Karl Rove: The Debt-Ceiling Debate and 2012

This article talks about the debt ceiling outcome and how it is going to affect the political landscape going into the 2012 elections.  So nice to read an article that is not 'the sky is falling' as I have been seeing in comments on articles.  All kinds of name calling from the 'my way or no way' crowd of both parties.  These people must have had an easy life getting everything they wanted the way they want everything with no compromises as adults.  Acting like little kids starting with Obama who when they don't get all the want, picks up the ball and goes home.

The only difference I am seeing in the rhetoric is the ideology involved.  It amazing to read some of the comments on Huffington Post AOL because you probably have the best cross section of right and left on that site.  Some of the comments are humorous while others make you shake your head and wonder what planet these people are from.  The one thing that is constant is that there are a lot more people on the site with common sense from both sides then either the far left or far right wants to admit.

There is another fact starting to enter into some posts and that is a general disgust with the way Obama has run the Government.  Those comments are coming from both sides as they think he is failing miserably and is spending too much time campaigning.  Some have even taken up he wastes too much money flying Air Force One around the Country so that is becoming a bi-partisan issue.  It did not go unnoticed by the left that he didn't get involved until near the end and then grandstanded in the WH Press Office.  You could have knocked me over with a feather when I started reading the left saying the same thing I was saying.  When you throw in that the Democrats didn't wanted to pass it in December so the Republicans would have shared ownership, you stand back and watch the posters get even madder at their leadership.

While getting to the point of raising the debt ceiling was nerve wracking, the aftermath has made me laugh.  You have people taking credit for what happened that opposed the debt ceiling threatening to primary people.  Do they realize on both sides how dumb they look?   Looks like some more from this article that can be tossed into the debate on some sites.  It is so funny now to toss out something and watch both far right and left sides attack -- you know then that the agreement was good as the common sense people understand.

Libertarians and Paulbots need to find new mantra for their posts as you can spot them in a NY minute.  Johnny Carson once described a NY minute as:  "it's the interval between a Manhattan traffic light turning green and the guy behind you honking his horn."

Rove has some good insights and understands a lot of things like budget cuts cannot happen unless Republicans control the Senate and the White House.  Democrats in the Senate won't even do a budget and Obama always has that phantom plan that is never seen.  Read in another article in the Wall Street Journal today from Senator Portman who thinks Obamacare is the reason the Democrats are not doing a budget because it would out the cost and how bad it is.  Looks the Wall Street Journal is getting back to where it was before Murdoch took it over -- back to a mix of business and their great editorial pages.

By Karl Rove
August 4, 2011

The Debt-Ceiling Debate and 2012

Neither party really won, but the GOP has a better case to take to the public.
After big events like Tuesday's debt-ceiling vote, Washington goes into overdrive to declare who won and who lost. But politics is more complex and less binary than that. In this case, neither party helped itself with the public during this struggle. 

But Democrats hurt themselves most of all. They made a huge strategic mistake by failing to raise the debt ceiling late last year when they still controlled Congress. 

Instead, Democrats tried to make the GOP complicit in their spending excesses. On Dec. 8, for example, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid explained his decision not to tackle the debt ceiling until the new GOP House took office by saying he wanted to "let the Republicans have some buy-in on the debt." This ended up giving the GOP months to leverage the debt ceiling into a battle over spending cuts. 

President Obama paid the highest price during this long confrontation. By the time he signed the debt ceiling, he had enraged his own party, issued demands that were routinely ignored, reinforced his reputation as being obsessed with raising taxes, and failed to produce a concrete plan of his own. 

At the start of last December, Mr. Obama's job approval rating in the weekly Gallup poll was 47% approve and 45% disapprove. Last week, it was 40% approve and 52% disapprove. If the election were held today, Mr. Obama and his party would be swamped. 

For Republicans, the outcome was far more positive. House Republicans adroitly shifted the debate's focus from how much to raise the debt ceiling to how much should spending be cut. They achieved this even while the other two centers of power in any legislative struggle—the Senate and the White House—remained in Democratic hands. 

In doing so, Republicans achieved roughly two-thirds of the spending cuts sought in the budget the House passed in April, cuts which would have gone nowhere in the Senate without the debt-ceiling battle. 

Both GOP congressional leaders emerged with enhanced reputations. Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell's weirdly convoluted proposal to allow the president to raise the debt ceiling by asking Congress for permission actually helped lubricate discussions at a critical moment. The House GOP needed the prospect of something worse to provoke greater unity in their ranks. And giving Senate Democrats the hope of a Republican proposal that provided a way out kept Democrats from solidifying behind their own proposal. 

John Boehner had the even more difficult task of fashioning a consensus among potentially fractious House Republicans after voluntarily giving up two of any House speaker's most potent tools—the blandishments of earmarks and spending increases or thinly veiled threats to jerk committee assignments or deny campaign assistance. Instead, Mr. Boehner used patient explanation of his proposal's merits and the policy realities. 

The main danger for Republicans is that while 76 of the 87 House GOP freshmen voted with Mr. Boehner, a substantial minority of GOP activists did not want the debt ceiling raised regardless of what the consequences were for the economy. A dispirited base could generate costly primaries and depress turnout. 

(snip)

Entitlement reform in the current political context can be achieved only by having a Republican Senate and a Republican president join the Republican House. This is not ideal, since reforms of this magnitude are better done in a bipartisan manner. But there doesn't appear to be any alternative. The crisis is real and the need for action overwhelming. 

And so the GOP must take its case to the people in 2012 in the hope of earning a mandate. The prospects for this are much better than they were before the debt-ceiling debate—a clash from which Mr. Obama and his party might not fully recover before the election. 

Read more at the article on WSJ.com on Wednesday, August 3, 2011.

If Republicans stay home because this debt ceiling was passed or are part of the faction led by DeMint and Palin who want to primary 'yes' voters, than those Republicans are just being stupid and hardheaded.  We will take the Allen West's and the James Langford's of the Congress any day of the week over the 'my way or no way' attitude.  Found it amusing that some members of the Republican Study Committee think it is too big now since a lot of people didn't vote their leadership position even though there was never a vote whether to support or not support the debt ceiling compromise.  Guess they should put out a sign:  No Common Sense wanted!