by Hunter
The premise of
this Roll Call article is that President Obama is being "aloof" in his dealings with Republicans, which is mean and and is hurting chances to make legislative progress. No,
really:
President Barack Obama's relationships with Congressional Republicans have withered in recent months, casting doubt on his ability to influence Congress during the election season next year as well as his ability to push an aggressive agenda if he wins a second term.
Though Republicans are in a good position to hold the levers of power in both chambers come 2013, several rank-and-file GOP Senators told Roll Call last week that Obama hasn't called them at all this year — and several said his standoffish relations have hurt his agenda in a chamber that is pivotal to any White House legislative successes.
Yes, yes. Obama is being mean, and he didn't invite them to come over to play Nintendo or play ball in his super cool yard. The article is filled with Republican moderates whining that they haven't had much contact with Obama of late, and saying that Obama should really be working with them more, and a few grumblings from Boehner and McConnell's offices about how he hasn't been calling them as much lately. Because heaven knows that worked out
great previously. This year has just been
full of productive conversations between Obama, Boehner, McConnell, Cantor and the like. You know, aside from the parts where the Republicans kept walking out of those conversations.
Here's what stumps me, however. What have the so-called Republican moderates actually delivered to Obama, in the past? Precious little. What
might the Republican moderates deliver to Obama, if he spent his time constantly coddling them, wooing them, or arguing with them? Apparently, from recent history, precious little again.
Right now the House is governed by a set of ideologues for whom compromise is all-but-impossible. I don't mean they're being led that way: I mean the makeup of their current caucus is such that any negotiated compromise that a normal, nonpartisan observer might consider reasonable is dead in the water. They don't have the votes for it, regardless of what their own leadership might want or not want. The Senate, on the other hand, is held hostage to the 60-vote threshold; if a senator so much as wants to go eat a sandwich, DeMint or someone else is going to make damn sure it doesn't happen without maximum extracted pain and delays.
moreLove that title, LOL!
Seems Republicans have been perfecting their whine!
Steve Benen:
<...>
In his first two years, Obama really did try a lot of this. He’d regularly connect with lawmakers, and even used occasions like the Super Bowl and March Madness to invite bipartisan groups of lawmakers over to hang out. Did it encourage GOP officials to be amenable to compromise? No, actually it didn’t have any effect at all.
The notion that schmoozing will lead to progress rests upon the assumption that congressional Republicans are responsible officials, willing to negotiate and work in good faith, and prepared to find common ground with Obama. All they need is some face-time and presidential hand-holding. Once they can get along on a personal level, a constructive process will follow.
It’s a pleasant enough fantasy, but it’s at odds with reality. Does anyone seriously believe a party that held the full faith and credit of the United States hostage, threatening to crash the economy on purpose, is going to suddenly start cooperating with Obama — whose presidency they are desperate to destroy — because of routine, casual chats?
Republicans don’t respond to interpersonal outreach; they respond to Rush Limbaugh, Fox News, Grover Norquist, and the dictates of their radicalized ideology.
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