Posted on 11/11/2013 10:34:37 AM PST by jazusamo
In opposing ObamaCare, the Tea Party took a position that increasing numbers of Americans agree with, now that ObamaCare's potential for disaster is becoming clearer by the day. But in trying to defund ObamaCare without the Congressional votes to do so, the Tea Party made a major tactical mistake.
Polls show that this mistake has already hurt the Republican Party, the only party that has any chance of repealing ObamaCare. To have any realistic prospect of repealing ObamaCare may require the Republicans to win both the 2014 and 2016 elections.
The Tea Party's failed and foredoomed defunding effort predictably got the Republicans blamed for shutting down the government. The fact that the Democrats also went down in the polls means nothing. Politics is a zero-sum game. If it hurts the Republicans more, that helps the Democrats.
Some defend the futile attempt to defund ObamaCare on grounds that it is much harder to repeal a law after it has gone into operation. That may often be true — but not always.
Prohibition was repealed — and it was a Constitutional Amendment, not just a piece of legislation. Prohibition could not be repealed by Congress alone, but required state legislatures to vote for repeal as well. Like ObamaCare, Prohibition sounded good to a lot of people before it went into effect. Only after they saw what a disaster it was in practice did people change their minds.
We are already seeing people changing their minds about ObamaCare, after they experienced the multiple disasters that are just starting to emerge. That includes Congressional Democrats who had voted for it.
(Excerpt) Read more at creators.com ...
I respectfully disagree. The defunding shutdown was a tactical failure but a strategic success. You can’t win anything if your starting position is a fetal position.
A key premise of negotiating strategy is having walk away power. If the opponent knows you won^t walk away, you’ve lost.
One of the few times I disagree with TS. They may have been doomed to failure, but it showed what they stood for and gave those people who were looking for leadership and not finding it in the Republican socialist lite party a rallying point. It kept the Tea party’s name in fromt of people asn kept what they stand for alive.
It may seem counter intuitive but the Republican establishment needs to understand that the ACA did not evolve in a vacuum... ok... maybe it did - but you get my point. Strategically maybe we need to go through the pain of what the ‘strategically compromising’ GOP have wrought over the years before we can truly achieve what needs to happen. I personally think we cannot stop the pendulum from fully swinging further left... we’ve allowed it to go unchecked for far too long.
The ‘Rats and RINOs are on record. Time to vote them out.
Wow. Thomas Sowell thinking there’s any hope that the republicans and their bosses, the Donors, will repeal Obamacare.
It is astounding!
It's Sowell standing at the crossroads, and I believe he's sinking down.
It is wrong to assume we need to control both houses of congress and the presidency to defeat ObamaCare. When things get bad enough (and they are close to that now) the Rats will come to the Republicans to ask for real reform of this terrible law.
Remember the precedent of Clinton signing Welfare reform because the political pressure became too great and Republicans had a real opposition leader in Newt Gingrich?
The shutdown was import to show that Republicans are united in their opposition to ObamaCare and increased spending. In the long term it will be a win.
and Republicans won’t know what to do, because they’re for Obamacare. It suits the needs of their donors. They’ll be stuttering as usual.
Anyone who doesn’t get with the program and review the Constitution they are in office to defend, and how it aligns with the resolution to this Crisis will be caught behind in the rapids, heading to the waterfall.
A rare time where Sowell is wearing an inside the beltway hat and not a free-thinking hat. The shutdown as orchestrated was not a tea party function as much as a House leadership tactic. The tea party tactic effectively ended with Cloture in the Senate on funding the CR. That was the position of Cruz, Lee and the opposition to Obamacare. Don’t pass the CR in the Senate and force a real negotiation. Was the end goal in 2013 ever to completely get rid of Obamacare? No. That was the opening position, and a good strategy would have been to come back with specific and popular changes and then use the full force of the party to push public opinion and force the Democrats to the table. Instead, the House immediately re-voted to do just one year delay. They showed their eagerness to cave before there was a standoff (like usual, they negotiated with themselves). IMO, their purpose the past three years is to pass compromise bills on their own to ‘show’ they are reasonable. The end result is that the Senate and White House can stand pat, not budge and use their media advantage to still accuse the House of not negotiating.
The winning hand here would be to pass a bill, and then do a unified call to come to the table and find middle ground. They never do that. Boehner makes his trips to the White House and then the media spins away. This leadership cost us 2012 with the same losing tactics.
Taking a stand THIS year was as is critical to maintain the position of wanting to get rid of this bad bill. The process the House went through was not successful, but it was never going be successful with their approach.
Mr. Sowell is simply wrong. Cruz shined a huge spotlight on Obamascam by President Flim-Flam and deserves a great deal of thanks.
Agreed, a lot of Rats will team with Republicans to get rid of this turkey and I do think we should primary every RINO we can.
Sowell's wrong. That battle had to be fought at that moment, and by the heroes who fought it, or else all would have been lost.
Not only did Cruz and Lee, and the House TEA Party caucus smoke out the vichy Republicans and force them to finally take a stand one way or the other, but they changed the entire narrative. Heck, we're still talking about their stand aren't we?
And quite frankly, we needed to see someone finally get up and fight rather than kick the proverbial can down the road yet again, just to get our folks re-energized and re-engaged.
Every man born of man has been wrong at one time or another in his life. Sowell is wrong here.
Any solution to 'fix' Obamacare is pro-slavery, making us wards of the State.
Not a tactical failure at all, it was a failure of leadership. They can not spend what the House does not appropriate, no matter how much they scream and holler about the Law Of The Land.
Boehner did everything he could to shut Bachman down for trying to defund ACA after the Republicans took over the House.
The GOPe Progressives are in favor of ACA and Open Borders, long past time we recognize that and adjust our strategies accordingly.
Independents will remember the Government Shutdown was the Tea Party’s attempt to stop 0bamaCare.
As 0bamaCare continues to wreak it’s destruction, the Shutdown and the Tea Party will be more favorably viewed by the day.
Standing by proven principles is GREAT strategy.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.