Wising Up

The president’s approval ratings are lower than they’ve ever been:

Quinnipiac’s Peter Brown notes that the post-election bump has entirely dissipated, and puts the blame on Obama’s handling of “the budget deficit, the economy, foreign policy, health care, and energy policy.” That leaves out the Lily Ledbetter Act, of course, as the White House will surely point out in a press release, but otherwise comprises just about every priority issue voters have. It shows in the crosstabs, where Obama only gets a 39/50 job approval among independents.

In other words, he pretty much sucks at everything. And as a commenter points out, if he were white, his ratings would be even lower. Of course, if he were white, he’d never have gotten either nominated or elected.

39 thoughts on “Wising Up”

  1. Obama’s numbers are just going back to their consistent pattern since early last year, a year or so after he came to office. I think they’re unlikely to change from this unless some substantial catastrophe comes to pass — something like 15% unemployment, or many deaths overseas, or some weird Federal default. People have made up their minds about him by now, and they’ve seen him go through the BP oil spill, address or not high gas prices, falling home prices, and steady substantial unemployment.

    What that suggests to me is that he has about a 70% chance of being re-elected. It seems unilkely we won’t have a Republican Senate and House, and I think that will be clear in polls long before the election. I think that means Obama is more likely than not to be re-elected, because (1) people like him personally; (2) they still don’t want to be seen repudiating the nation’s first black (or actually half black) president; (3) voters are more comfortable splitting government, i.e. not handing Republicans (in whom they do not place a lot of trust) the keys to House, Senate and the Presidency; (4) voters will have seen that a Republican Congress can easily keep the worst excesses of Obama in check, from the results of the 2010 election; and (5) there isn’t going to be a really magnetic Republican candidate for President.

  2. And Intrade.com pretty much agrees with you, Carl. They put a Democrat president (who would most likely be Obama) at low 60s.

  3. Intrade tells you what would happen it the election were today. It showed Scott Brown losing a week before the election and showed the Dems retaining the House several months out too.

    Obama ‘s support is eroding like dripping water on stone. Not much by a single day but over time it add’s up.

    I cannot see how he is re-elected if unemployment or the economy does not improve and gas prices stay high. Somebody will have to bear the brunt of the voter’s fury and I see no one else with that ability but Obama.

  4. Intrade tells you what would happen it the election were today.

    No, they’re sifting tea leaves and chicken entrails for what happens November 2012. The guess may be lousy for all sorts of reasons, but they’re on the right time frame.

    I cannot see how he is re-elected if unemployment or the economy does not improve and gas prices stay high. Somebody will have to bear the brunt of the voter’s fury and I see no one else with that ability but Obama.

    First, there are betters who think unemployment, the economy, etc will improve enough for Obama’s incumbent advantage and charisma to beat the opposition. Second, as Carl notes, about a third of the population seems to like Obama, no matter what he does.

  5. “No, they’re sifting tea leaves and chicken entrails for what happens November 2012. The guess may be lousy for all sorts of reasons, but they’re on the right time frame.”

    Mabey so, but I bet thery are projecting the present onto the future.

    “First, there are betters who think unemployment, the economy, etc will improve enough for Obama’s incumbent advantage and charisma to beat the opposition. Second, as Carl notes, about a third of the population seems to like Obama, no matter what he does.”

    Obama won by about 7 percent last time. He needs to hold about 3.5 of that 7 margin to be re-elected at a minimum. So far I have met quite a few former Obama supporters. I have yet to meet a single new one. He is goint ot have to start earning back former supporters. I really don’t see a road for him to do that, he seems to be doing quite a job ripping up the tracks behind himself.

  6. …here’s to hoping there IS an election next year. Yes I said IT!!!

    Two years ago, people were saying there would not be, in fact they said there COULD NOT be riots, in the EU, per predictions in 2009 by Gerald Celente of Trends Research, but here we are! And given the ‘never waste a crisis’ attitude at the DNC & WH, I think we’ll see some reason to have to ‘postpone’ the elections. I simply think they’ll manufacture a crisis if one doesn’t present itself.

