JONATHAN CHAIT MARCH 10, 2010
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A few years ago, Tom Edsall wrote a great Diarist for TNR arguing, based on his years of playing poker in Washington, that Republicans are better players than Democrats:
Republicans are much less risk-averse than Democrats, and taking risks is crucial to poker. Howard Baker noted that Ronald Reagan's 1981 tax cut was a "riverboat gamble." The GOP has consistently demonstrated a willingness to risk high deficits, especially to cut taxes that fall on their biggest donors. The party advocating preemptive war is not likely to be cowed by a big bet. Democrats, conversely, are the party of risk-aversion- -supportive of the safety net, opposed to new weapons systems, and sympathetic to protective trade policies. They are less able to tolerate the tension and uncertainty of a game in which a week's salary--or more--can be won or lost in a single hand. Another argument for the view that Republicans make better poker players is that poker rewards what feminists have long considered one of the worst attributes of men: the capacity to "objectify" the other. In poker, friends, colleagues, and even loved ones become subjects of manipulation and deceit-- sources of cash who must be persuaded to make mistakes and to misjudge their strengths and your weaknesses.
Clearly, some element of this has borne out in the health care fight. Republicans have made the fight as high-stakes as possible. Rather than offer some compromise bill, which at least one moderate Democrat would surely have jumped on, they formed a solid wall of opposition, and made reform an all-or-nothing proposition. They've played the issue with maximal aggressiveness, forcing the Democrats to cash in on a landmark bill or collapse in utter defeat.
But their latest tactic is so obvious I wonder how it could possibly work. Republicans are warning Democrats that passing health care reform will make them less popular. They are alerting the House that Senators will betray any deal they make. And they are insisting that reconciliation will be a bloody, protracted fight, even signing a letter promising to invoke the "Byrd Rule" to strike out any non-budgetary measures from a reconciliation bill.
Clearly, this is mostly a bluff. After all, Senate Democrats would be crazy to make specific promises to the House and then renege on them -- they would never pass another bill again. Democrats aren't planning to put non-budgetary items into a reconciliation bill, so Republican can threaten all they want to invoke the Byrd Rule, but they'll lose. Anyway, threatening to fight reconciliation is a threat to fight popular changes -- delaying the excise tax, canceling special deals for Florida and Nebraska -- after a comprehensive health care reform has already become a fait accompli. The GOP would be putting itself on the wrong side of public opinion to stop a bill that's already passed.
I just wonder if Democrats are actually foolhardy enough to heed these warnings. After all, as I keep pointing out, the two parties are engaged in zero-sum electoral competition. Why on Earth would you do what your opponent is urging you to do? It's possible that Edsall is right -- Democrats are so risk-averse they can be bullied into folding their hand on a huge pot just by sheer bluster. But they can't be that pathetic, can they?
7 comments
Regarding the threat of 'Byrd rule' obstructionism, in a sane world it really wouldn't matter whether Republicans have a leg to stand on on a procedural basis; the Democrats response would be 'bring it on'. In a sane world, one of the country's two political parties would actually recognize political manna from heaven when it lands in their @#!! lap, not least when they need a miracle to hold onto majorities in both houses as the Democrats do this year. As you point out, this Republican pledge would have them effectively bringing the federal government to a screeching halt at a time when an already fully-baked bill would have passed both houses of Congress, possibly even have been made law in a signing ceremony in the Rose Garden. Republicans would effectively be gumming up the entire federal government over a bill that would lower taxes, increase subsidies and eliminate special interest giveaways- i.e. something for just about everyone- over water under the bridge. If they wanted to them look like toddlers chucking toys in a category 5 temper tantrum they couldn't pick a better way of doing it. On top of that, The Republicans have just committed to their base that they will undertake this suicidal tactic- there will be severe repercussions/disillusionment if they don't. Movement conservatism: in for a dime, in for a dollar. So, in a sane world, the Democrats would realize that this reason alone is sufficient political justification to pass the freaking bill. Of course, when you're an elected Democrat and risk averse to the point of fear of your shadow's vapor trail, even that slam dunk gift from god makes you sweat the details. To use the poker analogy, the Republicans are threatening to flip a pair of twos against the Democrats full house. And the Democrats are wavering... Dealer: 19 Homer: Hit me Dealer: 20 Homer: Hit me Dealer: 21 Homer: Hit me Dealer: 22 Homer: Doh! Of course, it's possible that Dems are really wavering because of all the corporate money that is no doubt being dangled in front of them. While that is less appalling, it is probably even more depressing.
