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Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsNYT Columnist Maureen Dowd Rips Obama On Background Checks
The New York Times' Maureen Dowd blasted President Barack Obama's efforts to moderately expand gun background checks in a column on Sunday after legislation failed to advance in the Senate last week.
How is it that the president won the argument on gun safety with the public and lost the vote in the Senate? Its because he doesnt know how to work the system. And its clear now that he doesnt want to learn, or to even hire some clever people who can tell him how to do it or do it for him.
Its unbelievable that with 90 percent of Americans on his side, he could get only 54 votes in the Senate. It was a glaring example of his weakness in using leverage to get what he wants. No one on Capitol Hill is scared of him.
"When you go into a fight saying youre probably going to lose, youre probably going to lose," she added. Read the column here.
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http://livewire.talkingpointsmemo.com/entry/nyt-columnist-maureen-dowd-rips-obama-on-background
TreasonousBastard
(43,049 posts)LBJ was a master at carrying his own water on the Hill, and we got a lot until he blew it with Viet Nam.
ananda
(28,782 posts)Those guys need to be Lyndoned.
kentuck
(110,950 posts)<snip>
How is it that the president won the argument on gun safety with the public and lost the vote in the Senate? Its because he doesnt know how to work the system. And its clear now that he doesnt want to learn, or to even hire some clever people who can tell him how to do it or do it for him.
<snip>
The president once more delegated to the vice president. Couldnt he have come to the Hill himself to lobby with the families and Joe Biden?
<snip>
Sometimes you must leave the high road and fetch your brass knuckles. Obama should have called Senator Heidi Heitkamp of North Dakota over to the Oval Office and put on the squeeze: Heidi, youre brand new and youre going to have a long career. You work with us, well work with you. Public opinion is moving fast on this issue. The reason you get a six-year term is so you can have the guts to make tough votes. This is a totally defensible bill back home. Its about background checks, nothing to do with access to guns. Heidi, youre a mother. Think of those little kids dying in schoolrooms.
Obama had to persuade some Republican senators in states that he won in 2012. He should have gone out to Ohio, New Hampshire and Nevada and had big rallies to get the public riled up to put pressure on Rob Portman, Kelly Ayotte and Dean Heller, giving notice that they would pay a price if they spurned him on this.
....more
karynnj
(59,474 posts)The fact is that VERY few Republicans were willing to challenge the NRA - as well as 4 Democrats from districts where the NRA is strong. The other thing is that the 90% poll number is not what you think it is. They did NOT poll the question of whether you support the Toomey/Manchon bill - they polled the vaguer "background checks". What the NRA did was to LIE about what was in the bill and when there is an election, they will do the same - except it will be directed at the voters. This is NOT a good reason to have voted against it. With position and power, should come courage to do the right thing - but often, what comes instead is the desire to retain that position - even when it means having essentially given away your power.
LBJ was very good at arm twisting, but the 1960s parties were nowhere near as polarized. Now, you can list an issue - and state the Republican and the Democratic positions. Nearly every Senator (and most Congressmen) will be very close to that position. Not so, in the 1960s - both parties had their conservative and their liberal wings. Then, many people really did look at both candidates and then vote. (There were, of course, others who voted strictly the party line.)
In addition, LBJ had more Democrats in both Houses. He did not face a Republican speaker of the House - and the Democrats had really strong majorities - peaking at 295 Congressmen in 1966. In the Senate, he had more than 60 Senators - peaking at 68 in 1967. I think Obama would have done a lot better with 68 rather than 55 Senators. Not to mention, in the House the Republicans had absolutely no power - it is pretty easy to get 50%+ when you have 295 on your team.
TreasonousBastard
(43,049 posts)lost them all over civil rights. Other Democrats were firmly in the pockets of the city machines and were dealt with somewhat differently.
More to the point is that every President knows how to talk to the Hill and remind them that they can support a strong or a weak candidate in the next election. They understand that some of them are more worried about a primary than the general and can help defuse that worry. Base closings? Contracts in your state or district? Certain information that may or may not be disclosed? Coalition building? Exploiting existing dissension?
