing what had to be a Roosevelt moment, and thereby ushering in a totally needless period of far-right resurgence, dominated by a lunatic right that makes Newt Gingrich and Karl Rove look like moderates.

<snip>
With all due respect to Lemann, Obama did not decide to be bold in his first two years in office. He decided to be timid and conciliatory. People on his own economics team, such as Christina Romer, were telling him that the stimulus was far too small, and that it was too tilted to tax cuts.

Even more important than the scale of the recovery program was Obama's failure to be bold enough when it came to reorganizing failing banks. But his economic team, led by Larry Summers and Tim Geithner, opted for propping them up and disguising the big holes in their balance sheets rather than cleaning the banks out.

...more
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/robert-kuttner/post_1183_b_776752.html

[DemocratSinceBirth]

1. The Lesson Of Election Day

The lesson of election day is if the economy sucks and you are a member of the governing party you will be punished at the ballot box, regardless of whether or not you were responsible for said economy, and regardless of your political party.

Everything else is intellectual masturbation...

[Jennicut]

2. Totally agree. Why do people insist on twisting themselves in knots about this?

In 1982 the economy sucked and Repubs lost some seats in Congress. This really is not rocket science. Even in 1938, the era of FDR, Dems lost 72 seats in the House due to the economy going into a recession again.

[DemocratSinceBirth]

3. Why do people insist on twisting themselves in knots about this?

Because they hate William of Ockham

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Occam%27s_razor

[Jennicut]

5. Occam's Razor. Some people just don't want to look at the obvious, I guess.

[kentuck]

6. Or Gordian Knot?

Was the economy in recession in 2002 when the Repubs kept the House and Senate? Granted, it was not as bad as now.

[Jennicut]

8. In 2002 it was nothing like it is now in terms of the economy.

Also, 2002 is the biggest anomaly out there, as the party in power usually loses seats during midterms. In 2002, the Repubs gained. Biggest reason? The fear from 9/11. It was one of the most disgusting elections on record. Remember what happened to Max Cleland? It was all about the after effects from 9/11 in the 2002 midterms. Most midterms don't have an issue like a terrorist attack.

[DemocratSinceBirth]

9. The Economy Wasn't Nearly, Nearly, Nearly As Bad As It Is Now

And we were living in the immediate aftermath of 9-11.

[FBaggins]

4. Election day has to speak before we can tell what lessons it's teaching.

n/t

[Kdillard]

7. Exactly.

[GSLevel9]

10. easy.

The lesson is... if you have complete power of 2/3 branches of gov't you MUST do something BIG... a real game changer.

If Obama passed a public option instead of the milktoast HCR the DEMS would sweep tomorrow.

[Kdillard]

11. What on earth? I would like to see where you are getting your information.