    I heard that, did you mean me, or what I think might happen is a load of crap? You can’t hurt my feelings, tough skin!! You just don’t believe that they’ll create a problem to use to their own needs.

    Yesterday, would you have believed that Chuck Shumer would be on a conference call saying, (in effect)

    “…let’s torpedo the Republican attempt to cut the budget, by calling THEM and their cuts ‘extreme’…”

    I tend to believe people are skunks when they’re caught being skunks. And, IMHO, anyone who would FIGHT cutting THIS budget by falling back on the position that the Republicans are the budgetary extremists, would resort to dirty tricks to keep power. I’m funny that way, I tend not to trust people who are continually caught lying, cheating, stealing, and conniving.

    Shumer is one of the guys I think would shoot his children for Obama and the DNC.

    Shumer, Boxer, et al, would recreate the Daniel Perl scenario on Sarah Palin if they thought for two seconds the Dems could retake and hold control the country for 4 more years.

    Let’s face it, the lower his numbers go, the less I trust the DNC. They HAVE to make his Presidency MEAN something to prove that America was wrong about electing a BLACK President. Skin color doesn’t affect anyone’s abilities.

    If the guy was checkered or let’s say plaid of purple and bright green, with flames for hair, and tennis balls for eyes, he’d still suck right now, given what he’s done about nearly everything.

    He’d love four more years to create a legacy.

  7. I don’t think he’s looking to rebuild the same coalition, M. The starry-eyed college students and Noonan/Buckley crossovers striving to show the grandkids how hip and cool they still are were always shock troops that he intended to throw to the wolves after the election. He must have known they would never come along with him when the rubber met the road, and all that guazy post-partisan campaign bullshit turned into actual boringly conventional union-public-dole Democratic governance. Besides, he totally sold them down the river with Obamacare and his job-slaughtering Federal government metastasis.

    I think his new coalition is intended to be Hillary voters (e.g. older divorced women) and others who simply can’t stomach the idea of voting for a corpulent white male who probably needs Viagra to do his siliconized 19-year-old bimbo secretary (this being their stereotype of a Republican candidate), versus the virile black stud with the sexy tone and compassionate look deep in his admittedly dreamy eyes, retirees afraid of Republican SS/Medicare gutting to address the deficit, crony capitalists who have had a hint of the cynical favoritism possible with Team Obama, and would love for appropriate “regulation” to bugger their competitors, and rising Hispanics who have money and a touch of conservatism but who haven’t quite shaken off the impression that Republican city councilmen called them spic behind their backs when they first applied for a zoning variation for their car-repair business, in crappy and heavily accented English. Of course he gets his hard core of blacks, Ivory Tower professors, union thugs, public employees, and other assorted Praetorians for free.

    I suspect his personal swing demographic is older white women, 30-50, who have voted Democratic since 1992. If he wins them, he’s got it made, regardless of the gnashing of teeth of their husbands and fathers. If not, he’s toast.

    Which may be why we have the elevation of the Wise Latina and Elena Kagan, the relentless savaging by his media bitches of Sarah Palin and the Tea Partiers, who appeal to them dangerously, and the present manly resolve with respect to that child-molesting roue in Libya, which — nota bene — does not require putting their sons’ boots on the ground, a trick both Clinton and he understand, and George Bush, bless his guileless little heart, did not.

    He’ll also move heaven and Earth (or simply instruct Helicopter Ben to print many more dollars) to keep their home prices from falling too much. They don’t care that much about the unemployment, because it’s mostly affecting their sons (about whom they’re a little skeptical anyway), not they themselves nor their husbands, still less their daughters and daughters-in-law with master’s degrees in social work from Yale.

    He can also probably count on plenty of hyperventilating “Who is John Galt?” machismo by Republicans and, more importantly, their fringier libertarian and blogosphere allies to disgust the middle-aged matrons and convince them to vote him back in to forestall a repeal of the 19th Amendment or something, even if they have to hold their nose while voting. (Or simultaneously pull the lever for a Republican Congressman or Senator; I think Team Obama has written both House and Senate largely off, realizing they actually do better when the political facts prevent them from actually legislating, and restrict them to speechifying, posing, thuggish executive action, and quietly looting the public till.)