Arm twisting is fundamental in politics no matter how much one would prefer to believe otherwise. It just happens to be a miserable, dirty business and to get anything done you have to play the game. Obama's great at chess and basketball, but he should have spent some time at wrestling and rugby.
byeya
(2,842 posts)work the system.
Or doesn't want to.
One of the 99
(2,280 posts)Especially since LBJ had a huge majority in the House and 67 Dems in the Senate.
http://www.mediaite.com/print/msnbcs-joan-walsh-blasts-deeply-stupid-obama-blaming-maureen-dowd-column-nro-writer-agrees/
TwilightGardener
(46,416 posts)a cure for cancer if Obama could legislate it. Yes, they would stand on the Senate floor and talk about deficit spending in relation to the cure. With the gun safety legislation, there would have to be severe consequences from the public for most Repubs and red-state Dems voting "no"--the calculation was that there won't be. In fact, the severe consequences would come from losing their NRA rating or the support of Repubs in their states for voting for ANY measure that restricts guns at all. It's simply a losing battle.
Marrah_G
(28,581 posts)spanone
(135,632 posts)SidDithers
(44,228 posts)but then went the cowardly self-delete route. Actually, it was the rare trifecta - write a dumbass post, rec your own dumbass post, delete your dumbass post.
Sid
GoCubsGo
(32,061 posts)This kind of idiotic drivel perfectly illustrates what is wrong with this country. Our politicians have to scare each other into doing the right thing? Really? How fucking warped is that? You want to point a finger of blame? Try pointing it at the ratbastards who were going to vote against background checks regardless of who twisted their arms and how hard they twisted them. Go slither back under your rock, Maureen.
Voice for Peace
(13,141 posts)and that Obama doesn't deal that way with anybody.
Ikonoklast
(23,973 posts)Mostly because he helped some senators with the burying.
still_one
(91,941 posts)filibustered the bill.
I am critical of the President on many issues, but he did what he could. The reality is that Congress, including some so-called democrats would not have voted for this, and there were Democrats who said they would not vote to remove the filibuster either.
Gee, lets blame the President, when it is the Senate and Congress that dropped the ball.
Boy am I glad I do not subscribe to the NY Times. The paper the helped lie for the bush administration to encourage us to invade Iraq based on lies.
geek tragedy
(68,868 posts)in the way he carries out policy as payback for rural Senators voting for more gun violence.
randome
(34,845 posts)But it doesn't deserve a full, vitriolic article like this.
Arkana
(24,347 posts)When you have a group of craven Democrats intent on saving only their own skin, nothing short of moving heaven and earth itself will change their minds.
Greybnk48
(10,148 posts)but Arkana beat me to it. What Arkana said
SidDithers
(44,228 posts)Perhaps MoDo should read her own paper once in a while.
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/04/18/opinion/a-senate-in-the-gun-lobbys-grip.html?_r=0
Sid
pampango
(24,692 posts)I knew it had to be Obama's fault. I just could not figure out the specifics.
Thank you very much educating me,Maureen. However, I did miss the part in the article with your recommendations as to how Obama is supposed to get republican senators to vote for the interests of the American people rather than the NRA, big-money or the tea party.
Response to DonViejo (Original post)
devilgrrl This message was self-deleted by its author.
Response to DonViejo (Original post)
AtomicKitten This message was self-deleted by its author.
Eleanors38
(18,318 posts)There is little cohesion as to controller/banner ideology and goals; really Maureen and some on Democratic Underground, do you favor expanded b.g. Checks or gun bans? I think we all know the answer to that. Further revealed is the sorry legislative tactics and legislative proposals, such that even the ACLU for a time opposed the "new" b.g. bill. Then there is the demonization approach clearly advocated by DUers and other "opinion-makers." Way to make the NRA's job easier.
