ThePoliticalReview

Strategy Memo
Author: Andrew Ellicot
Topic: Extended Summer Effect Discussion
The climate debate is over. The implementation of the term Extended Summer Effect has been a huge success. Our initial response dominated coverage in the news, with an effective presentation. Continued use of the term will guarantee victory in the debate over the issue, and a swift end to Democrats attempts to pass a climate bill. All members of Congress should continue to exclusively use the term Extended Summer Effect in discussion, and reiterate our previous talking points. In the unlikely event that President Warren and Congressional Democrats do not abandon their pursuit of a climate bill, your first priority in amendments should be to replace all uses of the term ‘global warming’ and ‘climate change’ with ‘the Extended Summer Effect.’

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Walking past the Capitol, Andrew Ellicott squinted in the sun. He felt a buzzing against his chest and pulled his blackberry out of his jacket pocket. The screen read “Senator Tim Thompson,” next to a picture of the Senate Majority Leader grinning goofily and holding up a hammer. Republicans liked to call him “The Hammer” because of his tough reputation for pounding legislation through the Senate. Democrats supported the nickname because they agreed that Thompson certainly was a complete tool.

“Senator Thompson, how are you?”

“Very well, Andy. I wanted to call and congratulate you on a job well done.”

Ellicott grinned like a kid with candy.

“I’m sure the session will be easier without the climate bill to worry about, Senator.”

“This will certainly help us kill it.”

Ellicott stopped, somewhat confused. He wiped a smear of sweat off his brow.

“It’s already killed. We won the term, we won the issue.”

“I support your optimism Andy, but do you really think it’s that simple?”

Ellicott squealed out a laugh. “It doesn’t matter what you’re saying Senator, the only thing that matters is how you say it. Americans would support burning the Bill of Rights if you could make it sound patriotic. It’s all about labeling. Global warming is depressing and gloomy. The Extended Summer Effect is bright and exciting. Who do you think the public will support?”

CONNOLLY: I’m Matthew Connolly, welcome back to Red v. Blue. The public supports Republicans on the Extended Summer Effect issue by a two-to-one majority according to a new Gallup poll released today. We’ve got strategist John Calhoun and former Congressman Oliver Williams here. Gentlemen, your thoughts on the poll.

CALHOUN: Now Matt, President Warren and the Democrats understand that the importance of the global warmin’ issue is far too important to be determined by a single poll –

WILLIAMS: John, it’s not just the poll and you know it. There’s been a huge outcry of support. In the last three days members of Congress from all across the country have been receiving tens of thousands of letter from children who go to summer camp, asking them to vote against the President’s bill. What would you say to them, John?

CALHOUN: Oliver, you know –

WILLIAMS: What would you say to the children?

CONNOLLY: Now John, there’s been a lot of speculation about this piece of legislation, now being referred to the anti-Extended Summer Effect bill. It was expected to be released this week, but these recent events seemed to have caused a delay. When do you think the President’s bill will be put before Congress?

CALHOUN: [Sighs] Matt, President Warren will put the bill forward when it’s complete and effective. I’m not sure exactly when that will be, but I know he won’t rush it for partisan purposes. His intent is to create a bill that will have the greatest positive impact on the country.

CONNOLLY: Alright, well that’s all the time we have. I’d like to thank my guests John Calhoun and Oliver Williams. Stated tuned right now for tonight’s “What’s Wrong With America” and tune in tomorrow for another edition of Red v. Blue. I’m Matthew Connolly, goodnight.

“And we’re off. That’s a wrap.”

Calhoun grabbed his blackberry out of his pocket and shouted to Connolly, who was quickly walking off the set while mumbling about makeup.

“Hey Matt, you can’t use the words ‘global warming’ anymore? Phrase seem antiquated to ya’?”

Connolly turned with a shrug.

“Come on John, we use polling the same as you. Our viewers like the Extended Summer Effect.”

Calhoun sighed as Connolly waked off, then looked at Williams with a raised eyebrow.

“What would ya’ say to the children?”

Williams – clicking away at his own blackberry - laughed, “Oh come on, J.C. You know you would do the same thing.”

Calhoun chuckled, “Yeah, I bet I would. Fuckin’ summer campers.”

“There’s not going to be a climate bill, is there?”

Calhoun gave a quick glance around to check who was in hearing distance and that his mic was not active.

“Nah, there’s not.”

“Who’s taking the heat?”

“There’s enough to go around, but Alex Ramirez got most of it. The President sacked him this mornin’.” Calhoun leaned back in his chair, “We’ve got to get ridda’ Weinstein.”

“You and Paulson won Warren the election by grabbing the middle ground and controlling the media. Weinstein’s sloppy, and incapable of doing either. The President will listen to you two over Weinstein soon enough.”

Calhoun stared at the desk in front of them and said nothing.

“So, since the global warming debate is dead, what’s next on the legislative agenda?”

“We’re gonna to go through a couple crowd pleasers then move to education fundin’.”

Williams smiled.

“Wait till you hear what we’re going to call that.”