  8. Obama’s biggest obstacle this time around is the fact that we all know who he is by now. Reality has been harshly crushing his rhetorical pablum for the last few years. They won’t be able to crank up his rock star/messiah complex to factor 11 like last time around.

    First, there is the fact that his “soaring” speeches will likely elicit far more yawns. What are the chances he can sell out the Denver stadium again? Also, the MSM isn’t going to be much of a factor since I doubt they will be able to be so far in the tank for him this time around. The MSM was totally after Hillary the whole time during the primaries because they all really thought she was the shoe-in to being nominated. Obama was mostly used as a counter-weight to their vetting process of Hillary. Everyone wonders why there was no vetting of Obama is because they were directing all their energy toward raking Hillary over the coals. But then once he did win the nomination it was all about the “fairy tale” that was to be possible if we could only get a black man elected as president. So, that’s why you had people like Chris Matthews saying on air that he would do his part to help push this through — as in being a part of making history. That whole dynamic will be missing this time around. That means a lot of independents are going to be wondering if the MSM is actually going to bother vetting him directly this time around. And I think that even with the modicum of integrity they’ve left that they will indeed take a big gulp and speak ill will of the Il Duce.

  9. Regarding the myth of Obama’s awesome charisma; his biggest problem for 2012 will be, whether he likes it or not, that he’ll be running on four years of his record. The American public will have little patience for soaring rhetoric from Obama that pretends someone else was in office since 2008. Of course, he’ll try and the Stupid Party will probably let him get away with it, but the electorate is tired of being pissed on and told that it’s raining.

    The greatest thing going for Obama is that he will be running against the Republicans. If the GOP nominates another candidate who is afraid to fight (just like McCain didn’t), Obama will sail back into office in 2012. Otherwise Obama’s toast. Palin and Bachman may carry a lot of baggage, but at least those ladies not only fight, but fight hard. Much more than the typical spineless wimp that infests the GOP. I would love to see another four or five fighters step forward for the GOP primaries to give us a better choice to choose from, but I doubt it will happen.

  10. Carl Pham Says:
    “(1) people like him personally”

    Obama has been very effective at tying all of his major policies to other people.

  11. Josh,
    I hope you’re right but I think you’re wrong. How much will the MSM vet BHO if he has no, or at least no credible, opponent in the primaries? The MSM will do a lot of vetting, there’s no doubt about that: They’ll ruthlessly vet each and every Republican candidate from now through the last contested primary in an attempt to make each one look as bad as possible in comparison to BHO. I think BHO will mostly re-play the Nixon White House-bunker campaign strategy from 1972 (he pretty much did that in 2008 in terms of very limited press corps direct access to him (except for MSNBC and the like)), and this time, the MSM will silently approve rather than bitch about it. Also, BHO can by definition run in 2012 as the candidate with the most experience! BHO is holding a lot of high cards, and unfortunately I believe Carl is on the money.

  12. I just got back from a lecture/Q&A by Newt Gingrich. He sounded sensible, informed, intelligent, relaxed, humorous. But most importantly, he put the Conservative Proposition in context. Gave the people much more than …”Ummmmm CUT TAXES!!!….Ummmm Ummm…SMALLER GOVERNMENT IS GOOD!”

    He gave examples in everyday life with which the entire audience has personal experience and used them to underscore bedrock Conservative principles.

    The last person to do this was Ronald Reagan.

    If he runs (and he will)… if he can talk during debates with Obama like he spoke this evening, he can trounce him. He’s a much much better speaker than McCain or Bush I & II or Romney or Huckabee.

    I don’t know if he can overcome some of his negatives, but as I say, if he can come across to the country the way he came across tonight he can win.

    He got a lot of applause and agreement. And this is in the Belly of the Beast (Salem Massachusetts).

