Follow the Opposition Incentives
By Dave Anderson:
The big problem in the US political system right now is that one party is operating under a parliamentary rule set and the other party is still scared of the dirty fucking hippies and are seeking the bi-partisan comity that was the result of racists being randomly distributed between parties.
Rule set fail!
From December 2008:Let's imagine that you are a member of the minority party in the US government. The President of the opposite party is fairly to very popular. He is pushing a big, hard to reverse program with uncertain outcomes that has strong support from the Senators and Representatives of his party. The program has strong but not overwhelming public support. There is a bit of undefined unease about the program, but the public, after a bit of a PR blitz and publicity whipping will most likely fall in line with elite opinion. The big area of cleavage in public opinion is between your strong supporters (as this is not an "Ice Cream is Delicious" Sense of The Senate resolution) and everyone else.
How do you vote if your vote is not the marginally decisive vote (either #218 in the House of #51/60 in the Senate)
Am I talking about the AUMF for Iraq in 2002? No, although the superstructure of the political calculation is the same. I'm talking about Republican votes for any stimulus package....
The
stimulus has non-symmetrical political pay-offs. Seeing positive
impacts of the stimulus package and voting for or against it still
leaves the GOP rep SOL. The big project is a Democratic Branded
project, almost all benefits will accrue to the Democrats. Voting for
the stimulus and seeing a fairly crappy economy in the summer of 2010
deprives an incumbent of a good sledge hammer. The only positive
political outcome is to oppose the bail-out and be proven right about
your wisdom....
Caving and hoping that the popular opponent screws up without destroying your own credibility as a critic is amazingly stupid political strategy (Hi John Kerry, Dick Gephardt, Hillary Clinton, Tom Daschle etc) as well as a predictor of crappy results.
I said this long ago about the stimulus bill...there are only four outcomes for a repug.
vote for it and it succeeds - you get no credit and help Obama.
vote for it and it fails - as above you lose a great stick to beat the dems.
vote against it and it fails - gloat, preen, call your opponent a leftist marxist scum bucket.
vote against it and it succeeds - screw it! still gloat, preen, call your opponent a leftist marxist scum bucket AND say that the whole thing was a big stinking failure
(and then take credit for the money when its disbursed)
Posted by: Kevin (NYC) | January 19, 2010 at 01:13 PM