An exchange on the election

Here is an exchange with a friend and former student that I thought was interesting.

Nice article Peter but I'm a little confused. Using your logic the Republicans would have "gone along" with the President following their defeats on 2006 and 2008 but instead the did exactly the opposite and regained power not by going along, and not through vigorous debate but through staunch and unbreakable opposition. Or is your argument that only Democrats behave this way?

On Nov 4, 2010, at 10:57 PM, Peter
No, the Republican few did what they needed to do to preserve their power. If they went along with the Democrats they would lose their base, as they did in part anyway via the Tea Party. They will now, I predict, reassert their control via controlling Palin and, as noted in my piece, already criticizing the Tea Party for losing the Senate. I predicted - and my predictions are usually horrible - that Sharron Angle would lose Nevada and that would be fine with the Republicans. Do you really think that the Republicans wanted O'Donnell to win in Delaware? I don't. They don't even care about Miller in Alaska. In fact, I suspect they like the fact that he is losing to Murkowski, as he is Palin's guy.

Both parties or the syndicates in both parties want, first and foremost, to preserve their power. If that requires losing some elections, so be it. Just look at Brown's votes since he was elected and how he has pissed off the Tea Party. He is no dope and he wants to be a senator. The Tea Party cannot get him that honor in two years.

On Thu, Nov 4, 2010 at 11:18 PM, William
So why would the Democrats go along with the republicans now? Why not double down on the party of no plan that the republicans did for the last two years? Wouldn't the dems lose their base as well or are the bases fundamentally different?
I do agree that the republican power base wants nothing to do with Sarah plain as a presidential candidate nor were they sad to see Sharon Angle or O'Donnell lose as they are so far out of whack with even mainstream Republicanism that they can only hurt the party elite but I still don't quite get the assertion that the dems will simply go along with the new leadership unless it's the theory that that's just what they do.

To William;
Because that is how the Democrats, the syndicate, preserves its power. If they double down on the Republicans they will instigate those who are interested in real change, not the faux stuff of Obama. Why did Obama not come out swinging on health care - when he had a super majority in the Senate and the House - but pretended to be incompetent and then overwhelmed by the allegedly "conservative" leanings of the American people? Because if he passes real health care, then he strengthens those forces in the party that would displace "the syndicate" with other people. [Has any Democrat lamented the loss of Russ Feingold in Wis.? Not to my knowledge. It is a defeat that has not even garnered much play in the media and it is probably the most important loss of the night for those in the Dem. party who want genuine change.] The Dems are, in my opinion, "disciplining" their base, just as the Republicans are doing the same thing by illustrating how the Tea Partiers are "losers." By "disciplining" I mean that the syndicate is "teaching" the "base" that they cannot have want they what - just as they did when they had the super majority in the Senate and did very little with it. Why was that? To "teach" the base "the reality" of politics.....The Republicans are doing the same thing. John Boehner represents real change, the kind of change the Tea Partiers are interested in?? Please.....!!!!!

There is danger to the few, to the syndicate of the party in a super majority and in success. The latter feeds the people and might make them think that they can have a government they want, and not one controlled by the likes of Nancy Pelosi or Harry Reid, or, I am sad to say, B. Obama.