The media hysteria that accompanied this years midterm elections and the record “obscene” four billion dollars that was spent still failed to seriously engage the electorate. It is the conventional wisdom that the results represented a protest vote against the President, who as precedent would have it, in his sixth year in Office, becomes the symbol of society’s disillusionment. While “everyone” agreed that it was the POTUS, the polls showed that the Congressional Republicans had a far lower approval rating, (15%), then the President, (45%). The GOP in 2014 ran on one agenda item only, the President’s alleged failure to govern - which in fact was quite ironic as he was the only one attempting to govern these past six years.
The Democrats were at sixes and sevens and were far to timid in getting across their message. They also bought into the GOP narrative that the major problem in the country was the President and shied away from him. At the end of the day this shake up in the current American logjam may prove positive as the Republicans have to now actually enunciate a policy.
WHO IS “EVERYONE”
Before continuing it might be constructive to define who is “everyone”. The 24/7 media commentary on the USA political scene would have you believe that every citizen hangs onto every nuance of day to day political happenings. They simply do not. In a poll it was shown that close on forty percent of those surveyed did not even know who controlled the House of Representatives. A mere average of eighteen percent of those registered to vote took advantage of their right in the Primaries. This is particularly significant to the Republican Party as they nor anyone else really don’t know what the Party stands for. (Everyone knows what they don’t represent, i. e. Obama, universal healthcare, taxation of the rich, gun control, minimum wage increase, regulation on pollution and equal pay for women, for example). Another stroke of irony was the fact that on the same ballot as a number of Republican Senate victories Obama’s minimum wage raise was endorsed. At the end of the day the GOP platform remains unclear because if they attempted to define it then the Party would split into two - the Tea Party and the New GOP.
To get back to who is “everyone”. “Everyone” would appear to be the lowest turnout in American history, 33% of the electorate, of which just over half, 17%, were Republicans. Put another way a small percentage more of the Republican base was moved to register their disapproval of Obama than the number of Dems who were persuaded to come out to support the issues that their lawmakers espoused. Admittedly the Republican State Legislatures made it harder for certain groups of Dems to vote but if they thought it might make a difference they would have.
HYPE, SMOKE AND MIRRORS AND OBAMA
So all this argument that “everyone” has now recognized that Obama is the problem is so much hype. There is a total disconnect between Washington and its media and the disenchanted and disinterested electorate. There is a crisis in confidence between the average citizen and those who represent them and the fourth estate who ostensibly safeguard their interests. All that they knew about this election is the millions of negative ads that they were subjected to in-between their soaps and their football. In the meantime the votes of a few hundred thousand in States that favored the Republicans, out of a three hundred and fifty million population, that represented less than one percent of the electorate, are hyped up to be “the broad will of the people” i.e. "everyone". Mitch McConnell now has a mandate - the people have spoken!
Now the Republicans have prepared the ground for this for over six years ,- namely that Obama is the problem. They then literally spent billions to get this simplistic message across. What this election represents is a successful hatchet job. The Republicans did absolutely nothing to help govern rather electing to sabotage every effort of cooperation with the President and then blame him for the gridlock. In addition they, initially, conducted a mammoth ungodly attack on the first successful attempt to provide health care to the uninsured. The GOP House’s major legislation initiative for four years was to attempt to repeal Obamacare which they tried nearly fifty times. The House GOP, in addition, unsuccessfully tried to sue the President and several members have threatened impeachment on endless occasions. The GOP minority in the Senate filibustered on every possible occasion. Moreover their fearless leader, now the new majority leader, stated early after 2008 that he had only one objective and that was to limit Obama to one term. When he failed to do that he just simplistically changed his legislative agenda just to limit Obama. This he did by filibustering up the ying yang every piece of legislation that the Dems put up leaving Obama to legislate by Executive Action.
To repeat, what this election mainly represents is the successful hatchet job the Republicans did by doing absolutely nothing to help govern and then followed that up by blaming the President for what they were responsible for. Having played the message over and over again for six years they then spent billions reenforcing it in order to get more of their base out than the Dems.
Talk about smoke and mirrors!
