Where The New York Times Misses the Boat

Remember way back in February when Obama decided that getting the stimulus done quickly was more important than getting it done efficiently? Remember how it was a flawed bill that no one really liked? Remember how the Republicans in the House all voted against it and how Snowe, Collins, and Specter flipped in the Senate and were the only reason as to why it was passed? Remember all that?

I remember telling people at the time that this was political stupidly by the G.O.P. Obama asked them to be apart of the bill and the G.O.P. leaders got upset because it wasn't what they wanted, so they decided to give America and Obama the middle finger by not voting for the bill... it was only a matter of time before that came back to bite them in the ass.

And that time is now. With Specter deciding that he HAS to be a Senator and thus switching parties, the G.O.P. is panicking. The change in the Senate pretty much means that the Republicans are completely shut out of the political process.

So when I saw yesterday that the New York Times finally figured this out, I was disappointed that it took until page 22. But as the paper points out, there have been a mad dash of Republicans trying to work with and voting for Democratic bills.

Scores of House Republicans joined Democrats in recent days in pushing through measures meant to rein in credit card companies, increase federal resources to pursue financial fraud and crack down on predatory housing lenders — all legislation opposed by top House Republicans. On the credit card and financial fraud bills, only a minority of Republicans ended up opposing them.

This shouldn't come as any surprise because, as I am now repeating myself, the G.O.P. is currently shut out of the law making process. If they don't work with the Democrats, then they'll get nothing. In other words, they don't bring back the bacon to their home districts. No bacon, no reelection. No reelection, no job...

But here is where the article gets it all wrong:

Democrats say the fracturing suggests that rank-and-file Republicans are growing nervous about their leadership’s near-blanket opposition to the agenda that Congressional Democrats and President Obama are pursuing, particularly on measures that have obvious popular appeal.

They aren't nervous about opposition to Obama, they're nervous about their jobs.

This is where the media really drops the ball, why not tell us that the reason why Republicans are working with Democrats is because if they don't... they get nothing. They HAVE to work with the Dems if they want to stay on the Hill.

There is not a breakdown of Republican unity on the Hill. And to write that there is a problem within the party is lazy and anti-intellectual.

And yet another reason why newspapers are dying.

More on Specter's Switch

And the hits keep coming for the G.O.P. Politically the news couldn't be worse. The Democrats now completely and totally control the House, Senate, and White House. They can (or will once the SNL alum is allowed to go to represent the people who elected him) do whatever they damn well please and the GOP has little or no way of stopping them. Some may think this is a bad thing, but the Democrats aren't nearly as united as the G.O.P. tends to be when in power. The only thing I think this might change is that health care reform, at this point, might actually get done. But even then, don't rule out filibuster support from Dems in states where they have a race on their hands. Nate Silver agrees.

I should also note that Specter's motives are obvious: He wasn't going to win reelection in Pennsylvania in 2010 as a Republican.

And that's what's really interesting about this from a political perspective. The "industrial" north is also socially liberal. Meanwhile the "rural" south is socially conservative. The Midwest is suddenly swimming to the left, while the West is thinking about it. The West Coast is--at this point--the East Coast without a stick up their ass.

The long term effects of Nixon's South stragity has killed his own party (oh yeah, and W's total lack of ability to do anything right). But there are two important trends as to why Our Father's G.O.P. is dead.

1) The G.O.P. of the 20th century was a party with libertarian roots and fiscal motives. It was a party that wanted the government to stay out of every one's business and lower their taxes. However, this was a poor election formal considering that many people lived through the 1930s and saw, or thought they saw, the effects of the New Deal Democrats. But as the Democrats tore themselves apart in the late 60s, Nixon was smart in thinking that he could pick up the South and flip it from red to blue (even if this happened for racist reasons).

