Fork In The Road

by digby

We don’t know what’s going to happen in Massachusetts today and I’m just going to wait until we see what it is. There are hundreds of gasbags all over TV telling you who is going to win, if you are interested in speculating about the returns.

But I do feel confident in speculating about the reaction, win or lose: a move to the right. (I wrote about my reasons for thinking this, here.) And even before the election results, the village media are already laying down the markers:

CQ TODAY PRINT EDITION – CONGRESSIONAL AFFAIRS
Jan. 18, 2010 – 8:04 p.m.

Midterm Election, Polarized Capital May Belie Latest Talk of Bipartisanship
By Edward Epstein, CQ Staff

President Obama plans to re-emphasize his interest in bipartisanship by addressing House Republicans this week, but whether that will produce an election-year truce is very much in question.

The president, who pledged during his 2008 campaign to change the capital’s rancorous partisanship, has resisted taking off the gloves in response to constant Republican criticism. But most of his legislative accomplishments in 2009 came on party-line votes.

[…]

Bipartisanship could become more important in the Senate if Republican state Sen. Scott Brown wins Tuesday’s special election in Massachusetts, depriving Democrats of the 60-member caucus that now allows them to be relatively confident they can halt GOP filibusters.

President Bill Clinton infuriated House Democrats by making deals with opposition Republicans. That has not been a problem during the current Democratic administration.

[…]

House Republican leaders say they are pleased that Obama has accepted their invitation to travel to Baltimore at the end of this week to address their annual policy retreat. But they do not expect a bipartisan breakthrough.

“If he’s coming to talk to us, I hope that’s a sign we can actually accomplish things together,” Cantor said. But he added that during Obama’s first year in the White House, there was no substantive outreach to Republicans.

“To date, he has rejected or ignored every proposal we have put on the table,” added the minority whip, pointing to GOP proposals for the stimulus package (PL 111-5), the fiscal 2010 budget resolution (S Con Res 13) and what Cantor calls a “no-cost jobs bill.”

[…]

Although the Senate floor has been a partisan battleground during the first year of Obama’s presidency, bipartisan work is under way on some bills — some of it driven by retiring senators’ desire for parting legislative accomplishments.

Banking Chairman Christopher J. Dodd, D-Conn., who earlier this month abandoned his re-election effort, is working with his panel’s top Republican, Richard C. Shelby of Alabama, on a financial regulation overhaul measure.

At the Budget Committee, Judd Gregg of New Hampshire, who is retiring as the top-ranking GOP member, is joining Chairman Kent Conrad, D-N.D., to promote a deficit-reduction commission.

Elsewhere in the chamber, Democrat John Kerry of Massachusetts and Republican Lindsey Graham of South Carolina have not given up their effort to write a bipartisan climate change bill.

But bipartisan efforts ended badly in 2009, especially on health care. Academic observers see little reason to believe bipartisanship will break out in 2010, which promises to be a hard-fought, base-driven election year. “Partisanship will probably only get worse this year,” said Congress watcher Julian Zelizer of Princeton University.

But Zelizer said public opinion polls showing voters’ desire for a less partisan atmosphere in Washington suggest that Obama could score political points by courting the GOP. “He can come across like the good guy and say that it’s the opposition that won’t do it.”

The Brookings Institution’s Stephen Hess, whose White House experience goes back to the Eisenhower administration, said the Republican strategy of all-out opposition to Obama “is not illogical.”

“It’s an even-numbered year, which traditionally is bad for the ‘in’ party,” meaning the Democrats, Hess said. “So the question for [Obama] is: Can he get more done if he can squeeze out just a few more Republicans votes?”

Obama may very well do some genuflecting to the Republicans, but I think it’s fairly clear that they are not going to play ball, even if he decides to permanently extend the Bush tax cuts and invade Finland. As much as the panicky Dems will have learned from this close race that they need to move right and stop “coddling” their base, the Republicans will have learned that the more intransigent and crazy they get, the better they do. I certainly hope that they understand this.

As far as I can tell there are two things we can take away from the race, no matter who wins it. The first is tha this economy is killing people — they are mad, they are scared and they want action. They don’t know what the answser to the problem is, but they want it addressed.

The other lesson is that you need your base with you in hard times. Despite what that article says, the Democrats have not been attentive. And since it’s clear that the president is going to be accused of catering to his liberal base anyway, he might want to start thinking about whether there’s actually a political downside to doing it.

Update: Fergawdsake. Steve Benen reports:

This notion, which I suspect we’re about to hear a whole lot of, strikes me as wildly misguided.

The narrower majority will force more White House engagement with Republicans, which could actually help restore a bit of the post-partisan image that was a fundamental ingredient of his appeal to voters.

“Now everything that gets done in the Senate will have the imprimatur of bipartisanship,” another administration official said. “The benefits of that will accrue to the president and the Democratic Senate. It adds to the pressure on Republicans to participate in the process in a meaningful way, which so far they have refused to do.”

This is a great idea, isn’t it? All the White House and Democratic congressional leaders have to do is continue to work on their policy agenda, while reaching out in good faith to earn support from congressional Republicans. Bills will start passing with bipartisan support; the public will be impressed; David Broder will start dancing in front of the Washington Post building; a season of goodwill and comity will bloom on Capitol Hill; and Lucy really will let Charlie Brown kick the ball.

Or maybe not.

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