Budget talks: This is getting nasty

This is really cute, but it's not me.

Please don't anyone confuse whomever this poster is with me.

 

Prove you're you!

 

Martin Bashir & Andrea Mitchell were just expressing pure astonishment at this very thought.

Their basic take was that these freshman just didn't understand how Washington worked, and weren't going along with the normal way of doing business.

Isn't that what we always complain about? That folks get elected and then get absorbed into Washington's culture.

 

Should I quote from Rush Limbaugh's show today?

 

No, no, no. Just the threat is evidence enough ... lol

 

So if we raise the debt limit, our credit rating drops. If we don't raise the debt limit, our credit rating drops. So what's all the fuss?

 

There's a couple of things going on, and part of it relates to this.

First of all, the moment you could predict the "Tea Party" would go the the mattresses on the debt ceiling was after the budget deal got done.

The "Tea Party" thought they had secured a real victory. They had achieved a savings of $1T. They were thrilled and ready to brag to their constituents that they had gone to Washington, and in just a short time, they had made a difference.

Then they realized they were rolled. The savings were all smoke and mirrors. Accounting maneuvers. No real savings.

The "Tea Party" was mad and embarrassed. Their constituents were now mad at them and not thrilled.

The "Tea Party" there and then were determined that the deb ceiling vote would be their revenge. They weren't going to fall for any tricks. They weren't going to compromise. They weren't going to be rushed into voting for something they hadn't had time to look over. And, they were going to hold Speaker Boehner accountable as well.

The second thing goes to negotiating strategy and leverage -- and it goes all the way back to the '95 shut down.

The side with more leverage usually comes out ahead in a negotiation. And, it's important to know when you have the leverage, and when the other side has it.

In this case, Obama and the Democrats -- along with a lot of main line Republicans -- assumed that the President and the Democrats had more leverage.

The Republicans got beat up after the '95 shut down. Ever since then, the assumption has been that Republicans would again be blamed for any shut down.

The press pushed the notion, and Republicans feared it.

But, the "Tea Party" didn't care/didn't remember/didn't give a shit about '95.

They were the only ones who realized that they had all the leverage in these negotiations. They could hold Speaker Boehner and the rest of the Republican Party hostage, and they could force the rest of the Republican Party to hold the Democratic Party hostage.

The "worst case scenario" is acceptable to them. It would be a victory in its own right.

How do you negotiate against that?

It took everyone a while to realize they were serious, but they were/are. And that's why they will win.

Their compromise is to vote for increasing the debt ceiling. That's it. That's what they're wiling to agree to. And, they want something back in return.

I just wonder if it would have been easier if they didn't get rolled in the budget negotiations.

Either way, it's been fascinating to watch.

The anger and frustration on the left is real. The President looks weak. It's going to hurt their party.

 

Yes, when I think of the Tea Party, serenity is the first thing that comes to mind.

Adherence to campaign promises is rare because most campaign promises are stupid, in the vein of Homer Simpson promising garbagemen valets. That goes double for Tea Party campaign promises.

 

YF, I'm with you, until here:

The anger and frustration on the left is real. The President looks weak. It's going to hurt their party.

I'm not sure this will come to pass. I'm not sure we'll know, either way, until we see the abyss.

Certainly there are many on the left that wish Obama would be just as big an asshole as a Tea Partier. They see him as too easy to roll, which in some cases, may be true.

However, part of that frustration from the left is the realization that the Tea Party, with its intransigence and its takeover of the Republicans, is fucking crazy and needs to be corralled in some way. A lot of fervent lefties and Obama supporters sat out 2010, and the lesson there is, as Obama often likes to say, don't let the perfect be the enemy of the good. Did Obama get us our single-payer leftie paradise? No. But is watching Obama move to the right worse than watching the Tea Party go nuts? Oh, yeah.

In a "normal" year, Obama would be getting a primary challenge from the left (a la Carter in '80) because of the situation the economy is in, and because of his perceived ineffectiveness (a perception that is hardly fair, I think, given what has passed under his watch). As much as some on the left wish it would happen, they know that such a challenge guarantees President Romney, or worse yet, President Bachmann. Again, like with so much in this depressing world, the calculus becomes least worst.

 

Who cares about MDT?