The GOP’s Long-Term, High-Stakes Gamble [View All]

[babylonsister]

http://theplumline.whorunsgov.com/president-obama/the-gops-long-term-high-stakes-gamble/

The GOP’s Long-Term, High-Stakes Gamble


A GOP strategist offers MSNBC a candid description of the party’s long-term thinking in opposing most, if not all, of Obama’s agenda:

“My sense is we are making progress towards reclaiming mantle of fiscal responsibility, which is first step towards rebuilding,” the strategist said. “Obama is hugely popular, which makes for a tough environment. But that will/must fade with time, and we’ll get our second look from public.”

The game here has always been a long-term one: Republicans have been very open about the fact that they’re betting that Obama’s policies will fail and that their actions now will look prescient, responsible, and brave in retrospect.

The flip side of this is that if Obama’s policies are seen as even modestly successful in turning the economy around, the GOP will indeed get a “second look” from the public, and could find itself relegated to rump minority status for years, decades, perhaps even a generation or more. Which is to say, it’s hard to overstate the enormity of the stakes of the GOP’s gamble right now.

For my part, I think Bill Clinton’s advice to the GOP, in which he suggested supporting the President through the crisis and articulating an alternative vision over time, was a far shrewder course.

Too late now, though. The GOP has placed its bets, and the wheel is spinning.