  13. Well don’t let it worry you, Blue et al. Remember in November of 2008 I predicted right here the incoming team of Barry, Nancy and Harry would drive the Blue Car right over the cliff? And so they have! The Democratic Party hasn’t been in this kind of ill repute since…oh, the late 30s, I’d say. Imagine if Hillary Clinton had been elected instead! She would not, I think, have made the same kind of arrogant n00b mistakes. We would surely have some obnoxious and undislodgable, craftily thought out and legitimately passed healthcare reform law by now. I doubt the Bush tax cuts would’ve survived, because she would not have had a $1 trillion early Christmas for her union buds and scrood the pooch so badly on employment. You’d be looking at Four More Years of both a President Clinton and a Democratic Senate, at least. Brrr.

    I’m mildly enthusiastic about Oprompta being re-elected. See, if he’s re-elected, that makes it much more likely we have a strongly Republican, even Tea Party Republican Congress, specifically elected to restrict Obama to soaring speeches about unicorn-poop-powered green energy boondoggles. And the real work that lies ahead must originate in Congress. Government must be reconfigured, and the entitlement mentality and associated programs wholly revised. So I want a Congress passionate about that.

    What about the O-man? Well, he has two choices. He can stab his (remaining) supporters in the back and play ball with a Republican Congress bent on viciously slashing the Federal budget, and spend a lot of time touring the world to adoring crowds with Michelle and the girls, golfing in exotic locales, boffing exotic groupies, looking forward to writing updating his memoirs. Or he can start vetoing stuff left and right — and thoroughly destroy the Stalinist wing of the Democratic Party, doing for them what Jimmy Carter did, and setting the stage for even an even harder turn to the right in 2016. Win-win scenario, I think. (Well, not completely. If Obomba seriously fights, which fortunately he seems so far too lazy to do anywhere, he could harden opinions so much we could see a Caesar solution in 2016. I’d be enthused about President Palin. Much less so about Temporary Dictator Palin.)

    On the other hand, if a relatively chopped-liver Republican candidate (Romney?) squeaks out an upset now and has to work with a narrow majority in the Senate, then the fiscal trainwreck that certainly lies ahead with half-hearted measures gets laid squarely at the feet of people trying to be at least a little bit responsible. Setting the stage for the Party of Fascism with a Frivolous Face to roar back in 2016 to “fix” the ugly mess.

  14. Carl,
    OK, I’ll try to not lose all hope, based on the overall BHO re-election consequences you described. I think your “best-case” scenario has a good chance of coming to pass and would be a good thing. The bad part is it means enduring four more years of semi-disaster in order to accomplish destruction of the old-guard Democrats and Democratic machine.

    I believe BHO would fight the Republicans a little but not a lot. He’s too lazy. His main goal today and every day for the next 6 years, in my opinion, is to make sure his life is ultra-comfortable (I’m talking creature comforts and continued total adulation from the hand-picked crowds) until Jan. 20 2017, and then as comfortable as is possible without being POTUS afterward. He can’t totally sell-out his base because that risks keeping his ego properly stoked by a sufficient quantity of fawning dolts, now and in the future. Unfortunately, while BHO would probably be mostly lazy on the governing aspects, his hard-core minions in the 27-gazillion Federal agencies will continue implementing ruinous regulations. And don’t get me started on what 4 more years could mean for the Supreme Court situation. What a mess.

  15. If he runs (and he will)… if he can talk during debates with Obama like he spoke this evening, he can trounce him. He’s a much much better speaker than McCain or Bush I & II or Romney or Huckabee.

    He also blew his chance as I see it. Slick, corrupt politicians like Obama can collect sweet deals for his entire life (books, real estate, professorships, community organizer, etc). His constituency doesn’t care about honesty or ethics. Or for that matter, figuring out what Obama intends to do once he’s in office.

    But anyone who’s trying for the ethical part of the US needs to have a relatively clean life. Gingrich doesn’t have that. There are three things going against Gingrich as I see it: his divorce from his first wife, his weak performance as House Speaker (including an ethics sanction that stuck), and the K Street purge (where he forced a bunch of DC lobbyists to hire Republicans and basically tried to build a patronage machine).

  16. a Republican Congress bent on viciously slashing the Federal budget

    I wanna live on your planet.

  17. There are three things going against Gingrich as I see it: his divorce from his first wife, his weak performance as House Speaker (including an ethics sanction that stuck), and the K Street purge (where he forced a bunch of DC lobbyists to hire Republicans and basically tried to build a patronage machine).

