I Heard it Downtown

There are strange things coming out of Washington DC these days, and I’m not just talking about the city’s shutdown over a light snow dusting a few days ago (Memo to DC, I know its hard to steer your BMW in a little in 2 inches of snow, but if you were smart enough to go to Georgetown Law, I bet you’re smart enough to figure out how to drive. Do you know what we call what you got on Monday in Ohio? April). The new Congress has voted on its first few bills, and the results are a little strange.

The Obama administration had placed a public premium on becoming more bipartisan. On the most recent high profile legislation, the economic stimulus bill, many would say more than a good faith effort was made. One of the most egregious bits of pork (millions for sex education slipped in by Pelosi) was removed. Concessions were made, meetings were held…and when it came time to count the vote, every single House Republican voted against it. All of them.

This wasn’t just for this piece of higher profile legislation. Nate Silver at 538 just wrote a great piece on this…nearly every Republican in the House voted against the transition to digital tv (a measure that was supported by EVERY SINGLE Senate Republican), and all but 3 voted against the Ledbetter Fair Pay Act, a measure that was supported by all 4 Republican Women Senators. It would appear that Eric Cantor and the House GOP Leadership don’t exactly plan to be very conciliatory.

And to that, I have to say…are you guys crazy?

This isn’t overly partisan Matt Brown, watching the GOP implosion with schadenfreude. This is serious professional journalist Matt…for the life of me, I can’t understand this strategy.

Obama is one of the most talented, politically anyway, politicians in our generation. He’s sitting on nearly a 70% approval rating. The public, depending on how their asked, supports the stimulus bill by large margins (from 17-40%, depending on the poll). House Republicans, actually, Republicans in general, have been flat out getting slaughtered in almost every election since 2006. There is a pretty clear public mandate going on right now.

So when your national brand is so low (and poised to get even lower, given what seats they have to defend in the Senate in 2010), why run the risk of being *perceived* as being obstructionists to the popular agenda? Nobody should expect Republicans to go along with everything Obama wants, but whats the point of killing digital TV transition, (when all your GOP peers in the Senate thought it was okay)? Did every single GOP Congressman who represents a +D district already lose? If not, this behavior isn’t going to help.

You can’t run against a president with a 68% approval rating. Democrats did this from 2006-2008, because George W. Bush was about as popular as venereal disease.

Mitch McConnell is right. The future isn’t so bright for Republicans, unless they make some changes (which Conservatives, by their very nature, are rarely very excited to make). In addition to being saddled with the legacy of one of the most unpopular presidents in US history, in addition to having a fairly short bench, they have a coming demographic explosion on their hands. The electorate is changing, and the Nixon’s southern strategy, or Rove’s divide and conquer, aren’t going to work anymore.

The US electorate is going to have a lot more people like me. More Latinos. More young people. More folks employed in the service sector. The demographic that has been the GOP base for so long, older white males, is shrinking. Either you make changes to make your party more inclusive, or you become content to rule over Utah, Idaho, Alaska and Alabama.

The next few months should be interesting…if this behavior is prolonged, will there be any backlash? Does this mean that Eric Cantor is the de facto face of the Republican Party? (Better than Sarah Palin or Rush Limbaugh I guess) Will the next head of the DNC understand that there is more to winning a larger share of young people than using facebook?

Who knows. This political season could have more unanswered questions, and make less sense than a season of Lost (but with less polar bears).