Political Game Plan

Here's Mark Thoma's guess at the Republican game plan once they win the mid term elections:

What I haven't seen much discussion of is how Republicans are likely to take advantage of this by introducing legislation they know won't pass, but scores political points by forcing Democrats to vote against it (this is something the Democrats don't so as well as Republicans). They'll then use the noise machine to talk about how terrible this is for America. We'll see Tax cuts for Working Americans (where you give a few pennies to the masses, much, much more to the upper echelon, then, since there are so many people getting small breaks, claim that the majority of the tax cuts go to the middle and lower classes), the Deregulation of Apple Pie Act (which somehow turns into an attack on the FDA, financial regulation, etc., etc.), we'll see poison pills attached to legislation that must be passed to operate government (e.g. budget bills), it will be one bill after another designed purely to bring about a political fight. There may be legislative gridlock, but there will be anything but political gridlock.

Here's Thoma's analysis of Obama's fatal flaw:

passiveness in the face of aggressiveness from the other side was a prescription for failure

Obama kept "courting" the Republicans and waiting, waiting, waiting for some compromise the the cynical Republican were never going to offer. So he diddled while Rome burned. Now the Republicans are laughing all the way to the polling booths!