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September 10, 2010
Let the Debates Begin
Drawing attention to the fact that this will be an election of “choices,” both Jonathon Alter and E. J. Dionne have suggested mid-term debates between presumptive Speaker-Elect John Boehner and Sen. Mitch McConnell. For Dionne, it’s a matter of institutionalizing the new reality:
Obama has already started a long-distance debate with Boehner, hitting him hard in speeches this week in Wisconsin and Ohio. Boehner, who has been critical of Obama for months, should welcome the chance to take his argument straight to the president himself. And since the Senate is in play, too, the voters should also get to see what McConnell has to offer. If the Republicans take both houses, Boehner and McConnell would become hugely important figures -- remember how powerful House Speaker Newt Gingrich was? The country should get to know more about them before deciding.
Alter sees political advantage:
For Democrats, the advantages are obvious: the debate would electrify (and possibly reshape) the political environment and allow the president a chance to do what he has done poorly so far, which is to frame the choice. To me, it's a simple one: rebuild America (with public-private infrastructure projects to put the middle class back to work) versus more tax cuts for those making over $1 million. It would also give Obama a chance to make the cases for further tax cuts for all but the rich.It’s hard to imagine this idea actually going anywhere—Obama seems to be much more of a political traditionalist than a scrappy street fighter. And I also am a little uneasy with the idea of putting the president on equal footing with the minority leaders in congress. But still, I like the idea, in part because I think Dionne misstates the reality a bit. While this “should” be an election about choices, it’s not shaping up that way so far. Instead, voters are being given a chance to register their displeasure with the sluggish pace of the recovery—while being told that the very policies that prevented a complete collapse (stimulus spending, bail outs, etc) caused the crisis in the first place. And though Republicans do represent an alternative—higher deficits, deflation, deeper recession, and a never-ending carnival of congressional investigations of nutcase conspiracy theories—that alternative is nowhere on the political radar screen. Debates between Obama and the morally (and ideologically) vacuous McConnell and Boehner (a man far too stupid to be sinister), has the potential to highlight those choices—and make the election about them.
Posted by stevemack at September 10, 2010 10:20 AM
