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Lightning Round: In Your Heart, You Know He's Right.
- Needless to say, tomorrow's elections, particularly the one for NY-23, are matters of local concern with little if any explanatory power for the national political moment. And from the point of view of conservative activists who seem to believe they've found the second coming of Barry Goldwater, the results tomorrow will either convince them that a) Hoffman's narrow win was a decisive moment in the conservative wave sweeping the nation, or b) Hoffman's narrow loss proved that there is a conservative wave sweeping the nation, and that this is only the beginning.
- As Krugman says, the Obama administration and Democrats in general would be wise to ignore advice that says they need to rein in the deficit or face a voter revolt next year. And even though a majority of voters prefer deficit reduction to deficit-increasing stimulus efforts right now, which are they going to prefer when they go to the polls in a year if the latter is starting to yield benefits that affect them directly?
- I think there is a bit to this theory of the "Californiafication" of the federal government, and it does not bode well for the future of the country. Moreover, the obstructionist tactics the minority party has at its disposal greatly benefit Republicans more than they do Democrats, the former being uninterested in the business of governing in the first place.
- I wonder if this profile of Nick Ayers, the 27-year-old executive director of the Republican Governor's Association isn't a bit optimistic about his future influence in the Republican Party. Come tomorrow, he might have two electoral victories under his belt in Virginia and New Jersey, but given that the current top three would-be 2012 Republican presidential candidates -- the former governors of Massachusetts, Alaska, and Arkansas -- are each in their own way unpalatable to the larger electorate, it's a bit premature to surmise that the next leaders of the GOP are necessarily going to come from the governor's mansion.
- Weekend Remainders: Behold the low costs of the best health-care system in the world; this pretty much sums up the radical anti-abortion movement; the 2002-era GOP fear-mongering can be applied to any situation; and compassionate conservatism, blue dog edition.
--Mori Dinauer
COMMENTS (2)
And even though a majority of voters prefer deficit reduction to deficit-increasing stimulus efforts right now, which are they going to prefer when they go to the polls in a year if the latter is starting to yield benefits that affect them directly?
Eh, I'm pretty sure this falls into "no good deed goes unpunished" territory. If unemployment is high, voters will be mad about that. If unemployment is low, voters will be mad about the deficit. No one wants to admit that they owe their job to the government, but they're perfectly willing to blame their lack of a job on the government.
Posted by: Consumatopia | November 2, 2009 7:01 PM
Democrats who do not buy into the deficit-first chant are suffering due to their own fault in the court of public opinion. It's a simple premise: deficits matter, but they don't matter as much as jobs. We won't be able to reduce the deficit until more revenue from a stronger economy -- i.e., more jobs -- starts pouring in. When private industry is failing to create jobs, sometimes the government needs to jump-start the economy.
Posted by: urban legend | November 3, 2009 4:18 PM