Comments on Re: "Bipartisanship" Benefits Them, Not Us

Please stop being sarcastic. It doesn't help the writing and seems unnecessarily defensive.

bravo

also, if Obama is elected President and there's enough D's in the Senate to get anything done, he call talk Bipartisanship all day long while enacting a D agenda, just as Bush always acted as though it was bipartisan to have Lieberman stand next to him on stuff passed on otherwise party-line votes

Right on as always, Annie.

Make sure ECB steps off the flag before you burn it.

Good post, Annie.

@2, Good point, Bill, and I'll be Mister Obama's coat-tails would be a lot longer than Ms Clinton's...

("bet", that is, not "be")

@1: No, I'm serious. ECB held fire yesterday while I got my section out the door. We play fair!

I didn't bother to respond on the original post (ECB seems to only reply to trolls and other slog writers, so why bother), but the funny thing is the right wing blogs say the exact same thing. "Bipartisanship is whatever the MSM wants" and "Bipartisanship means we surrender to the Dems" etc. They claim that bi-p is always worse for their side than the other.
The interesting thing is that when it's said on the right, it's usually heard (in my own personal experience, not claiming a study of the literature here) coming from the more hard-core, undebatable, closed-minded editors and bloggers, not those who actually want things done. Hmmm.

Another thing: this is a feature of Clinton's campaign arguments that is really infuriating. It's right out of the Bush and Rove playbook, which they have adopted because they think you have to be dishonest in order to win. She is taking a positive feature of her opponent, and claiming that it's HERS; and claiming that her opponent embodies a negative that more closely resembles herself. If your opponent is a war hero, tag him "coward", "soft on defense". If your record is spotty, brag about it as if you were solid. It's this kind of thing that has some success on the ground, but poisons the whole debate and drives people away from both of you.

The plain fact is, Clinton in fact has absolutely ZERO success, in the course of all the experience she brags about, in achieving the kind of results she claims she'll be able to. While Obama DOES have a track record of doing exactly that.

Am I that I think politics can be better than that? Yes, I am. Am I right? Maybe not. Maybe Rovian tactics ARE necessary. That seems to be Clinton's, and Erica's, argument -- that soft platitudes won't survive against the wave of pure evil that's coming, that only by being ten times the bastard can you defeat the bastards. Maybe that's true. But I think many, many people are desirous of getting away from that kind of scorched earth politics.

Well said Fnarf! I like the term "scorched earth politics".

Oh, and I forgot one: nuclear non-proliferation, also with Lugar.

Good point, Fnarf.

Democrats don't have the stomach or the infrastructure to play as dirty as the Republicans.

The Republicans have been building this shit up for decades within traditional politics and in the media (Hello, right wing radio!). The Dems don't have the infrastructure of bat-shit crazies to attack the opposition. They also don't have tried and true methods of using candidates' strengths against them.

As Fnarf points out in #9, Clinton is using some of this against Obama, but I'm not counting on her using it against McCain. She and other Dems are novices at that kind of dirty politics. The Republicans are experts.

Nice, Fnarf. That's the story of this whole Dem runup to the election, and Obama's been playing this story the entire time: He's for moving on from the partisan attacks, and partisan attacks is what the name Clinton brings to mind. Hillary is trying to get away from that rhetorically and by showing her work in the Senate in the past 6 years, but her supporters (ECB) don't wanna let her.

You gotta be smart about bipartisanship—you gotta claim the mantle, but not cede the ground. Obama’s claiming, and it’s working

Annie gets it.

Preach on.

Obama is starting to kick some serious butt, and indicating what a general election showdown with McCain might look like. Unless, of course, you prefer another round of "I voted for the war before I voted against it."

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080130/ap_on_el_pr/obama_clinton

Good point, Annie.

I want to recommend Mark Schmitt's article on the "theory of change." Obama isn't naive about bipartisanship. If you believe Schmitt's analysis, anyway, it's a pretty sophisticated tactic on his part.

Bloomberg? You mean Giuliani-lite? Let him get control of his drug-dealing, bridegroom killing police force first, before he tries for a more complex job.

Remember, if you can't get a war started with lies, get some gullible media folks to pass on the lies for you, so that people feel comfortable voting for Red Bushies like McCain.

In the end, it's all about the permanent military bases and the ten to twenty years of useless war that fills your Red comrades pockets ...