Evidently The Village Is Lacking An Idiot...

Evidently Democratic pollster Joel Benenson is determined to grab the mantle of Village Idiot of the Democratic Party. Last week he argued that a "yes" vote for Obamacare made good political sense because the citizenry would warm to it once exposed to its benefits. What he forgot was that most of Obamacare kicks in sometime in 2013 or 2014.

Duh.

Now he's arguing that the problem isn't content, it's form:

DNC pollster Joel Benenson, in a new poll and memo prepared for the Service Employees International Union and provided to POLITICO, is arguing that Democrats' political woes stem not from the scale of their agenda, but from the perception that they've turned into deal-making insiders on their path to achieving it.

Of course, what eludes Joel Benenson is the simple fact that when you attempt to solve all aspects of health care reform in a single bill, the sheer scale of the bill guarantees the number special interests impacted by said bill will be massive.

Ergo, the necessity of serious horse-trading.

The memo argues that Democrat can repair their standing and recapture the mantle of "change" by passing health care legislation, by putting a new focus on a transparent, fair process, and by forcing Republicans to defend Wall Street.

The problem here is obvious: The citizenry does not want the "change" in health care the Obama Administration is proposing. Passing said piece-of-shit legislation will not "repair" much of anything (other than the Republican Party, that is).

And, the problem with trying to make Republicans "defend Wall Street:" is twofold: First, it's been done to death already, and (2) there are a whole bunch of Democrats from places like New York who aren't particularly enthused with Obama's War on Capitalist Excess.

Big Joel continues:

Among both [Democrats and Independents], dissatisfaction is not focused on the broad outlines and goals of the Democratic agenda," write Benenson and his associate Danny Franklin. "Instead, it centers squarely on perceptions of a breakdown in the legislative process, exemplified by deal-cutting and special deals for the constituents of key swing Senators."

And Obama has had to resort to deal-cutting and special deals because of the Democratic dissatisfaction with the legislation presented them to fulfill the broad outlines and goals of the Democratic agenda. You don't have to bribe senators when they think a particular bill is going to help them.

And then Benenson concludes with this brain fart:

"Democrats have lost a significant degree of the equity they carried as the party of change in 2008, putting election prospects at considerable risk for the coming midterms," they write. But 'the outlook for 2010 is still fluid and could turn if voters begin to see a change in the way Congress is run that leads to real results."

Voters may not like the way Congress is run, but what will get them to the polls in droves is an Obama Administration that persists in shoving shitty legislation down their throats. But of course Joel Benenson can't say that because, well, then he doesn't get work from SEIU and the DNC. So instead, he offers the theory that what the citizenry really wants is...

Bad legislation elegantly legislated.

These people are lost.

Comments

[Allen]

That's what usually happens when people start buying their own PR, and forget that they floated it. Oh well, with a little more effort he might be able to polish this turd.

I've enjoyed this whole farce. I still think the democrats might have had a better chance by trying the single payer route. Hell, at least people would know what they are and aren't getting.

The surprising thing to me is the republicans actually showed some sort of brains, or at least instinctive cunning. They stayed completely away from the whole thing.

[Buck O'Fama]

This whole Administration is nuts. They hand you lumps of turd and try to tell you it's cheese and crackers. Do they really believe the shit they say or are they just trying to make us believe it? It doesn't matter, either way it's a disaster. Either they're so out of touch they can't tell reality from fantasy or else they are criminal con men who would be pump n' dumping penny stocks if they weren't in government. Our only hope for surviving this crock of shit presidency is to never believe a word they say and fight every damn thing they propose.

[Randy Rager]

I was going to fill this space with a complicated metaphor involving bread crumbs, Hansel and Gretel, Harry Pelosi's hemorrhoids and Richard Gere's gerbil, but the wine I drink every night in celebration of the fact that the Dims are setting themselves up for a MASSIVE loss this year has befuddled what I am pleased to call my mind. You'll have to fill in the blanks yourowndamnedselves.

Sorry.

[TmjUtah]

Obamanation makes no sense unless you look at it as an attack on the Republic.

All the taxes, fees, and punitive measures attached to socializing health care happen YEARS before any hint of bread and circuses makes it to the proles.

News reports today that Social Security is knocking on Treasury's door, looking for that lockbox...

If the Dems go ahead and Slaughter/Reconcile/Bamboozle Health care, their party is dead in November.

China and India are dumping Treasuries. Moody's has about given up playing nice.

So the Federal government controls banking, insurance, manufacturing/ construction/energy (EPA), and then Health care... and none of it fucking works now. There's going to be a moment that makes "But he's got no CLOTHES!" look positively tame.

So everybody is mad at the Democrats. Whoopee. Is there any reason to vote for a Republican? The national party as exemplified by Steele and Co. are country club at best, RINO more than not. The problems we face are not born of bad government or too little government but of too much government.

Wilson loaded the revolver. Roosevelt bought the bullets. Obama is going to pull the trigger.

It's never a good idea to entrust a Republic to a communist....

But who is left to vote for?

[bandit]

If voters vote on the way Congress is run it's going to be a halucegenic nightmare for the Dems.

[Eric Blair]

I dunno. Moody's is making noises, but really? Who are those guys? Frankly, they are partly to blame for the whole mess in the first place, because they were still rating funds and companies leveraged to the hilt with credit default swaps good until they suddenly failed.

China and India can dump all the treasuries they want, but in the end they still need the US economy healthy. Who else is China going to export to? Itself?

This guy says that nobody knows what they're talking about in respect to Chinese bond holdings:
http://mpettis.com/2010/02/what-the-pboc-cannot-do-with-its-reserves/

I can't even find anything on the net that says India even owns US treasury bonds.

And this guy says the Chinese may even be hiding their purchases of US Bonds:
http://wanderingchina.wordpress.com/2010/03/04/china-may-be-hiding-us-treasury-bonds-experts/

Why, I dunno, because like, if you're going to try to influence US policy because you own so much US debt, I'd think that you'd want people to know that you, like, own US debt so you can influence US policy.

And Wilson didn't load the revlover. You can blame that on Teddy Roosevelt, if you're going back that far.

Who is left to vote for? Why don't you run for office? What, you're still looking for a hero to save the country? Why do you think people voted for Obama?

[richard mcenroe]

This Congress is turning into the scene in a bad thriller where the hostage taker sees a zillion guns pointed at him and starts laughing hysterically...

[aelfheld]

TR bought the d----d gun, WW loaded it, HH pulled the trigger, FDR pulled the trigger again, LBJ pulled the trigger again, RMN kicked the corpse. Now BHO is hooking up the electrodes and counting on a thunderstorm.