Posted on 02/22/2013 8:16:14 AM PST by SeekAndFind
For those convinced that President Obama doesn’t deserve any blame for the fiscal gridlock, let’s do a thought experiment. Let’s imagine that Mitt Romney was elected president, and was dealing with the same Congress that Obama has faced so much trouble in getting legislation to avert sequestration and myriad fiscal emergencies. Would a President Romney be confronting the same crisis?
It’s impossible to know for sure, but a look at Romney’s compromising tendencies with a Democratic Legislature as governor of Massachusetts suggest that things would look very different. Romney cut his business and political profile as a deal-maker, reaching bipartisan agreements on health care, environmental regulations, and taxes. He explicitly campaigned against sequestration, bringing it up at one of the presidential debates. Indeed, his work back home with Massachusetts Democrats was a late, if belated, argument in his campaign down the home stretch -- the theme of an expensive advertising buy.
More important, a close look at the composition of both the Senate and the House suggest the numbers would be there for Romney to pass some combination of spending cuts and the closing of tax loopholes, as he called for in the 2012 campaign. In the Senate, Romney probably would have courted the 12 red-state Senate Democrats, six of whom are up for reelection in 2014, to support some type of compromise. In the House, his task would be winning over recalcitrant conservatives.
If House Democrats were united in opposition, he could afford 17 GOP defections, probably more if the few remaining moderate Democrats joined with the GOP. It’s a little bit easier to do when your party holds the White House, as opposed to fighting in the minority.
The point of the thought experiment isn’t to relive the Romney campaign but to demonstrate there was a very plausible path for a Republican president to win support for a middle-ground budget proposal. The Senate has more red-state Democrats than blue-state Republicans, and most of them are up for reelection. These same Democrats who are giving Obama trouble on gun control would be looking to cut a fiscal deal as they prepare for reelection. Win over just five of them, hold enough House Republicans in line, and voila – there’s the bipartisan compromise. It wouldn’t be easy, but it doesn’t take a political scientist to figure out the contours of such a deal.
For Obama to forge a similar path to Romney’s tax proposals would seem asinine to many of his supporters, particularly the base that helped get him elected. To give up raising taxes on the wealthy would, at first glance, be awful politics in the wake of a decisive victory over his opponent. And tax hikes on the wealthy, at least in the abstract, poll exceptionally well. But seeking an alternative plan more amenable to the GOP leadership – a combination of loophole closing and targeted spending cuts – could have potentially unpoisoned the Washington well and led to future compromises on the president’s other priorities, such as immigration.
To get significant legislation passed, presidents from both parties have found they need to take on their party’s most ideological supporters. Bill Clinton angered liberals by passing NAFTA and welfare reform. For his first legislative push, George W. Bush took on his base with the No Child Left Behind education law (with Edward Kennedy as a key partner) and a prescription-drug entitlement. George H.W. Bush famously took on his conservative base by breaking his “read my lips” pledge not to raise taxes. Obama has avoided challenging his liberal base on any issue, and that is partly why there’s such a large congressional divide in the first place. For the president, that might not be good politics, given how large a role the party base played in his two presidential victories. But it would make for better policymaking.
From your lips to God’s ear.
Russia is outlawing talking to children about deviancy. Amazing how things can turn around.
Russia, ahead of us in morality.
I’d rather know what President Palin would do.
What difference does it make(aka hillary
A huge difference. One thing is the Keystone pipeline would of already been approved.
The problem with Middle-Ground Mitt would have been, like it is with all RINOs, that the middle ground is not the answer.
We've tried it the liberals' way. We've tried it the moderates' way. What we haven't tried is genuine conservatism.
The Republican Party does not run candidates for national office that are committed to defeating Democrats. Hence they are contributors to our coming national disaster.
What would Romney have done? Who cares?
I understand that but we have to stop saying what if and start winning elections
I voted for RINOmney, knowing at best I’d get Obamadork lite.
Had he actually been elected, things would have improved thusly: we’d have hit the ground in only a 5000 fpm descent instead of the full spin crash currently being ineptly commanded by the Cretin-in-Chief/Muslim/Illegal Alien.
I voted for Romney, because he was the lesser of two evils.
Just like Karl Rove expected me to.
But he was the lousiest candidate ever. And what would he have done? He would have done just about the same things Obama will do. Gay marriage, baby killing, wreck the military, illegal amnesty, Obamacare . . . you name it, Romney would have done it.
But his job was apparently done after he beat out the other Republicans. He ceased campaigning seriously as soon as he went against Obama. Or maybe it was FOR Obama.
There is no logical argument against your statement.
Guessing a lot of people thought this way and stayed home. Don’t know.
Was it his shortcomings in presenting his case, or ours in recognizing our choices
He is a rich man he will be fine.
We are the ones that lost.
That head tilt thing he did made him look very very weak, and like he was pandering.