OBAMA, THE MEDIA AND THE MESSAGE
To paraphrase Goebbels just repeat a slogan often enough and people will believe it. Even the media bought into this narrative. It is difficult to find a true list of Obama’s failures. Rather there are generalities - like failure to lead, non cooperation with Congress, a professorial attitude, the socialist Affordable Health Care Act, too much golf, he does not understand the theater of politics and so on. At least these reasons are an intellectual advance from the content of the earlier attacks on him such as that he was born in Africa, his birth certificate was a fraud and that he was a Muslim plant, for example. It is hard to reconcile the “truth” that Obama is the cause of the country’s woes with the fact that Obama is in sync with the majority of the electorate on income inequality, non intervention in foreign wars, climate change,minimum wage increase, gender equality, job creation, regulation of financial institutions, to mention just a few of the issues.
So the media takes as gospel what has been fed to the electorate for six years forgetting that the GOP have offered no coherent policy of their own. Also the crucial piece that the Supreme Court played in this scenario is ignored. SCOPUS sanctioned unlimited money to be spent in electoral campaigns. So there were no financial restraints on the GOP in getting across its simplistic banal but effective message. They ran a whole election campaign against Obama who was not on the ballot. In the cold light of day this was ridiculous and the media should have called it instead of feeding into it. The Dems should have fought it instead of cowering.
The GOP were thus assisted by the sleepy media who looked for reasons as to why Obama was the problem and they came up, recently with Ebola and ISIS. Obama acted inconclusively on Ebola they echoed. In fact Obama was the only politician who kept his head. There was a consensus by Public Health Authorities that the only way to really fight this epidemic was to eliminate it in West Africa. He sent specialized manpower, supplies and money to the affected areas. (This action was hindered by the fact that the GOP had cut the Center for Disease Control Budget). By contrast the GOP politicians stoked public fear by suggesting air flight bans to West Africa and wholesale quarantine of everyone in sight when the medical knowledge was categorical that anyone without symptoms was not infectious and the disease was not very contagious as it was spread by body fluids. Obama physically embraced asymptomatic health care workers as he knew that they were needed in West Africa. If you treat them like lepers and not heroes why should they go? Chris Christie, the GOP Presidential Candidate, a bull in a china shop if ever there was one, attacked Obama as he, Christie, quarantined health care workers “out of an abundance of caution”. The asymptomatic nurse Kaci Hickox countered that Christie was acting “out of an abundance of politics”.
And then there was ISIS. Obama has stated as a matter of policy - The Obama Doctrine, that he wants out of wars and conflicts that do not involve the USA directly. There are compelling arguments for this position. The fact that he stated that he had not finalized his position on ISIS, early on, was no big deal but it was sure made into one. If Obama had had his way he would not have been in the new Middle East conflict at all but he was pressured like crazy. The country is broadly in favor of America not being the policeman of the world spending endless blood and treasure on no win situations.
On both Ebola and ISIS Obama has been proved right. There have been no further American cases of Ebola in spite of all the contacts that were on planes, hospitals, homes and everywhere. As far as ISIS is concerned the latter are already in possession of USA equipment that Obama was “persuaded” to provide to the Syrian rebels. One can only hope he will hang tough when the hawks tell him he needs to put boots on the ground.
OBAMA FAR FROM PERFECT
Jay H. Ell has blogged that the one lesson Obama’s Presidency has taught us is that the Presidency is not a job for neophytes. It needs far more legislative and administrative experience than Obama has had to offer. He is an ideas man, an activist and this century’s most inspiring orator. The leader also needs to be a politician and know legislative administration as well. He is not known in the portals of Congress and just did not have the nouse or credentials to broker deals. But in fairness to him he met with a brick wall rather than help from the GOP.
Perhaps the fairest criticism of his responsibility in the Dem meltdown is that he is the leader of the Democratic party and as such, as its Chief Executive, he needs to take responsibility for the failure. In a Westminster Parliamentary model he would be no more but this is the Founding Fathers’ model and the ethos of that construct involves the Legislative body cooperating with the Executive.