The extreme controller/banners (and MD is one) have no intention of knowing thine enemy: The fulminations and moral condemnations have clouded the very real changes in pro-2A advocacy groups within the last year; I mean, you see one "gun-humper," you've seen 'em all.
The New Republic summed up the responsibility for new gun legislation failure: The reflection in most gun-controller's respective mirrors. Read it.
geek tragedy
(68,868 posts)Their own base is willing to actually shoot them over Medicaid expansion.
HughBeaumont
(24,461 posts)They're societal and economic inbreds corrupted by corporate cash and only interested in pushing an evil narrative.
ProSense
(116,464 posts)"How is it that the president won the argument on gun safety with the public and lost the vote in the Senate? Its because he doesnt know how to work the system...Its unbelievable that with 90 percent of Americans on his side, he could get only 54 votes in the Senate. "
...this is idiotic. I mean, she's basically using moronic snark to justify the actions of a dysfunctional Congress. The "system" isn't working if majority votes fail.
Sandy Levinson
Maureen Dowd's column in the Sunday NYTimes castigates President Obama for his failures to procure the votes needed to bring the gun bill to a vote in the Senate. She thinks he should have played hardball with the holdout Democrats and attempted to recruit more Republican support. In particular, he shouldn't have left the cajoling up to Joe Biden. For her, it's always personalities, and never structures, that explain the American political system. So she's my latest candidate among Times' columnists who simply cannot connect the dots between political outcomes and the structures established in the Constitution.
As it happens, I published a short piece in the online Times making the familiar argument (at least to Balkinization readers) that the egregious outcome is best explained by our egregious Constitution and the allocation of voting power in the Senate. A large part of the problem, of course, is the mad-dog nature of the modern Republican Party and its de-facto leader, Texas's new Senator Ted Cruz. But part of the problem, as well, is the grotesquely excess power given small states to warp national policy. After all, both the Democratic and Republican senators from Alaska (estimated 2013 population 740,000) voted against allowing the bill coming to a vote, quite literally more than offsetting the two votes of the California senators (estimated 2012 population more than 38 million). The "more than offset" comes from the premium value of each no vote, given the 60% requirement to get to the floor at all. There is, in a so-called "democracy," no defense for the Senate. It doesn't protect "federalism," but, instead, as I've said (too) many times before, simply works as an affirmative action program for the residents of small states, who are therefore able in effect to veto legislation that most Americans (in this case 90%), who by definnition live in larger urban states, believes is desirable.
- more -
http://balkin.blogspot.com/2013/04/now-its-maureen-dowd-who-cant-connect.html
by Meteor Blades
As expected, the watered-down Manchin-Toomey amendment to extend background checks on guy buyers to some private sales collided in the Senate with a Republican filibuster Wednesday afternoon.
The vote was 54-46, four short of the magic number needed to pass it under the rules. Thus did a minority reject a move that 86 percent of Americans said they support in the most recent poll.
Five Democrats voted against the amendment: Mark Pryor of Arkansas; Heidi Heitkamp of North Dakota; Mark Begich of Alaska; and Max Baucus of Montana. Reid voted against for procedural reasons, so he can bring the proposla up in the future. Four Republicans who voted for: Pat Toomey of Pennsylvania; Mark Kirk of Illinois; Susan Collins of Maine; John McCain of Arizona.
In the gallery to watch the vote unfold were some families of the victims of the Newtown, Connecticut, elementary school massacre of December 14.
Currently, background checks are only carried out when federally licensed gun dealers make the sales. The amendment would have extended that to sales gun shows, via the internet and advertised in any medium.
In formal debate today and arguments taking place over the past few months, many senators took the view that background checks cannot work without a federal gun registry. That's anathema to gun-rights advocates in and out of the Senate. As those arguments clearly indicate, they'd prefer to eliminate the background check law that currently exists even though they won't quite dare to admit that.
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2013/04/17/1202601/-Senate-filibuster-flushes-background-check-bill-away-in-54-46-vote
Baucus Explains Opposition To Background Checks: Montana
http://sync.democraticunderground.com/10022700853