The whole austerity crusade is the work of Wall Street and of politicians who want a high-minded excuse to bash government, or who mistakenly think that the Democrats got their clocks cleaned because voters fretted about deficits. The American Prospect recently published a definitive article by two eminent political scientists, Chris Howard and Richard Valelly, titled "Deficit-Attention Disorder," demonstrating that voters are not mainly upset about deficits, but about the continuing economic calamity. The voters are way ahead of the kind of elites that populate this commission.
If the deficit-hawks get their way, that economic calamity will only deepen, and produce a deeper political setback for the Obama administration.
President Obama, who bequeathed this commission, has been encouraging its members to "set aside their partisan differences" and agree on a plan — as if reducing the deficit had anything to do with the real challenge, namely getting a recovery going.
The best hope, in truth, is that divisions will cripple the commission, that other leaders will start turning to the real issues of economic recovery, and that President Obama will stop listening to the austerity mongers. For more detailed rebuttal to the deficit hawks, see the new website, ourfiscalsecurity.org. (Source)
It doesn't matter what the electorate thinks, because it's an insiders' game until 2012, and the insiders are plutocrat partisans who want make sure the Dems are in no position to do something politically effective and popular. Obama doesn't have a real plan; he's playing reactive politics–just trying to survive from week to week, and that's right where the the plutocrats want him–looking weak and ineffective. Makes it easier for them to get a Republican back in office in 2012.
It's the same strategy they pursued with Clinton–keep the Dem president on his heels; use the time when a Dem is in office to consolidate gains obtained when a Republican was, and get ready to make aggressive new advances when a Republican returns. And if in the meanwhile they can get the Dem to buy into aspects of their agenda, like NAFTA, cool.
Obama is dancing their tune rather than calling his own. I thought he he was smart enough to know how to handle the pressure that's coming to him from the Right, that he would be prepared for it, but I was wrong. He really seems to think it's about getting things done through compromise, because, you know, those opposing him a're not bad guys when you get to know them. The opposition comprises honorable public servants who just want what's best for the country. He's just trying to be sane and reasonable. The problem lies in that "sane and reasonable" is easy for propagandists on the right to make look "weak and ineffectual".
The mistake I see Obama making lies in his thinking that sane and reasonable is going to win him the electoral middle in 2012, but it won't. The middle wants somebody who will fight for it, not someone they perceive as opted by big money. And reasonable compromise looks too much like being co-opted, mainly because it is.
UPDATE: Digby later today:
For someone who never wants to hold anyone accountable for anything, the president sure is anxious to accept blame for himself. But some of us, most famously Greg Sargent, have been making the point for a long time that when a president boldly promises to change the way Washington works and the other side obstructs his every attempt at cooperation and bipartisanship, the voters don't blame the other side, they blame the president for failing to deliver on his promises. (Indeed, the Republicans are so bold as to openly blame him as well.)
I'm sorry, but Obama seems incapable of understanding what the real challenge for him is. I'm beginning to think that if we have to go with an establishement Dem, maybe Hillary would have done better. I didn't think I would have ever said that because I do not like what either Clinton represents, but they both know how to fight.
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