This worked beautifully helping get H.W. Bush elected and then W. in 2000 and 2004 (Reagan didn't need the South all that much). However, to keep the new Southern party members happy, the Republicans had to throw them a bone, and that bone was a greater focus on social issues which lead the party to champion Southern Populist ideas. This anti-intellectual arm of the party turned off many Northeast, Midwest, and West Coast to the point where it's impossible to find a Northeast Republican. (There is probably also an interesting study about Roe vs. Wade and how that eventually would hurt the G.O.P. since a majority of Americans favor the woman's right to choose/abortion rights).

2) But this could only happen if the Democrats changed too. And they did. It took over 20 years, but beginning with Clinton (and before, but he was the sign that things had changed within the party), the Democrats started reading economic text books. Suddenly, Chicago School Economics wasn't evil if one throws in a dash of Keynesian economics and everyone tells unions that they're great. Bing, bam, boom, those who were fiscally conservative, the idea of voting for a Democrat wasn't so crazy. It's not that America has moved to the left, as much as the Democrats began looking to the right a bit.

The G.O.P. is it total disarray. There is no leadership. The party is being pulled five hundred different ways. The anti-intellectual, our way or the high way arm of the party seems to be in control. Moderates (i.e. pro-choice G.O.P.ers) are shunned. The party, right now, is fucked. They better get their act together or else Sarah Palin is going to lead this party to a defeat that only George McGovern could get tell her about.

R.I.P. Republican Party

More later, but with Spector becoming a Democrat, the Republicans are in serious trouble. Or at least, our father's Republican Party is. The 21st century, rudderless, socialist Conservatives live on. But they won't win too many elections.

The Most Popular Person In Washington, D.C.

It was always a long shot but it is now official. The Democrats will not have a filibuster proof 60/40 split in the Senate. Saxby Chambliss'* victory in Georgia on Tuesday night was the first 'official' sign that the Democrats weren't going to have the SUPER-MAJORITY needed and while things in Minnesota are still up in the air, it now appears that Norm Coleman^ will win in Minnesota. So what does this all mean... well now the Democrats need two Republicans to invoke cloture and thus bring a vote to the floor of the Senate (little know fact about the U.S. Senate, it actually operates at the SuperMajority level of 60 votes).

So who might these people be? 538 ran them down the other day and there are no major surprises:

59. Snowe (ME). Obama won Maine by 18 points, making it the bluest state to be home to a Republican senator -- and in fact, it has two of them. Per Voteview, Olympia Snowe is incrementally more liberal than Susan Collins; she's also up for re-election two years sooner. It will be very interesting to see how the two of them will legislate under an Obama administration.
60. Collins (ME). See above.
61. Specter (PA). Under re-election pressure in a state that Obama carried by double digits. Mitigating factor: possible that he'll be under pressure from the right too in the form of a primary challenge.
62. Lugar (IN). On good terms with Obama, who (barely) won his state. Voteview has him becoming slightly more liberal over the past several Congresses.
63. Voinovich (OH). Under serious re-election pressure. Has often been moderate -- or even slightly left of center -- on pocketbook issues, and increasingly so on other ones.

What does this mean? The state of Maine is going to be getting a ton of money over the next two years for pet projects. But I think it gets more complicated than that. With the Democrats so close to having a filibuster proof Senate, clever GOPers will position themselves so that they are that final swing vote. This will bring home the bacon for their constituents—so expect to hear Specter and Voinovich's names, along with Snowe and Collins, a lot in the next two years.

Also, I would expect Mary Landrieu and other conservative Democratic Senators to move to the right. That seems odd, but again, it puts them in a better position to bring pork projects for their state. This looks good to the constituents and helps in re-election campaigns.

Politics aside, the Democrats are in a fantastic position to get a lot of things done without consulting the Republicans. Since they're only going to need two votes to get whatever they want done, the Republicans have little chance of stopping them. Snowe, Collins, Specter, and Lugar are all better off ditching their party on most issues if it allows them to get money or projects for their home state.

* Doesn't sound like a very American name does it? Who names their child Saxby? Okay so his first name is Clarence. But Saxby... really?
^ If there was ever a 'Soter name, this is it.