I Got Your Compromise...RIGHT HERE!

Just a word for those who feel that President Obama is about to tank on Health Care reform: chill.

Things look pretty rough right now. Obama is catching grief from Town Hall screamers and the louder voices in the Republican Party. His Democrats are running about in spectacular disarray. Much of the press is assured that any bill that comes out of Congress is not going to make anyone happy.

We have seen this movie before. Barack Obama has played this role so frequently that there is no drama. He did not become President by gambling. Obama became President because he is a very astute tactician.

Last year, when Obama was caught in a rasslin’ Cage Match with Hillary Clinton, there was the distinct belief that he might lose. What happened? He won, and got Mrs. Clinton to throw down the deal-breaking arguments when they were not in a position to harm him.

The Palin nomination for Vice President was supposed to be a game-changer which was going to invigorate the Conservative base of the Republican Party. Briefly, in early September, John McCain pulled ahead in the polls.

The economy tanking did not hurt Obama’s campaign at all, but Mrs. Palin was already on radar. She had already popped up on Limbaugh. His campaign had a scouting organization which would put the Dallas Cowboys to shame. A plan was in place.

And now Republicans would have us believe that Barack Obama and his organization have caught a massive case of lazy compounded with a latent onset of stupid?

More likely is that Obama has taken a big gulp of rompin’ stompin’ pick ‘-em-up-by-the-ears LBJ. He will not share Lyndon Johnson’s rough-hewn Texas populism, but the deals will come straight out of the Johnson playbook. A few are already in place, and have been since the early summer.

The quiet is designed to bring the unhinged on the right out. The unhinged are rather untelegenic. There is a distinctly scripted quality to their rhetoric. And, oh yeah, they also happen to be as obnoxious as hell.

Nothing sold Civil Rights to a majority of the Senate in 1965 like the loudmouths in Mississippi and Bull Connor’s dogs, either. Images of violence, whether real or implied, do not portend well for the side upon which they are found. By the time the President speaks to Congress on 9 September, death panels will not abide in the memories of most Americans,

Every hateful image will come to haunt Republicans like the spirit of Nixon’s Southern Strategy. There will be nothing left of the party of Lincoln, Theodore Roosevelt, and Ronald Reagan but a few decrepit southerners who may have lived slightly better when blacks, Latinos, and women “knew their place.”

Obama’s first tack will be a nice little conversation with Senator Baucus (D-MT) to bring him back to Faith. There are several things he can do to make Mr. Baucus’ life quite uncomfortable. Obama can drop them on Kent Conrad in next-door North Dakota, too. This moves a bill to the floor with a public option in place.

Once President Obama is done with the reluctant committee, he can sic Rahm Emanuel on the Blue Dogs. If Mr. Emanuel is allowed latitude to persuade, one has little doubt that his fellows from the Blue Dog caucus will leave less than convinced…or uninjured. Emanuel is a relatively conservative Democrat, but he is also compelled by his service at the pleasure of the President.

Meanwhile, an excess of vitriol within the Republican Party will cause their remaining popularity to implode. It is possible that one or both of the distinguished ladies from Maine may cross the aisle to join the Democrats. There are a few more Republicans in the House who live in competitive districts and could find political advantage in alliance with the President.

The final result will be a reform bill which will contain a tiered public-private system which likely resembles the French model. Passage will come under the budget reconciliation process, with 54-58 votes in favor. And President Obama’s antagonists in the Legislative Branch will have a great deal of explaining to do no matter what.

This might be fun.

UPDATE: As your Wandering Gentile was writing, CNN broke news that President Obama and Senator Olympia Snowe (R-ME) were in talks to develop a compromise bill. This bill would include a trigger for the Public Option if private insurers fail to reach certain cost-cutting and coverage goals by a predetermined date.

Face saved.

Chill Out, I Got This

It appears that the Obama Administration is off to a roaring start in its first hundred days. The man has managed to lead from the center, and he seems to be holding all of the credibility cards.

