The New Republic

Packer says we are headed for "one of the ugliest political periods in my lifetime" over the next two years as Republicans pull out all the stops with one goal: defeat Obama in 2012. It doesn't have to be that way. If the Democrats, meaning Obama, take the offensive. Unfortunately, if Wednesday's presser is any indication, Packer is right, we will have no counter-attack, and we are doomed. "Multidirectional placation". Where did Wills come up with that?

- rayward

November 4, 2010 at 11:31am

Chait pointed this out before. It's like the Star Trek episode where Captain Kirk splits into two selves that each need each other. The only hope is that the Republicans give President Obama cover on top end tax increases (and defense spending cuts) and President Obama gives the Republicans cover on spending cuts. If the Republicans and Democrats start making political hay out of everything, then all we can do is roast our big fat deficit for dinner.

- Nusholtz

November 4, 2010 at 11:37am

This seems to contradict your post yesterday about the House flipping to the GOP and not reverting to the Democrats any time soon, Jonathan. I think that you are speaking in general but you might have referred to your post yesterday in this thread so as not to confuse. Or have you changed your mind about the House already? Memo to the youth and to Latinos (and Latinas): storm the ramparts in 2012 and rip Speaker Boner (or whoever overthrows him) from his from his august position.

- liberal reformer

November 4, 2010 at 11:37am

If I were the GOP I'd keep the Citizens United-era funding advantage and gerrymandered districts over the hope that Obama's youth vote returns and translating Reid's Hispanic support can be extended nationwide.

- Lymon1

November 4, 2010 at 1:02pm

I suppose that you can square Chait's two posts by splitting hairs on how long the long Republican reign over the House could be. The fact is that Republicans controlled about as many state houses and governorships in 2001 as they will next year and redistricted to their advantage almost at will (with an assist from Tom DeLay's infamous off-year redistricting in Texas that is now finally in front of a court). That helped keep them in a majority for the next five years, but bad politics caught up to them and they lost the majority notwithstanding all the gerrymandering. The 2008 election made things even worse, although it should have been evident that many (if not most) of the 2008 districts that voted for McCain but elected a Democrat were the result more of bad political luck than a realigned electorate. So Republicans can be safe in the knowledge that they will hold a lot of gerrymandered districts in 2012 and on through 2014 at least. By 2016 demographic trends in a lot of these districts -- especially the growth of Latinos and migrations of younger, more liberal-minded voters into suburbs that are still largely white and staid today -- will start making a difference again. At least that's the hope for Democrats.

- wildboy

November 4, 2010 at 2:08pm

The Democrats will be able to pass little or nothing over the next two years, so especially now it's best to focus largely on the long term and structural: 1) Make it easier to vote – This is so crucial to Democratic success; you really wonder why they never pushed for it more. My specific idea is a law to make it so everyone is, when they submit their income tax form, automatically registered to vote – And put on the list to be permanently sent a mail ballot for every single election, no matter how small. This would be an enormous boon to the Democrats, as Republicans vote disproportionately by a large margin – the older you are the more you vote, and seniors have all the time in the world to vote; moreover, the passionate, the whipped up by outrageous propaganda, (and the insane), are very motivated people; they'll make the time. It's far far easier to vote if a ballot arrives in your mail, with a prepaid return envelope. And the ballot arriving in the mail makes it hard to forget an election. This could tremendously increase relative Democratic turnout. You can put a law like this on referendums all over the states, as well as trying to push it through nationally when you control congress. 2) Plan now for how and when you will end the filibuster, and build support for ending it behind the scenes now – try-and-see is far kinder to good ideas, ideas that are good for the vast majority, and far harsher to bad ones, thus try and see is a great ally of the Democrats and a great enemy of the Republicans and their best friends ignorance and deception – nothing decimates lies and misleading like try-and-see. And ending the filibuster tremendously increases the odds of try-and-see. If we had try-and-see we would have had, for example, Medicare-for-All and Cap and Trade, permanently, a long time ago. For more on this see: http://richardhserlin.blogspot.com/2009/08/key-reason-why-51-democratic-senators.html 3) Push for the Presidential popular vote plan, where an electoral majority of states commits its electors to chose only the winner of the national popular vote – like suggestion1 above, millions of DNC money could greatly increase the odds of success of this. You wonder why the Democrats never put much effort or money into these things when they can do such great good long term. As an economist, it just doesn't seem very efficient or utility optimizing.

- RHSerlin

November 4, 2010 at 2:36pm

Prompted by Chait's last sentence, it just occurred to me that Japan did a pretty good job avoiding political radicalism during its lost decade. Partly this is because their lost decade wasn't much worse than the 2000's in the US, partly it was ethnic homogeneity that made xenophobia less potent, but I think a lot is just that they are a pretty nice bunch these days. Their idea of batshit political anger was voting the LDP out of power.

- WillPastor

November 5, 2010 at 4:55am