Smart Politics or Smartest Politics?

Here are some headlines for you:

• White House holds off on trade deal until aid passes - Herald Sun (Australian Murdoch outlet)
• "White House Ties Free Trade Agreements to Unemployment Benefits ..." - New York Times
• "McConnell blasts Obama for holding up trade deals over aid for displaced workers" - WaPo blog
• "White House: No trade deals without workers' aid" - Newsday
• "Obama wants help for workers before S.Korea deal" - AFP
• "Obama to hold up free trade pacts unless GOP provides more worker aid" - USA Today
• "Obama staff: No free trade vote without training, aid for displaced US workers" - Dallas Morning News

Burned Your Bridges? Ford the River

Heath Shuler (D-NC) is in the news today complaining that Blue Dogs have 'no communication' with the Democratic leadership in the House. In essence, Blue Dogs are theoretically frozen out of the strategizing and planning process for the minority party. Blue Dog house members notoriously delayed the stimulus project and loaded pork pet projects into major bills last Congress, and a half of them lost their seats in November's election. They fared far worse than other Democrats in the election.

Of course, Shuler's complaint isn't exactly true:

A Democratic source also pointed to efforts by Pelosi and the party leadership to give centrists in the House greater access to the levers of power. Shuler and several other Blue Dogs were named to the Steering Committee, and members of the coalition were given larger roles in leadership. (Rep. Jim Matheson (D-Utah) was named a chief deputy whip, and Rep. Henry Cuellar (D-Texas) was given responsibility for messaging on the budget.)

Pelosi's also had personal conversations, over the phone or in-person, with 15 of the 26 members of the Blue Dog bloc during the recent congressional break, per that Democratic source. There's also regular contact between Pelosi and other leadership staff and members of the Blue Dog staff.

You would think that his complaint would have merit; after all, Shuler attempted to dislodge Nancy Pelosi as the minority leader in December, gaining a few dozen votes, mostly from blue dog and conservative Democrats.

After burning a major bridge with the leadership in challenging Pelosi, Shuler is out in the cold, but the Blue Dogs aren't. Let's just hope that if Shuler does try to get across the river by fording, he will lose an oxen. It already looks like the leadership has been poaching some of his travelling party.

Tax Cuts

I simply don't understand why Democrats need Republican Senators to vote for extending the tax cuts for middle class Americans. The original Bush tax cuts were approved under a suspension of the filibuster rules. Because tax cuts "affect the budget" they can be passed as budget reconciliation acts which do not require cloture to proceed, therefore don't require a single Republican vote. The biggest obstacle to a more progressive tax code is the so-called centrist Democrats (e.g. Ben Nelson (NE), Mary Landrieu (LA), etc...) who might want to extract another pound of flesh for their states in exchange for a sane tax policy (as they did with the Affordable Care Act).

Oh that's right, that's because it's a Politico story, which automatically discounts any courses of action that don't meet the demands of the right wing. Those actions are illegitimate, I presume, because they do not fit Politico's preferred narrative.

Health Care Legislative Tactics Doomed 2010 Democrats

The New York Times is out with a poll today from which they draw the conclusion that the demographic coalition that elected President Obama is splintering at the margins, turning Obama voters into Republican or non-voters. Certainly the data tell that story, but I think the more important story is the reason that voters give for abandoning the Democratic party after one of its most successful legislative sessions it has ever had.

The NYT article includes the anecdote gleaned from a post-survey interview of one voter:

Judy Berg, an independent from Morton Grove, Ill., said she voted for Mr. Obama in 2008 because she was “looking for a change,” adding, “the change that ensued was not the change I was looking for but something totally out of left field.”

What was the largest gap between the Obama's campaign sloganeering and the reality of the legislation passed into law? The stimulus package was a campaign promise. TARP was well-publicized and generally acknowledged as a policy that Obama would continue. Financial regulation was a centerpiece of speeches after the collapse of Lehman Brothers in early October 2008. The Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act was a campaign promise, though honestly, nobody is talking about it. Similarly while President Obama has not made good on his pledge to end DADT or close the dubiously legal prison at Guantanamo Bay, most voters aren't driven primarily by these issues (not to mention the electoral alternative is demonstrably worse to anybody who is unhappy about the lack of progress).