WHAT NOW
Politicians are an unashamed breed. After all that has happened in the past six years, McConnell is looking to cooperate with the President and the Democrats in the Senate. They don’t want to tarred with the same brush they feathered Obama with - stop government and then blame government for stopping. The Republicans thus have announced a modest agenda McConnell has reassured that there will be no attempt to fully repeal Obamacare and no shutdowns! What a difference a day makes. There are several areas which have the potential for cooperation. Immigration, tax reform, medicare and social security. To accentuate the hypocrisy Mc Connell is now ready to pass bills with bipartisan support including fast tracking international trade agreements, the Keystone pipeline and the tax on medical devices. Another area that has bipartisan support is the desire of Congress to sanction any deal Obama might make with Iran and there Obama better watch out. (Blog: Netanyahu and Maybe Obama Too - Just Don’t Get It”).
According to the Washington Post McConnell is anxious to shed the Party’s image as obstructionist and the home of right wing ideologues. Indeed what a difference a day makes. Ed Rendell. a former Chairman of the Democratic National Committee, states that they will have to shed their image fast if they don’t want to be toast in 2016.
Jay H. Ell does not believe that McConnell will go too far with this consensus bit as his Presidential candidates will want a fired up base. He has to thread the needle very carefully otherwise he will have open rebellion from the Tom Cruzs and Mark Rubrios of this world on the right not to mention the Chris Christies and Jed Bushes on the left. It is an open secret that he favors Rand Paul and that is not going to go down too well with the brethren. It is hard to see Boehner and McConnell holding this together. If anything the pressure will come even harder from the crazies. Nothing is going to keep Ted Cruz away from his supporters in the House and reeking havoc in both chambers. Cruz is very much a De Mint man who left the Senate to orchestrate the Tea Party onslaught.
Obama for his part also was conciliatory saying that they needed to get the job done. He mentioned road construction and infrastructure as well as expanded trade where they could find common ground. He left little doubt that he would veto bills he couldn’t live with and sounded a warning, much to McConnell’s chagrin, that if Congress did not get immigration reform legislation onto his desk, he would act unilaterally by Executive Action. He also asked for money and legislation for Ebola and ISIS management.
THE FUTURE.
Jay H. Ell will stick to his prediction that the Dems are looking at a landslide in 2016. (Blogs: “Why the GOP in 2014? - Its the Plutocrats, Obamacare and Voter Suppression Stupid”, “2014: Dems and GOP’s Conflicting Strategies” and “2014 Elections: Who Cares as the GOP are Dying Anyway”).
There will be Hillary and Bill. The latter two know the game better than most. This time they are taking no chances as Bill careers around the country campaigning and picking up IOU’s. One thing is for sure they will take nothing for granted as they did last time. Hillary has already had tons of money pledged to her. She will have almost a clear run. One cannot see anyone opposing her especially if she announces early. If she is wise she will pick Elizabeth Warren as her running mate and stop her from being flattered into the disaster of another neophyte running for President. The Republican field will be overcrowded and they will all kill each other in the run up and use up dollops of money in the Primaries. The Republican Chairman Reince Priebus will try and limit the damage by having as few debates as possible but that will just create anger among the lesser known candidates. Remember last time there were an endless succession of front runners till Romney eliminated them one by one. If Reince wants a Jed or a Romney he cannot end it too early otherwise he could land up with a Herman Cain instead.
The GOP cannot delay defining a platform if they are serious about winning a national election. They cannot run against Obama forever. The freak show that has just occurred will not happen again. 2016 has a number of vulnerable GOP Senators up for reelection in red states and if McConnell accommodates Obama to much they will lose out to the Tea Party in Primaries. Remember the Dems have 242 electoral votes in the bag before they start campaigning. They only need 270 to have their candidate elected as President. The GOP will have to change radically to become a serious threat.
It will be interesting to watch how this all pans out but even though the Republicans lead by McConnell and Boehner made it their top priority to “get rid” of Obama he is alive and kicking and history will be the final judge of this not so savory political period. By the way tell Harry Reid not to throw away his gavel, he might have his day job back soon.
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