Strength And Leadership

by digby

According to TPM, Charlie Cook is predicting a potential loss of the majority in the mid-terms. That seems a bit of a stretch to me, although losses do seem likely. But this part of his analysis is most interesting:

Before long, his strategy of letting Congress take the lead in formulating legislative proposals and thus prodding lawmakers to take ownership in their outcome caused his poll numbers on “strength” and “leadership” to plummet.

I expect that’s at the bottom of their impulse to scrap the public option. Democrats Believe that the best way to show strength and leadership is to punch hippies. They’ve believed this for decades now, and the result has been to discredit liberalism and validate Republicans. (But hey, that seems to be the ultimate goal of the ruling class, so you can’t say it isn’t one of the things that “works.”)

The villagers agree, of course. They believe America is the mythical conservative small town of the movies of the mid-20th century and they are all Judy Garland and Mickey Rooney. (Liberals are Peter Fonda and Dennis Hopper in Easy Rider ruining everything with their loud music and their pot and their hair.)

But here in America 2009, the country is a little bit more complicated. It would be interesting to see what would happen if Democrats tried a different tack and punched somebody else instead. Like greedy CEOs. Or Freepers. Or … Republicans. I wonder if maybe they might just get the strength and leadership numbers up if they unapologetically passed the agenda on which they ran and then went to the people in the next elections and stood behind it.

It’s experimental, I know. And risky. Punching hippies will always at least get you some big love from the village and the wealthy donor class even if it doesn’t help you win elections. But if they ever do want to behave like winners and demonstrate real strength and leadership, it might be worth trying one of these days.

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