    Don’t forget the commercial where he joined Nancy Pelosi in fighting the menace of Global Warming.

    Nah, he’s toast before he gets out of the starting gate.

  18. a Republican Congress bent on viciously slashing the Federal budget

    Tasmanian Devil for Congress! That guy knows how to slash.

    There are three things going against Gingrich

    I guess the fact that he couldn’t last as Speaker is a subset of the second demerit.

    But you forgot this: endorsing Dede Scozzafava. Newt’s own experiment with Clintonian triangulation.

    And demerit #5:

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qi6n_-wB154

  19. Carl writes:

    “I’m mildly enthusiastic about Oprompta being re-elected. See, if he’s re-elected, that makes it much more likely we have a strongly Republican, even Tea Party Republican Congress, specifically elected to restrict Obama to soaring speeches about unicorn-poop-powered green energy boondoggles. And the real work that lies ahead must originate in Congress. Government must be reconfigured, and the entitlement mentality and associated programs wholly revised. So I want a Congress passionate about that.”

    The problem with this is that the President has a veto which is very hard to override. The GOP would have to win hugely in the Senate to be able to override – a scale of victory I don’t see happening (I could be wrong). This would mean very little would get done – it would stop the lefty/soccie slide but not advance the fiscal sanity side. Gridlock.

    Perhaps it would be better to retain the margin of control in the House, win a few more seats in the Senate, and the Presidency. That way you have fewer liberals to convince to vote your way, the Presidential bully pulpit to help them see the light, and no veto worries.

    “Or he can start vetoing stuff left and right — and thoroughly destroy the Stalinist wing of the Democratic Party, doing for them what Jimmy Carter did, and setting the stage for even an even harder turn to the right in 2016. ”

    Maybe I’m missing something but how does massive vetoing destroy the Stalinist wing of the DP?

  20. The problem with this is that the President has a veto which is very hard to override.

    Well, first, it’s not impossible. Reasonable estimates are that the Rs stand to pick up 8-10 seats from their current 47. If it’s the latter number, yet another full-speed collision with the iceberg, I can see 5 of the 45 remaining D Senators declining to manfully go down with the RMS Obama.

    Second, Americans tend not to like vetoes. Most Presidents use them sparingly unless they can successfully present themselves as defending some crazed out of touch Congress. If the R tide laps high around the Capitol in 2012, that will be an impossible PR sell for Obama in 2013.

    Maybe I’m missing something but how does massive vetoing destroy the Stalinist wing of the DP?

    Massive vetoing of legislation proposed by a party specifically elected for the purpose of enacting it is a serious spit in the eye to voters. The last Democratic President to give that a spin was Andrew Johnson.

  21. Carl writes:

    “Second, Americans tend not to like vetoes.”

    Obama has already shown a strong disinterest in what Americans like or do not like.

    If the objective is to maintain the soccie gains of the first 4 years, O will veto to do it.

  22. Yes, but Gregg, if he does that he just sets up the voters to deliver a veto-proof R Senate majority in 2014, after which (just like Johnson) all his works will be humiliatingly and briskly overturned. How long would it take Mitch McConnell to schedule repeal votes on everything the Democrats have passed in the last 5 years? A few days? Maybe they could do it in a few hours, put everything in one of these 2,000 page omnibus thingies.

    Remember, the tricky bit about legislating in a republic is that anything the Nth Congress does the (N+1)th Congress can undo.

  23. Obama won due to a number of factors: (1) Bush/GOP fatigue, (2) a piss-poor opponent (in the primaries as well as the general), (3) identity politics, (4) a desire for something other than the status quo, (5) economic turmoil, and (6) being a blank slate upon which wishful-thinking people could write their hopes upon.

    With the possible exception of #2, none of those factors will favor him now. Aside from the economy likely not turning around much in time to save him, the biggest problem for him will be that he’s now a known quantity.

    Rah-rah team boosting aside, it’s pretty obvious that few are impressed with his leadership or the other qualities we hope for in a president. I bet his real ranking among the population is significantly lower, but that doesn’t show up due to a number of people fearing to sound like racists to the poll-takers in criticizing the president.