Jake Laperruque can be contacted at editor [at] wupr.org

“Congressman, I have Chairman Richardson on line two.”

“Thanks Clarissa, can you put him on.”

Congressman Stewart rubbed his hand through his politician-perfect hair and picked up the phone.

“Congressman, how are you? Enjoying Washington life so far?”

“Yes, Mr. Chairman. It’s very different from work at a state capital, but I’m enjoying myself so far.”

“Well good, you certainly seem cut out for D.C., always quick to catch on. Now what can I do for you?”

Congressman Stewart sat down in the large leather chair at his desk. The chair had apparently once belonged to Nelson Rockefeller. The day he had arrived in Washington it had been delivered to him as a gift from the RNC Chairman, with a simple handwritten note: “Don’t sit on the sidelines. You’ve got what it takes to be a star.” The chair was the most valuable item in his office, otherwise filled with corny trinkets from his district that he’d proudly placed in the uncomfortably tiny workspace. Freshman always got the worst offices.

“Well, Mr. Chairman, I’m calling about this statement on the climate debate. I want to make sure I’m clear on the situation.”

Congressman Stewart could almost feel the Chairman perk up on his end of the phone.

“Absolutely, what do you need to know?”

“Well, it looks like we’re gearing up to go on the offensive?”

“Absolutely.”

“And we have no new reports, studies, or evidence to support our case?”

“No.”

“We have no new polling or public opinion reports supporting us on the issue?”

“No.”

“We have no factual basis to take issue ownership?”

“No.”

“We’re just going to continue as before but now we’re calling it the Extended Summer Effect, and we expect that will win us the debate?”

“Exactly.”

“So I should have my press team start releasing statements with the same talking points but use the term Extended Summer Effect?”

“You’ve got it, Congressman. Like I said, always quick to catch on.”

-

“Senator, what shall I say is your reply to Mr. Weinstein?”

“My reply is that he’s a fucking idiot!”

“Um, would you like me to relay that verbatim for you Senator?

“Actually, Keith, I’d prefer to tell him myself, put him through.”

Aides scattered out of the way as Senator Newman stormed into his private office. He angrily grabbed the phone from his desk, knocking the lump of coal placed next to it onto the floor. The coal was from one of his state’s many deposits; he’d always had a lump on his desk since originally keeping one from a photo shoot with miners twelve years ago. It was good to show respect for the coal industry. And he didn’t mind the running joke resulting from the desk prop that if you got on Greg Newman’s Bad List, you were going to get something a hell of a lot worse than a lump of coal. Placing the prized piece of coal back on his desk, Newman turned his attention to the phone in his hand.

“Weinstein, can you hear me?”

“Um, yes Senator, I can hear you fine,” the voice timidly responded from the other end of the line.

“Oh good, because I figured that you might have trouble speaking on the phone with your head shoved so far up your ass that –”

“Senator Newman, it really isn’t necessary to –”

“Shoved so far up your ass that you cannot see that we’re getting clobbered on every network!”

“We’re preparing a response for the President right now and –”

“We don’t just need the President speaking, we need every Democrat in Washington speaking. I turn on the TV and all I see are Republican Congressmen talking about the fantastic fucking summer. People on the Hill are coming up to me and saying they want to make a statement, but they’re waiting to get the green light from the President’s office. That requires a green light from you. Get on it.”

Newman slammed the phone down and the coal rolled back onto the floor.

Weinstein hung up the phone and wrung his hands through his hair. I knew we were going to get screwed on this, he thought to himself. He dialed up another number.

“Alex, we’re in trouble.”

“Yeah, it’s not going well.”

“We need to get our people on screen now. Spread word, get as many House members on television and talking to reporters as you can. Do it fast.”

There was a pause before Ramirez responded.

“Yeah, yeah. How’s the President’s statement coming along?”

“Too slowly. Get the response from members now.”

“Will do.”

I knew we were going to get screwed on this.

-

“Mr. Weinstein, John Calhoun is on the phone and he doesn’t sound happy.”

“Lovely,” Weinstein took off his glasses and rubbed his nose. “Put him through.”

“Weinstein, ya’ fuckin’ this up real bad.”

“Hello, John, always a pleasure. How are you?”

The crackly Southern drawl responded angrily, sarcastically, even teasingly.

“Oh I’ve been betta’, mainly on account of the way you’ve been handlin’ this.”

“Look John, I know you and Paulson want my job, but criticizing everything I do isn’t going to help you get it.”

“What Paulson and I want is for the President that we got elected ta have a successful term so that he can get elected again in three years, and your ridiculous response on this Summer Effect shit ain’t helping with that.”

“It was a perfectly fine response: Focusing on a name is pointless, because the name doesn’t matter, the issue matters. We should stop talking about the name and start talking about the issue,” Weinstein said, regurgitating the talking point he’d spent the day obsessing over. “The response does everything we need to – takes focus away from the name debate, brings attention back to the empirics where we’re strong, and it makes President Warren look like a statesman who’s above the partisan bickering.”

“What it makes the President look like is someone who just lost his climate bill. Turn on CNN.”

