Recent polls show that a majority of voters admire candidates which don’t compromise on issues. When we look at the recent political history of compromise within the Democratic Party, we may discern a major source of voter discontent with Democratic candidates in the upcoming November elections.
Recently, US House and Senate Democrats failed to call up for a vote the expiration of Bush era tax breaks for the wealthiest of Americans. According to a recent CNN poll, 69% of Americans support having the Bush era tax breaks for the ultra-rich expiring on January 1, 2011.
Republicans adopted an “all or nothing” approach which clearly favored the wealthiest Americans and which Republican approach would have taken away Middle Class Tax Cuts from the Democrats’ Stimulus Plan and given them to the ultra-rich to the tune of $731 billion. The increase in the total national debt of $13.64 trillion from the Republican plan from continuing these tax cuts alone would be 5.4%.
The White House also has adopted a “compromise with ‘yourself’” approach in an attempt to garner Republican support for issues even though the GOP has not supported anything put forth by the Democrats during the Obama Presidency. Witness the pre-legislative demise of the “public option” in health care which is still favored by a majority of Americans. Many Democratic candidates are running away from their votes for healthcare reform when according to a recent Pew Center study a majority of voters and large majorities of Democratic and Independent voters support those who voted for healthcare reform.
So, while many believe that the “partisanship” of politics is destructive, it is clear that holding the line on your policies is more favorably viewed by voters than any type of compromise. Democrats are likely to learn a very costly lesson in the value of “NO!” come November, 2010. But, the lesson will mostly inform any future minority in the US House or Senate that obstruction and obfuscation are more valuable than compromise, even when a majority of voters support the other side of an issue.
I think that if the Dems lose big, it will be because they haven't fought hard for many of the things they say they will do in their lofty campaign speeches. They have cozied up big-time to Wall Street, for example.
The Dems will lose—and continue to lose—because of one simple P.R. fault: unlike the Republicans, they do not appear to have a backable definition of what an American is.
Egad! Methinks the posters have partaken too much of the far right and far left Koll Aids!
Lest you forget, over 100 promises of the democrats have a;ready been delivered upon in the past two years! Including but, not limited to:
Healthcare reform, Wall Street reform, Credit card reform, full VA funding with additional staffing and resources for PTSD and TBI, more money for national parks and forests, more money for Pell grants and over $60 billion for new student loans by booting banks out of student lending, more money and tax credits for smnall businesses, a Middle Class tax Cut in the Stimulus Bill, etc, etc….
http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/promises/…
The Democrats haven't simply shown the juevos racheros to slap down the racist fascist croporatist GOPers every chance they've had because of some boogeyman they call "bi-partisanship." BS, if they're the minority because all the moderates are gone, then the party line will be more secure, and in two years we can do the the rep[ugs what they will do to us in November 2010! Gotta go to lunch! Bye!
It's not that Obama and his friends didn't succeed in getting meaningful Wall Street reform, single payor or (next in line) net neutrality, as they promised. It's that they stopped trying early in the fight and decided, instead, on cutting deals.
Of course the political reality that for anything to pass the Senate, 60 votes were needed had NOTHING to do with what has been done. I guess they could have done nothing and been no better off with you than with what was done.
They should have made MORAL cases for these changes. Instead they played footsie with big business and hammered out 2,000 page bills stuffed with goodies by thousands of lobbyists. Obama's original stated reason for health care reform. What happened to that? What happened to single payer? We can have that discussion over the next few years as you and I see our health care insurance bills continue to skyrocket and we see our economy wracked by a government that hemorrhages money to pay for its "share" of these bills. Last year, "the government borrowed 37 cents out of every dollar it spent." This is not cost control. This abject irresponsibility is the recipe for disaster, in my view. I can guarantee you this: If our government had balanced its budget this year there would be a whole lot of politicians gloating because we wouldn't be dumping huge debt on the backs of our children. But then it is downplayed when we have a continuing meltdown on our hands. The new definition of political "success": kicking the can a few feet down the road and leaving it to others to deal with the consequences.