Short: Let go of that fetish

I talked about political fetishes earlier, and labeled Obamacare as a fetish to the Tea Party. Making the GOP vote for higher taxes is a fetish for the left. Ezra Klein at the Washington Post doesn't use the same term, but he's on the same page. His advice to the Dems: don't push for tax increases and you will get so much more from the GOP:

"...they should see their leverage clearly: Republicans badly want entitlement cuts, but they don’t want them enough to trade for taxes. They badly want to replace sequestration, but not enough to trade for taxes. And they badly want tax reform -- but, again, not enough to trade for higher taxes."

I saw this with the sequester too. Now I'm not a partisan who wants the Dems to extract more concessions through wily negotiations, but I'm happy to see someone else being practical and clear-headed in their view of the negotiation process. 

Image: tribalartasian.com

Extra. You could also think of these fetishes as 'taking a trophy' or capturing your opponents' flag. It is the sweet victory of humiliating your opponent. It's not a smart goal, but sometimes we really want to do it.

Short: Dems should be quiet about healthcare

Ezra Klein has another good column analyzing the dynamics of this election. He explains why the Democrats shouldn't crow about their ACA win at the Supreme Court.

The healthcare reform act remains unpopular, and it's also very complex. This complexity makes it harder to sell but easier to attack. The Dems can't undo the complexity, so a better strategy for them is to work other issues where they're stronger.

This isn't a message partisans want to hear, but I wonder whether the Dems will actually follow this strategy--go with their strengths for this election, and let ACA gradually pick up supporters as its benefits kick in.

Update. Some Dems at least are following the advice. The White House Chief of Staff said that Americans are tired of the health care debate and want to focus on jobs.

Short: Romney is the Keynesian candidate?

Ezra Klein has an interesting piece on why Romney would have higher government spending than Obama. That's counterintuitive, right? But his argument goes like this:

• Romney's smarter than to pass austerity measures that will immediately drop GDP by 5%. Romney quote: “That is by definition throwing us into recession or depression. So I’m not going to do that, of course.”
•  But if Obama is reelected, the GOP will force a showdown with all its jitters, and maybe this time there will be a shutdown, and government spending will plummet.

Klein fully acknowledging the hostage aspects of this argument: "In a sense, Republicans are holding a gun to the economy’s head and saying, “vote for us or the recovery gets it.'" He also says that the implied threat may sway some voters, but will raise the hackles of others. 

I believed this at first, but then I started to wonder--how many voters will view the GOP as hostage-takers and then decide to vote for them? A few, perhaps. Also those who feel like they're hostages anyway, so they might as well skip the drama of divided government. I don't think it adds up to that many votes, and maybe no net votes at all.

Then I started to question the premise. Are the Republicans really going to pull the trigger after not winning the presidency? That would be the biggest tantrum, bigger than any other imaginable tantrum short of activating a real secession movement (as opposed to the hollow bluster in 2009). I don't think the majority of GOP congress critters are that self-destructive. There might be some brinksmanship like last time, and the time before that... yawn. But before the end of the countdown, they'll have a deal.

So don't vote for a party because you think they might take hostages otherwise. And don't vote against a party because Ezra Klein says they might be hostage-takers. Think it through, take your best guess, and vote for who you think will run the government best. May the best party win, or may the best mix win.

(Sorry, no graphic. I can't think of a tasteful way of illustrating a story about hostage-taking.)

The Dilemma of Political Parties

Ezra Klein had great column a few weeks ago. I don't name-drop on columnists because I'm not impressed by names, and I certainly don't want to become one of the hundreds of bloggers who constantly comment on what other bloggers say.

But this column--it was a wonderful explanation of how political parties are ruining governance at this sorry time in our history. I'll quote what he says because it's completely clear and readable:

Parties no longer compete to win elections by giving voters the policies voters want. Rather, as coalitions of intense policy demanders, they have their own agendas and aim to get voters to go along. [quoting a paper]

...So the basic work of political parties is figuring out precisely how much of their agenda they need to sacrifice on the altar of electability.

...Parties must still... respond to voter wishes, but they wish to cede as little policy to voter preferences as possible [quoting again]

Klein shows how this applies to the current crop of Republican candidates, or leftovers as I've called them:

[The Republican party] members sense that this election might end with Republicans controlling the House, the Senate and the presidency. In that event, Republicans could get away with quite a lot. So they don’t want to blow it. What a shame it would be to have wasted this opportunity on a centrist candidate who will just end up compromising with Senate Democrats and looking to burnish his image with independents. On the other hand, it would be even worse to blow the opportunity on an extremist candidate who will scare voters into reelecting President Obama.

Definitely read the column. But the follow-up to this thesis is the practical question--how do we make our political parties answerable to more of us, not just to the "intense policy demanders?" If I ever read about that, I'll let you know.

Update 1/5/12. I heard a piece on NPR that is a corollary to Ezra's post. If politicians, when in office, are responding to their most intense supporters, we get a pendulum effect of throwing one set of partisans out, and electing the other set, and then having to throw them out. My post on the topic here.