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

[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.

[Arugula Latte]

1. I think these "possible death of the X Party" theories get overblown.

I mean, no one wishes more ardently than me that the Repube Party were in its death throes, but I recall all too well a few years ago when "The Permanent Republican Majority" was on the scene and the Democratic Party was going to wither away ...

[redqueen]

2. The 'party of fiscal responsibility'?

Are they joking?

[Burma Jones]

3. Let's see how well they've done with their gambling so far.........

Gambled on Iraq - Lost

Gambled on Deregulation - Lost

Gambled on Deficits not meaning anything - Lost

Gambled on the Christian Right - Lost

Gambled on Arrogance - Lost

Gambled on selling out American Workers to benefit the "Investor Class" - Lost

Gambled on alienating educated Americans - Lost

[bdamomma]

4. a second look from the public??? ha!!

the repigs really have such a low opinion of the American people don't they?

[CaliforniaPeggy]

5. And I hope that spinning wheel

Takes them right over the fucking cliff...

So they can end up just where they put us for the last 8 years.

Goddamn.

[tularetom]

6. WTE is Bill Clinton doing advising the repub party?

Reverse psychology or his inner repub coming out?

[Wildewolfe]

8. It was the inner Clenis talking...

That always makes them do the opposite.

[yourout]

7. Republicans are doing everything they can to make sure he fails.....

When Obama's policys are proven to work the Pukes will go the way of the dinosaurs and they know it.