{"id":3274,"date":"2010-11-04T02:15:24","date_gmt":"2010-11-04T09:15:24","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/?p=3274"},"modified":"2010-11-04T02:15:24","modified_gmt":"2010-11-04T09:15:24","slug":"bipartisanship-fat-chance","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/2010\/11\/04\/bipartisanship-fat-chance\/","title":{"rendered":"Bipartisanship?!!? Fat Chance!"},"content":{"rendered":"

The common wisdom, from Republicans and Democrats alike, is that Obama and Democrats need to move to the right and meet the Republicans in a new spirit of compromise.  President Obama\u2019s tone is highly conciliatory, suggesting that there are several areas in which Republicans and Democrats can find common ground.  The common wisdom is wrong.  To my great frustration, Obama still just doesn\u2019t get it.  As I was saying even before Obama won the Democratic nomination in 2007, Republican definition for compromise is total capitulation by the Democrats.  Compromise with them is not possible.  Obama and the Democrats need to move to the left and fight for progressive causes.  With the Republicans firmly in control of the House, they will have little success.  But, if they do fight, two years from now the American people will know who represents Main Street Americans and who governs exclusively for the benefit of criminal corporations and the richest one percent.<\/font><\/p>\n

\n

\"bipartisan_b2284\"President Obama, professing himself humbled by what he described as a shellacking by voters in mid-term elections Tuesday, said yesterday he is prepared to work seriously with the new Republican leadership in the House \u2014 despite being on an apparent collision course with the GOP on health care and deficit reduction.<\/p>\n

The president struck the conciliatory tone on the day after a historic election that amounted to a negative referendum on his first two years in office.<\/p>\n

Republicans gained at least 60 House seats \u2014 easily recapturing the majority after four years of Democratic control \u2014 and, while falling short of gaining control of the Senate, picked up six seats there.<\/p>\n

Ballot counting continued yesterday in close races in Alaska and Washington. Members of the all-Democrat Massachusetts delegation were among dozens of House members who will lose committee chairmanships and otherwise suffer a decline in power after four years of being in the majority.<\/p>\n

Obama and GOP leaders \u2014 sensitive to voter frustration about partisan gridlock \u2014 tried to project a new resolve to join forces and work together. The president said he is ready to negotiate on bills to improve education and encourage alternative energy. He suggested he is open to compromise on extending Bush-era tax cuts, which are set to expire Jan. 1, while warning against brinksmanship.<\/p>\n

Republicans said they, too, are ready to get down to business and work with the president. But they offered fewer specifics, vowing to seek deep, unspecified cuts in government spending and to follow through on campaign pledges to pass a repeal of the health care overhaul law \u2014 the signature initiative for Democrats and an area where Republicans found immediate disagreement with the president\u2026<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

Inserted from <Boston Globe<\/a>><\/p>\n

Some of the strongest evidence to support a Democratic move to the left is that only 4 in the Progressive Caucus, but 22 Blue Dogs went down<\/a>.<\/font><\/p>\n

Rachel Maddow agrees that bipartisanship is impossible.<\/font><\/p>\n

<\/embed><\/object><\/font><\/p>\n

Didn\u2019t she illustrate that beautifully?<\/font><\/p>\n

The only thing she didn\u2019t say is that the laughter is coming from Republicans when they hear talk of compromise from Democrats.<\/font><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The common wisdom, from Republicans and Democrats alike, is that Obama and Democrats need to move to the right and meet the Republicans in a new spirit of compromise.  President Obama\u2019s tone is highly conciliatory, suggesting that there are several areas in which Republicans and Democrats can find common ground.  The common wisdom is wrong.  […]<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3274","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-politics","category-5-id","post-seq-1","post-parity-odd","meta-position-corners","fix"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3274","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3274"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3274\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3274"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3274"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3274"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}