- I Majorajam
March 10, 2010 at 7:53pm
"Democrats are so risk-averse they can be bullied into folding their hand on a huge pot just by sheer bluster. But they can't be that pathetic, can they?" What part of "yes" don't you understand?
- gdbittner
March 10, 2010 at 8:54pm
But the kind of all-in mentality of today's GOP is bad poker strategy. Against incompetents or novices, you can win at poker playing every hand like you're holding someone else's money and four aces. But against even minimally competent opponents, that style of play loses, and loses quickly, every time. So either the analogy between poker and politics isn't so good, or congressional Democrats are even more pathetic than I normally assume. On the plus side, Barack Obama is by all accounts one of the best poker players we've had as president.
- rhubarbs
March 10, 2010 at 9:37pm
Notice this quote?: "The GOP has consistently demonstrated a willingness to risk high deficits, especially to cut taxes that fall on their biggest donors." What a risk! Risk the possibility of a "loss" you actually think helps you (so you can later "starve the beast"), for the guarantee of a win on your highest priority! Who would not gamble on those terms?
- JEFF FREY
March 11, 2010 at 12:40am
Not mentioned but obvious is that the Republicans' gambit has kept the conversation away from the actual substance of the HCR legislation and on "process", which as we know the public hates and blames the Democrats for it. The Republicans set a trap and the Democrats have already fallen into it. What easy marks! Who is to blame? I say those who are enamored with the "process", whose skills are made for the "process". I wonder who that might be?
- raylward
March 11, 2010 at 7:32am
"On the plus side, Barack Obama is by all accounts one of the best poker players we've had as president." I seriously doubt it. Funnily enough, I was going to write a comment after Cohn's post rehashing some stuff I wrote at the time of the tax deal about how Obama's poker style--described in these pages back in '07 or '08 as exhibiting a tight/passive phenotype, i.e. highly risk-averse, willing to bet only when he had a rock solid hand--predicted his negotiating failures. Speaking as someone who has played an embarrassingly large amount of poker online (ca. 100,000 hands) I will second your suggestion that unstudied, fearless aggression in poker is a sure and often spectacular loser. But a rote, safety-minded strategy is a sure loser as well, just not on such a grandiose scale. If you only ever bet when you have the nuts, then as soon as you bet, everyone else will fold and you'll win little. And if you fold to any raise unless you're holding a top five opener, then you'll get recognized as a patsy and they young bucks will start raising you every time just because they think it's funny to watch you toss your cards yet again. And the political analogy holds up. The Republicans are like poker maniacs. They don't have a long-term strategy. Time after time they shove all-in with rags, and sooner or later they're going to get burned big-time--such as maybe when they figure out that they've completely hamstrung the economy or when it becomes obvious that anthropogenic global warming is real and real bad but it's too late to do anything about it. But like this Swedish kid who called himself Isuldur demonstrated when he won millions online before losing it all and then some, sometimes a maniac can win big before he loses. And the thing is, however bad a maniac strategy is in the long-term, in the near term it's likely to run roughshod over a tight/passive player like Obama. Up against an Isuldur, an Obama-type player will fold and fold and fold all night long. He might pick up a small pot or two when he hits big cards, but not enough to overcome the trend, and at the end of the session he'll count himself lucky that he only lost 20% of his bankroll. In his own mind he might even start to think of himself as a winner. Just being invited to sit at the table with the fat cats can start to feel like a reward in and of itself.
- AaronW
April 11, 2011 at 10:36am
P.S. I've given up on online poker. There's so much information out there about how to fine tune your game and so many can gain so much experience in so little time that there are relatively few bad players out there. Even at the micro stakes tables most everyone's tight/aggressive--the optimal phenotype, and I've decided that for anyone except the supremely talented, it's impossible to win enough to stay ahead of the 5% house rake. Clearly, there are some guys who are truly talented winners, guys like Phil Ivey who repeatedly make it to the final tables of big tournaments. (I suspect their talent lies in having an eidetic memory for people's betting patterns, allowing them to more accurately predict how you'll bet with given cards in given situations.) But I suspect that most of the stories you here about college kids who've make a few hundred thou playing online are either lies or else they represent statistical outliers, lottery winners in effect.
- AaronW
April 11, 2011 at 10:49am