Drove me nuts.
Besides that, who cares. It's over..
You got it!
The Massachusetts legislature is not the U.S. Congress. The Democrats would not compromise with Romney or any other Republican in the White House.
I wonder when everyone will admit that Romney was picked by GOP/Rove-ish leaders to be a two time loser. Remember the Michigan Mutt managed to lose to doofus McCain in 08 and then after another 4 years of running, totaling 10 years for the office he lost to a bigger loser Obama. Wake TF UP, next you’ll believe that Sandy Hook was pulled off by a 120# 20 year old!
BBC production re WOT: “Power of Nightmares: The Rise of the Politics of Fear”. Wake TF UP!
Simple, we have the majority but we need to unify and support one candidate.
Right now we have an uncivil war between the conservatives and moderates, fiscal and social leaders, grassroots and establishment, and any number of "leaders" that want to run the show. We are not a party, we are a zoo.
We need an amalgamation into a united organization.
Thanks for posting this unattributed NR GOPES argument. The gist of which is we need get along go along candidates and only GOPES can do it.
To borrow from Rush Limbaugh for those living Riolinda a Judas goat is used to lead US sheeples to the slaughter pen . The Republicans were given a chance to use a wedge issue to split up the democratic party and blew it.
Besides being unable to equate Obama’s socialist schemes particularly his energy policy running up the costs on everything and still is thus forcing those with limited incomes to go on the dole. BTW the angle here is to blame the system not the folks using it. Because they have to. But it’s a signature of Rove’s past performances when with Bush. The demo-coms used it because it fell into “heartless Republicans”.
Blaming Obama and explaining that policy in terms those proverbial LIV’s could understand wasn’t even considered. Refusing to attack Obama was based on MSM polling showing his popularity suggesting an intellectual inability by Rove and the GOPES to rejoin any racial charge.
....Does anybody remember what the Democrats did at their convention ??? First they eliminated any mention of the word GOD...and when they thought twice about doing that they reintroduced the resolution what happened ? They booed God....That resolution was rammed through just like the Affordable Health Care Act ...
Was that fact used in any of the material Rove’s RINOS spewed forth during the 2012 Romney or US senate races his group of GOPES (Government Ofthe People Elite Snobs) used on their hit list ? I like using that acronym because it rhymes with dopes.
Noooo ! They could have used that episode to point out how far to the left the democrat party has hyphenated into; Demo-Coms ...Instead well we don’t like Aikin ...He said what ? OMG OMG he’s unqualified ...If there was a chance he would have been burned at the stake by Rove’s RINOS and the so called “conservative “ talkies spouting Rove’s tripe.
Why ? What drove this ? They were responding to the miss-direction driven by Obama’s instuments of oppression Mainline Socialist Media (MSM).The Aikin or O’Donnells response to a set up phoney issue had nothing to do with any thing that would ever occur in any legislation that would pass their respective desks had they been elected.
THE RESPONSE YOU DIDN’T HEAR WAS THIS “”While at their convention the Democrats were busy denying God . Aikin believes in something like the ten commandments. Including Thou shalt not steal and doesn’t believe that getting elected to office gives you a license to do steal ... Which his opponent seems to have done rather well since being in office. The same thing with Mourdock,O’Donnnell, etc,etc, etc.
That presentation could have been expanded to Reid, Pelosi, and the slew of Demo-Com pigs at the trough. Expanding their personal wealth at the expense of the US taxpayers.
Now this bunch seems to be saying if you hold a religious view don’t run for office... We’re gonna save the Republican party ....to be finished off by Obama and the hypenated democrats..
Roves RINOS wrong for America and wrong for the Republican party...
GOD DENIERS LED BY A CONGENITAL LIAR
ARE REDISTRIBUTE WEALTH INCITERS/
FOR FIRST YOUR MONEY THEN YOUR GUNS
BE DEFENSELESS WHEN THEY COME
FOR TO THEIR GOVERNMENT YOU MUST RUN
It’s time to get government out of Our face
Our religion and and Our pocketbook
(The above is designed to be printed up and passed around your precinct and your friends and neighbors as a (index sized) palmcard. On the face (REVERSE SIDE)or below the slogan you can put the name of the candidate you favor and the election dates...EXCELLENT FOR SLIPPING UNDER WINDSHIELD WIPERS ON CARS PARKED IN KEY PARKING LOTS CHURCHES, RALLY SITES....
I’ll go with a radical idea:
I’d bet that he would actually submit a budget to Congress on time.
Of course a lot of people stayed home. And the GOPe blames them.
But the real fault is the jerks who put that loser forward in the first place, because they wanted to keep all their pork and perks.
That’s why they stayed home.
Romney would have been ten times better than Hussein! We are on our way towards Facism people, with Obama being the all powerful dictator. Freedom is a distant memory.
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