Newtie’s Allies

by digby

On Stephanopoulos this morning:

Newt Gingrich: If Obama won and had a moderate House and a moderate Senate, he would probably be a moderate president. His temperament would lead him to be much more like Richard Daley than like Eeverend Wright. He’s not gonna have that. he’;s gonna have card check to take away your right to a secret ballot. He’s going to have an effort to eliminate freedom of speech for Rush Limbaugh and Sean Hannity. He’s going to have a congress that wants to raise taxes, that wants to increase government — is he really going to veto and fight with Pelosi and Reid? … As the Wall Street Journal said on Friday, here is what their promising their allies they’re going to do.

Donna Brazile: Yeah, but they’re not in office Mr. Speaker. Senator Obama wil inherit a 10 trillion dollar deficit and he’s going to have to put things on the table that perhaps many of us would not like to see a Democratic president put on the table in terms of cutting back on spending, freezing hiring and making some real tough decisions. So, I think he will be constrained by the deficit and also by the fact that we’re still in two major wars.

That’s a relief. No need for anyone to worry that Obama isn’t going to govern like a Republican. Except, you know, Republicans are really unpopular.

Gingrich is playing for 2010, here, preparing his troops to run against the already unpopular congress. He’s calling Obama a wimp for being unable to stand up to his crazed, radical base. It’s a natural move for the Republicans.

But there is no excuse for Brazile to fall into the rhetorical fetal position and help him. My God, we are in the final two weeks of a presidential campaign which is taking place in the middle of an economic crisis and is this the best she can do? He gave her the most perfect opening in the world — “the Republicans are more worried about a non-existent free speech threat to multi-millionaires like Rush Limbaugh and Sean Hannity than they are about the real threat to average Americans financial security. Obama is going to be dealing with real problems of average people and will do what it takes to get this country back on the right track after the Republicans drove it off the rails over the last eight years.”

This defensiveness is going to kill any mandate Obama gets before he even gets in office. I realize they don’t want to try to unprogram the American people from 30 years of supply-side, trickle down brainwashing in the last month of a presidential campaign, but explicitly saying that he’s going to be “constrained by the deficit” and forced to cut back and freeze hiring (!) in the middle of a recession isn’t just bad politics, it’s really, really bad economics. The Democrats should be pushing the idea that government spending right now is going to be necessary to fix the economy — because it is!

No wonder Gingrich looked like a very happy fatcat with a mouthful of yellow feathers when she said that. He’s winning even as he’s losing.

.