This is extremely bad news for Republicans and Conservatives.

If the Gentle Reader will recall, the original tactics have not worked out very well. Opposing everything that the Administration supports, screaming "SOCIALIST" really loud, and hoping that Obama gets recognition for everything proposed and passed have basically made Republicans look like the Hillbillies and neighborhood Yard Nazis that most of them are.


One will recall what a Yard Nazi is: a white male between 45 and dead who drives a full-size American sedan, and calls the cops any time he sees a neighborhood kid touch his grass. He is also the guy who got egged every Halloween. If somebody chucked an anonymous bag of used diapers out of a car, they went on his beloved lawn. And the Yard Nazi was always the number one target of getting his house rolled/tp'ed or his front door (excrement)-bombed.


They are the last ones listening to Fox News, Rush Limbaugh, and Sean Hannity. For those readers who saw pictures of the Teabaggers at their local venue, who can honestly state that the people seen there were not a 60%-38% mix favoring Yard Nazis over Hillbillies?


One appreciates that there were some very sincere and honorable people at the Tea Parties. But when one's political activism only includes grievances and broad policy objectives without any specific method for achieving said objectives, the activist becomes his opposition's best advertisement. Thus by losing Reagan's optimism and pragmatism, Republicans are pushing the center away with a Snowplow.


This is something Obama pulled out of his ear. He is the first Democrat to get that optimism and pragmatism appeal to the center. Has President Obama managed to achieve all of his objectives from the campaign trail? No, because no one can live up to any campaign's litany of goals. Has he managed to move on controversial actions and prevail? More often than not, Obama has been successful.


By appealing to the center, where a third of the country's voters abide, he risks losing a few on the ultra-left by not being Liberal enough, and the perpetual right wasn't going to vote for him anyway. The further Republicans move toward the Teabagger mentality, the wider the center willing to hear Obama becomes. As the economy eventually recovers, the question will become that of the '84 Reagan campaign: Are you better off now than you were four years ago?


The moment is coming where one wish of Conservative pundits is about to come true, and it's going to backfire on Republicans. The hope was that President Obama be credited for every act of the new administration. Once economic recovery takes root, all of those "no" votes are going to haunt Republicans like Marley's ghost.


It begins now. The same talkers desiring Obama get full accountability for the measures to counteract the recent unpleasantness are working on borrowed time. Local conservative talk has imploded in California, with ratings now drilling for oil under Hell. Tertiary hosts are one, maybe two ratings books from gone, and secondary hosts will be out within a couple of years.


After this winnowing, the only ones left will be Rush, Sean, and a couple of hosts in deep-red local markets like Atlanta's Neal Boortz and Dallas-Fort Worth's Mark Davis. There are already indications that Conservative talk radio is beginning to infight and pressure lesser-known hosts into staying on the reservation. The same sub-national presenters are evidencing a use of the smaller programs as a source of callers to nationally syndicated broadcasts.

As things exist right now, the local figures are serving to identify callers who are still in step with the agenda of national programs. There is a case to be made that screeners are coaching the same callers to expel talking points in a prescribed order which leaves the shows feeling as spontaneous as the construction of a shopping mall.

Conservative talk is dying, and lives in denial of its mortality. An opening now exists which was not even believable a year ago. Liberal talk did not fail on the merit of ideas, as is so frequently suggested by conservatives. If liberalism had failed in the realm of ideas, Mitt Romney woud be the POTUS. Liberal talk became dormant upon a litany of mediocre broadcasters.

If a Jon Stewart or a Bill Maher were to begin a syndicated broadcast leaning upon Liberal ideas, it could succeed. The nation has already accepted a left-of-center president with enthusiasm. A left-of-center radio broadcast with an entertaining host and some semblance of spontanaeity could provide an offset to the structured ennui that has become Conservative radio.

Perhaps that could be the greatest accomplishment of progressive leadership.