Posted on 09/14/2009 8:44:26 AM PDT by yongin
This August’s town-hall fury wasn’t just about the details of health care. Neither were the anti-Obama protests that crowded Washington over the weekend. They were about the Wall Street bailout, the G.M. takeover, the A.I.G. bonuses, and countless smaller examples of middle-income Americans’ “playing by the rules,” as Luntz puts it, “and having someone else benefit.”
The bad news for Democrats is that actually passing a health care bill could further enflame these anxieties. Clinton’s crime bill passed Congress by substantial margins, when all was said and done. But the anger that the debate had summoned up didn’t go away — and Gingrich’s Republicans were there to reap the benefits.
The good news for Democrats, though, is that if they pass an unpopular health care bill soon, they’ll have plenty of time to change the subject. Clinton signed the crime bill in September 1994, just two months before the Republican landslide. If health care reform passes Congress this autumn, there will still be almost a year until voters head to the polls.
The even better news for Democrats is that they aren’t up against Newt Gingrich this time. Gingrich was an ideological figure, but he was savvy enough to grasp the essentially nonideological character of the public’s anger in 1994. The Contract With America, remembered as a right-wing document by liberals and conservatives alike, was actually a model of center-right incrementalism, with every bullet point carefully crafted to appeal to the voters who went for Ross Perot in 1992 and 1996.
Today’s anger has a similarly Perotista cast. It burns hottest, obviously, on the Beck-watching, Limbaugh-listening right. But it’s disaffected independents, as much as doctrinaire conservatives, who have pushed Obama’s approval numbers steadily southward.
(Excerpt) Read more at nytimes.com ...
The writer is a douche. Yeah, they're not up against Newt - they're going to be up against someone even more liked and more powerful: Sarah Palin.
I’ll throw Glenn Beck into the mix of Democrats’ opponents as well.
Interesting how the biggest opponents are not current office holders. Accidental offense, perhaps?
The comments at the Slimes page reflect the way-out-of-touch condition of the liberals. They feel that a bulldozer/reconciliation passage of ObambiCare will make the steaming masses happy again.
The line about 'carefully crafted to appeal' points more to a will-to-win, than an ideology. He is generally of the right, but his will-to-win is stronger than his ideology.
Note his capitulation to the global-warmers, and thinking that there was common ground to be had on that issue with Nancy Pelosi. Anybody with a strong belief in freedom would run away from that Statist.
"As Luntz observes, “it’s not enough to set the stage — you have to maximize the revolt.” And this time, the Democrats may be luckier in their opponents."
McCain, Romney, Huckster and entire pandering, weak, mealy mouth, bi-partisans, 'responsible', Stockholm Syndrome RINOs are on their way out. Heck even Gingrich is suck up to Hillary Health Care lefty now.
Either the country club elitists financial water carrying elites get purged, or a new party, or American's first true civil war. In every town, every county, every state, with no center.
We will have change, and not just a pretty face and jive either. From either party.
Both the Democrats and the Republicans like the status quo with marginal superficial adjustments that they market as some sort of 'New And Improved Crap-o-La'.
bttt
Nah, there just up against a crying, former alcoholic who happens to have his own national TV oped program.
Nuttin' for the Democommies to be concerned about, they should just keep on truckin'. </sarcasm>
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