    I think there’s very little chance that he will remain in office come 2013.

  24. Aside from the economy likely not turning around much in time to save him, the biggest problem for him will be that he’s now a known quantity.

    Indeed, the white Netroots was/were calling for a primary challenge before the Lybian war Kinect Xbox 360 release. Sure, the pro opinion-makers are giving him a pass because they fear fetally curl beneath their beds in blanched moaning horror of a spectral R prez, but that Xer base may see no difference and get its cynicism on instead.

  25. “How long would it take Mitch McConnell to schedule repeal votes on everything the Democrats have passed in the last 5 years? ”

    An infinity of time.

    We are still living with Some of LBJ’s boondoggles created 50 years ago, and FDR’s boondoggles created 70 years ago. Trillions and trillions have been spent on Great Society programs and are still being spent today. Not even Reagan could eliminate them. For decades we’ve had programs labeled as the Third Rail and were untouchable.

    Fact is that once in place, government programs are notoriously difficult to eliminate. Only when your back is up against the wall will the political will to do the right thing be there. Look at Wisconsin..small potatoes as compared to DC and yet the issue is still in doubt. And their backs are up against the wall because they are forced to balance the budget.

    The Feds are not forced to do that.

    Especially when the Fed government can always inflate their way out of debt – which is, I predict, exactly what will happen.

    Another contributor is that right now 50% of the taxable population pays no taxes. Guess how they vote? Guess what will happen when you start to fool with their rice bowl. I predict massive street rioting if Medicaid is reduced, for example. Look at the TUC riots in London.

    Does McConnell have the stomach to cause that? I don’t know.

    The nation is going to have to suffer some serious pain to fix this and I don’t see the nation ready to do so – certainly not the political class. They will kick the can down the road, til they can’t. Then they will inflate and choose a reduced standard of living (by about 25% I reckon) as the least evil.

    No, Obama has played is smart…you get the law passed no matter what and the odds are it will last forever.

  26. No, Obama has played is smart…you get the law passed no matter what and the odds are it will last forever.

    You mean like Clinton’s “assault weapons” ban?

  27. Ken…note well the words “odds are”….

    There are a lot of Great Society programs that are still with us for every counterexample you give, I bet.

  28. Yeah, I disagree, Gregg. I won’t vouch for the intestinal fortitude of any particular actor, but clearly the political Climate Change (i.e.: Strauss & Howe’s “unravelling”) is upon us. The GI generation would never permit their precious programs to be touched while they lived, but now…

  29. Titus well I hope you and Ken are right. But here, 2 minutes of searching found this 1965 Great Society program that’s still with us:

    Upward Bound

    Upward Bound is a federally funded educational program within the United States. The program is one of a cluster of programs referred to as TRIO, all of which owe their existence to the federal Higher Education Act of 1965. Upward Bound programs are implemented and monitored by the United States Department of Education.

    The program was launched in the 1965 after the enactment of the Higher Education Act of 1965. It has an annual budget around $250,000,000 (http://www2.ed.gov/programs/trioupbound/funding.html).

    And we also have:

    * National Endowment for the Arts
    * National Endowment for the Humanities

    I know I’m preaching to the choir here. But as I say, the longer Obamacare with us the better the odds it will stay.

  30. Titus,

    Never heard of Strauss and Howe nor of the “unravelling so I googled. I see:

    “The fourth turning is a Crisis. This era sees a national mood of extreme urgency, sweeping changes made in national policy, life-or-death wars and crusades, and a change across the generations to a much more traditional lifestyle and set of values. During a Crisis, the entire future of society is at stake. ”

    Well that’s essentially what I said above when I said:

    “Only when your back is up against the wall will the political will to do the right thing be there. ………

    I predict massive street rioting if Medicaid is reduced, for example. Look at the TUC riots in London.

    Does McConnell have the stomach to cause that? I don’t know.

    The nation is going to have to suffer some serious pain to fix this and I don’t see the nation ready to do so – certainly not the political class. They will kick the can down the road, til they can’t. ”

    What I’m saying is that the national psyche is too far gone to pre-empt trouble. They’ll have to have see the tsunami rolling over the seawall.

