Democrats' Trouble: They Let Republicans Con Them (Again)

Recently read Bill Galston's insightful (and short) article The Democrats' Legislative Record: Can't Run on It, Can't Run Away ...

Of the five big legislative actions of the past 2 years,

- Financial Reform
- Wall St Bailout
- GM Bailout
- Healthcare "reform"
- Stimulus,

a recent Gallup poll found that just one is popular with a majority -- financial reform. Galston concludes that...

"...a few things are clear:

• The failure of the stimulus to produce a more hopeful job market has cast a pall over everything else.
• The public regards the year spent debating health reform as a diversion from what it thinks should have been a sustained focus on the economy.
• And whatever its economic merits, the failure of the financial rescue to mete out justice to the financial leaders that got us into this mess has outraged the public’s moral sense. Given its composition, the president’s economic team could not have been expected to be especially sensitive to this concern, and it wasn’t. It was the president’s job to ensure that justice was not just done, but seen to be done. The public doesn’t think he did it. [Emphasis added]
  

The bottom line: the majority can neither run on its record nor run away from it. Its only hope is to convince the American people that giving power to an opposition party in its angriest and least moderate mood would only make things worse."

That's about the most cogent explanation I've seen for the country's current political mood.

Obama started with a stimulus package -- he tried to get Republican votes by throwing away 40% on tax cuts that do little for employment. He garnered no Republican votes in the House and 3 in the Senate which passed it 61 -37. Having spent $787 billion, Obama can't go back for more, even thought the official 11% unemployment rate (really closer to 17%) screams for more. So now the R's are running against the bad economy that they helped assure would stay bad.

When will Dems learn that giving "half a loaf" to the Republicans just means that you only have half a loaf? The Republicans haven't cooperated for a very long time. It's as old as Lucy yanking the football out just as Charlie Brown charges up to kick it... you feel sorry for good 'ol Charlie Brown, but not too sorry for the stupid sap. Too bad the country has to endure yet another fall into a booby trap.