JONATHAN CHAIT OCTOBER 26, 2010
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Richard Wolffe reports on how the Obama administration plans to challenge Republicans in the next Congressional term:
The White House plans to test Republicans' unity and political resolve on three controversial issues: repealing the Bush tax cuts, implementing the deficit commission's findings, and pushing immigration reform. Obama's team says that these issues will make for good policy—and good politics, forcing Republicans elected in swing districts to choose between placating Democrats and independents and risking a possible Tea Party challenge in 2012.
The White House believes immigration reform may be the toughest test for the GOP—even tougher than tackling the deficit. "This will separate the reasonable Republicans from the pack running for president," said one senior Obama aide.
Hmm. I'm not following the logic on the deficit commission. If it puts out any plan, it will be an unpopular mix of spending cuts and tax hikes. It's not something you dare the opposition to vote against. Now, maybe you get Republicans on the commission to block any plan, thus exposing the fact that it's the Republicans who don't want to do anything about the problem. But that's not something that hits "Republicans in swing districts." It's just something that helps, slightly, inoculate the national political environment by forcing Republicans to accept responsibility for the deficit.
The Bush tax cuts make sense as an issue. Force Republicans to hold the popular universal portion of the Bush tax cuts hostage to the unpopular $250,000-and-up portion. That's a straightforward wedge between the GOP base/elite and centrist voters. On the other hand, it's not exactly compatible with the deficit commission, which will probably recommend some kind of middle class tax hike. So the politics here seem muddled.
The immigration issue, meanwhile, is interesting. It's not the case that Republicans are on the wrong side of public opinion. Far from it -- the public is pretty hard-line on stopping illegal immigration, and even ending birthright citizenship is basically a 50-50 proposition. On the other hand, it's plausible that the persuadable voters with the strongest intensity on the issue are Latinos. (It's a similar issue to gun control, where moderate restrictions on things like assault weapons poll very well, but the only people who really vote on the issue are opposed.) If Obama can bait Republicans into opposing immigration reform, he can gear up the Latino vote for 2012 and beyond.
And it's not like the Republicans are averse to cooperating with this tactic. Adam Serwer deconstructs the not-very-subtle racial subtext of Sharron Angle's message:
Here's how her she portrays Latinos in her "Best Friend" spot, as they crawl across a "border fence" in plaid shirts and tank tops:
Meanwhile, hardworking white folks can't pay the bills:
Here's how she portrays Latinos in the ad that recycled images from a similar ad from David Vitter I blogged about a few weeks ago:
Contrast those images with the white, happy college students who are presumably going to get their scholarships taken away and given to unauthorized immigrants:
This is an image from the ad she released yesterday, after Angle claimed there was no racial intent to her previous ads and she was merely worried about the Canadian border:
Who is that bandana-clad cholo coming for? A classroom full of nice white children of course:
Angle's closing argument couldn't be any clearer, could it? This is Brown vs. White. Latinos are coming here to take your money, your jobs, and your kids' scholarships, and if you don't vote for Angle, Harry Reid will let them get away with it.
9 comments
If this woman actually gets elected, she will be hands-down the most openly racist US Senator since Lester Maddox retired. And, yes, I have not forgotten Jesse Helms or Strom Thurmond -- those two at least had the political good common sense to cater in some manner to their African-American constituents, even if they espoused policies intended to circumscribe the political gains made by those constituents during the Civil Rights Era. Sharron Angle is just something else. Just curious what a minority-majority Nevada electorate would do to her arse in 2016. My guess is that it would not be pretty. But still, to have to wade through 6 years of such insanity is almost too much to bear.
- wildboy
October 26, 2010 at 4:29pm
Looks like she's picked her target demographic...fortunately for her, there is a constituency in America which fits within this demographic nicely...
- GSpinks
October 26, 2010 at 4:44pm
On the tax issue, Obama needs to overcome the use of taxation as a means to redistributing wealth i.e taking money from hardworking earners and giving it to lazy do-nothings. This happened under Clinton when welfare got retitled workfare.
- Nusholtz
October 26, 2010 at 4:46pm
Angle is in a somewhat different position, as she can play with the citizenship/nationality issue in a way that the famous southern white supremacy pols couldn't. Nobody could accuse black Americans of not being American or being her illegally. And conversely African-Americans aren't always on the liberal pro-immigration (or even corporate pro-immigration) side of the debate, and for some obvious reasons.
- ironyroad
October 26, 2010 at 4:56pm
So if Obama wins in this plan, middle class taxes will rise, we'll cut spending on social security, and well let more low wage laborers enter the country while we have millions of unemployed citizens already. And if the GOP wins, everyone will get a tax cut, there will be no spending cuts, and immigration will stay in limbo. The price of that is rich folks get a bigger tax cut than they deserve. This isn't a plan, it's a suicide plan. Obama should challenge the GOP with a middle class only tax cut to replace the Bush tax cuts. The bigger the better, a payroll tax holiday would be perfect.
- vips73
October 26, 2010 at 5:45pm
There's no reason to suppose that Obama and the other democrats won't be steamrolled just as effectively (if not more so) by a GOP majority than they were by a minority. Given a chance to start pro-actively changing the conventional wisdom about government's role in the economy, both Obama and the congressional democrats have punted. As for Nushotlz's comment, I fail to see how Obama has used taxation as a tool for redistribution thus far. Except for the tax cuts in the stimulus, nothing has changed from Bush times (as his cuts have yet to expire, and might yet be extended in a lame duck session.) Besides, it's high time democrats started making the argument for more progressive taxes. People who actually work for a living pay their share of taxes, primarily through the "payroll tax" which is highly regressive. The very wealthy pay much less as a proportion of their income, both because the payroll tax is capped and doesn't apply to unearned income, but also because capital gains (and investment bankers' fees) are taxed at very low rates. People are outraged by obscene salaries and bonuses in the financial sector, but the only effective remedy to such abuses of corporate power is to reinstitute higher marginal tax rates on very high (millionaire and over) incomes. And the additional revenue could be used for so many things, from investments in clean energy technology to education to fixing America's decaying infrastructure. I don't see what the political downside is to that. And yet, I don't see it happening.
- stanalama
October 26, 2010 at 7:11pm
Instead of strategizing how to "challenge Republicans", the White House should focus like a laser on JOBS. Nothing else will matter in 2012. Hispanic-American voters are not a wedge issue. They are American citizens who want jobs, good schools for their children, and for politicans to actually govern. Just like almost everyone else. (BTW, Chait needs some exposure to the Brown-White divide INSIDE the different Hispanic communities) Harry Reid already made the mistake of putting immigration reform ahead of climate change for his own political benefit (see Ryan Lizza in Oct 11 The New Yorker). If he gets re-elected, he will not make that mistake again.
- K2K
October 26, 2010 at 7:56pm
I think we have seen this movie before. The deficit commish will make some proposals that mostly hurt the middle class. There will be some minor taxes on the rich. The GOP will thus reject it and claim loudly that the plan is a no-go because it didn't cut spending enough. When asked to specify what spending should be cut more. Speaker Boehner will say that question is just "Washington talk." I don't see why the GOP doesn't just keep going to this well every election now. Claim spending is too high, get credit for it, then never actually spell out cuts so you don't have to face the downside.
- MikeB.
October 26, 2010 at 9:08pm
The notion that deficit reduction will be a hot issue for the Democrats is risible.
- liberal reformer
October 27, 2010 at 8:13pm