  31. Gregg, I know that’s the conventional wisdom, but consider the possibility that the conventional wisdom — which is, after all, spread by the minions of conventionality, e.g. the MSM and politicians, is designed to serve the interests of the Establishment rather than reflect God’s truth. You’re told these things are untouchable, because half the elected politicians and all of the media doesn’t want them touched, and the other half of elected politicians hasn’t generally had the stomach for the casualties a serious assault on them would mean.

    I can’t help but be reminded of the sense of futility and demoralization about the Cold War that infected the 1970s. We were told that the USSR was here to stay for good, and what was necessary was compromise, accomodation, detente, limited objectives. It took a clean breath of fresh air — Mr. Reagan — to call bullshit on the Walter Cronkite and Henry Kissinger narrative, and then it took time for us to realize we’d been fed a load of Fifth Column narcotic crap by people whose self-interests required an endless stalemate.

    Things have changed before — just consider welfare reform, for example, which put the fork to one of those pillars of the “Great” Society self-mutilation. For that matter, SS and Medicare have undergone substantial changes over the years.

    And at that, both SS and Medicare were, and remain, quite a lot more generally popular than Obamacare. Both originally passed Congress, for example, with nonzero Republican support.

  32. Carl, I allow that the programs are touchable. I just don’t see them as touchable……..yet.

  33. Actually let me rephrase that….

    The programs are touchable, but not enough of the Congress has the cojones to touch them.

    For when they are touched, there will be lots of riots. Lots of angst, anger and yelling. It isn’t the MSM telling me that – it’s my eyes and ears.

    Lots of us won’t riot and lots of us don’t mind a shutdown or the Big Showdown. Some of the DC crowd understand that (Rubio, DeMint Bachman, etc), but most do not. I loved it when Bush tried to reform Social Security. It was a fine idea. It was demagogued to death and I saw the GOP back away from it.

    It’s not *I* that think they are the Third Rail…it’s a too large a fraction of the Congress and 50% of the population.

  34. I think you’re wrong, Gregg. Again, I realize this is the conventional wisdom, but I think it’s self-serving bullshit served up by politicians, of both parties, who like ladling out the gravy from the public trough, and the bigger the trough, the more ladling that can happen.

    I certainly agree there exists a vocal minority that will protest in the streets, just like they did in Madison. But a majority that will back that up? I’m doubtful. I think the reason we think there are these Third Rails is because it’s so rare that politicians actually serve up a fair and square re-evaluations of them. They always bury poison pills in what they propose, for the simple reason that none (or very few) of them really want genuine reform, because it cuts off the supply of gravy. Far better to serve up fake reform, and when it fails bemoan the public’s lack of coherence about its sacred cows.

    Let us see a fair reform proposal. Flat tax, defined contribution retirement accounts for everyone, a true health insurance market without government fiddling, a modicum of Federally-centered emergency lending resources for people in trouble, and a Federal government 1/4 the size it is now — and then let us see how the voters react. Let us see if they react in the spirit of Madison and Jefferson, or whether they really have turned into a load of craven leeches and backstabbers.

    I don’t think we can properly judge the public’s courage by what’s been on offer so far. You can’t say because a man rejects a sandwich of dogshit on rye that he isn’t hungry.

  35. “That one had a built-in expiration date.”

    Like every non-capital crime piece of legislation at the Federal and Statee level should have. Along with an amendment that prevents them form being re-authorized in an omnibus fashion.

  36. Carl, If Obama is re-elected, it will be with the worst economy since the Great Depression.

    I really don’t see it unless the Republican is a total Dog. It will make the Carter economy look downright robust and the economy that felled Bush Sr. look like Manna from Heaven. I really think the thin veneer that is Obama cannot withstand this level of battering for another year and a half before collapsing. Again, the water continues to drip.

  37. Well Carl, we are saying the same thing. I’ve written that I do not think the present crowd in DC (with a few exceptions) will make the changes we would like.

    What we are debating is the backstory – you think it’s because they like the status quo; I think it’s because they don’t have the cojones. I bet it’s a little of both.

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