Obama’s ambitious second term agenda intensifies GOP’s dilemma

[babylonsister]

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/plum-line/wp/2013/02/13/the-morning-plum-obamas-ambitious-second-term-agenda-intensifies-gops-dilemma/

Obama’s ambitious second term agenda intensifies GOP’s dilemma

Posted by Greg Sargent on February 13, 2013 at 9:11 am


In his State of the Union speech yesterday, President Obama laid out an ambitious vision for where he wants to take the country. He offered a way out of our economic doldrums — investment in the country’s future as an alternative to more crippling austerity. He proposed taking action to fix the broken immigration system, address the climate change that threatens our future, reform voting irregularities, staunch the ongoing gun slaughter of tends of thousands of Americans each year, and help millions struggling to enter the middle class, via a minimum wage hike, universal pre-school, and other proposals.

Many of these ideas have broad support. Obama’s speech represented an effort to solve an array of problems that the American people appear to want solved. Yet the prospects for his agenda’s success are not up to him. They rest in the hands of Republicans.

Republicans face a choice. Either they can accept the realities of public opinion and become a functional opposition party, by working with Obama and Democrats to get some of what they want while allowing Obama to claim some victories of his own, as unbearable a prospect as that might seem. This is what Newt Gingrich eventually did in the 1990s. Or they can continue to reflexively obstruct everything, with an eye towards — well, it’s not clear what this would accomplish, except kicking the can down the road in hopes of taking back the Senate in 2014, making it even easier to tie up Obama’s agenda in advance of another grab at the White House in 2016.

snip//

If Republicans are going to become a functional opposition party, and start trying to get at least some of what they want, they have to figure out what it is they want in policy terms, other than “whatever Obama doesn’t want.” Josh Barro’s advice for Republicans:

They need to signal that they have a serious policy agenda that considers programs and regulations on a case-by-case basis, rather than just demagoguing the government. They need a real agenda on health care and jobs rather than just opportunistic opposition to anything the president does. In other words, they need a message that befits a grown-up party that is ready to govern.

By laying out a strong affirmative case that government can act to solve the nation’s most pressing problems and foster long term economic security and shared prosperity, Obama intensified the GOP’s dilemma in a big way.

[longship]

1. Repubs seem to be in a real pickle here.

The problem for them is that they display zero evidence that they realize it. All they seem to want to do is double-down yet again.

Or, to mix metaphors here: When you're in a hole and your opponent hands you a shovel, don't keep digging.

R&

[Skraxx]

2. Obama Is Very Skillfully Slicing and Dicing The GOP

And pushing them farther and deeper into their extremist corner.