On Rooting
Obama is not likely to be a Roosevelt. But conservatives remain in a difficult position. Since they favor economic success, they must root for Obama to be a Clinton — even as they suspect and predict he will be a Carter.
Elsewhere, he remarks that Obama is (already) driving intraparty adversaries on the right closer together; this post suggests that’s true. The way to spin out Gerson’s even-keeled rumination into a political slogan for Republicans is to say “Even if we succeed, we’ll have failed” — even in Clintonian terms. Such a line would be fair, sane, and also true.
It might well be all those things and yet would it be politically compelling? I can’t imagine so. Do you imagine a near future in which the Obama administration’s strategies are considered successful, the economy has risen from the ashes, and Republicans could convincingly tsk-tsk and argue that it was a bad bargain? It would only convince the already convinced (a particular forte of Republicanism recently). The greater part of the country would, I expect, be so relieved to have economic growth again that they’d find the handwringing bizarre.
Perhaps in 10 years… if the theoretical success turns out to be chimerical, creating a long-term budget crisis, the Republicans can come back and parlay ‘I told you so’ into electoral success, but the current GOP has to work on a much shorter timescale than that. Which returns to Gerson’s point. They need a slogan for now.
— sidereal · Mar 7, 07:00 AM · #