Weinstein flipped on the television hanging from the wall in his office.

“See that. That’s Congressman Stewart sayin’ what I knew the Republicans would say the second I read ya’ statement – if the name don’t matter, then why are we making such a fuss about it? If the name don’t matter, then why don’t we just stop complainin’ and call it the damned Extended Summer Effect”

Weinstein fumbled the phone, nearly dropping it. He dropped the remote control in his other hand instead.

“Well I . . . .”

“Ya’ getting’ smacked around by a freshman Congressman!”

“Okay, maybe the response wasn’t perfect but I don’t think it lost us the debate, and I definitely don’t think it lost us the climate bill.”

“No, you didn’t lose the climate bill with that. Ya’ lost the climate bill four hours ago when Newman scared you and Alex Ramirez into loosing every Democrat on the Hill without settin’ a message. We’ve been putting out twenty different talking points. Landstrom is sayin’ that the GOP is engagin’ in distraction tactics, Buckner is quotin’ specialists, Jones is discussin’ the etymology of the word summer, Lockhardt is sayin’ they’re using the term because Republicans are too stupid to understand the issue . . . . Weinstein, do you think callin’ Republicans stupid is a good way to encourage them to cross party lines and support us?”

“No, I don’t”

“Well that’s good to know. Now while we had all these different people sayin’ all these different things, the GOP had all their members makin’ the same point every time they got in front of a mike. Whose message do ya’ think is gonna resonate?”

Weinstein turned off his TV and tossed the remote at the wall, aiming for a blank spot to vent his frustration but hitting a framed picture of JFK instead. Well, fuck.

“Okay, there have been, mistakes. But I don’t think that the climate debate is over.”

Jake Laperruque can be contacted at editor [at] wupr.org

The phone rang and Alex Ramirez woke with a start. The blue tinged light told him it was a horrible predawn hour. The clock on his nightstand told him it was 4:12 am. He glanced down and realized that he had again passed out while changing the night before, leading to that unpleasant sensation in which he woke up wearing part of his sleepwear and part of his suit from the previous day. This time it was pajama bottoms coupled with a dress shirt and tie. His blackberry rang again and Alex grabbed it.

“Holy shit Weinstein, do you know what time it is?”

“Alex, we need to talk, something bad is coming.”

“It better be bad for you to call me at a time like this, you know I like my beauty sleep.”

“I’m not fucking around Alex, this is serious.”

“How bad is it?”

“Really bad.”

Alex unconsciously tightened his tie. “Okay, go on. What is it?”

“I don’t know.”

“What the fuck do you mean you don’t know?”

“I don’t know what it is. But it’s going to be really bad.”

Alex sighed, which turned into a rough cough. He hated this time of the morning. “Weinstein, how do you know it’s going to be so bad if you don’t even know what it is?”

“Because whatever it is, it’s going to cost us the climate debate.”

“And how is that supposed to happen?”

“I don’t know! But I just got word from Landstrom, who got a tip from someone in Newman’s office, who got a leak from the press team for the RNC that we’re about to get hit with something that will turn the entire climate debate on its head.”

Alex thumped his head against the headboard of his queen-sized bed in frustration. Resigned to being awake, he got up began to pace around his oversized bedroom, tripping over the sections of his suit that he had managed to remove the night before.

“Fuck, Weinstein . . . Have you considered that it might be an exaggeration? Or maybe Newman is just fucking with you?”

“No, he wouldn’t.”

“Newman’s been fucking with you this whole session.”

“Not on this, he wants a climate bill as much as we do. He knows how much money will be coming to his state in all that green-energy shit.”

“You still don’t know that it’s going to be that bad.”

“No, because right after I heard from Landstrom I called Ben Paulson, and he talked to John Calhoun, who got word from Oliver Williams that the Majority Leader says they’re coming out with something tomorrow that’s going to crush us on climate change.”

“Crush us?”

“The Majority Leader told Williams that after tomorrow they’ve got ownership on the issue and any bill we put up is D.O.F.A.”

Alex rubbed his eyes. “Dee-what?”

“Dead On Fucking Arrival, Alex!”

“Look, I, I don’t know!” Alex said, throwing up his arm as though the empty room would see and appreciate his gesture of annoyance, “There’s nothing I can really do for you when I don’t know what it is.”

“I can’t figure it out! If it was a new study, I would have read about it. If there was polling out right now, I would have known about it. Is it a defection? What if it’s Newman?”

“You just said Newman won’t fuck with you on this.”

“There’s no way he’s fucking with us, which is why I’m afraid that’s what’s happening.”

“You need to get some sleep. You sound delirious.”

“What if Newman’s bailing?”

Alex collapsed back onto the satin sheets of his bed, knowing he wouldn’t be able to get back to sleep but committed to trying anyway.

“Newman’s not bailing, Weinstein, relax.”

“How can I relax? We’ve been prepping for the climate debate for six months, and I find out now that we’re about to get completed fucked!”

“Look, it’s four in the morning. You have no clue what the GOP has, or if they’ve even got anything at all. At this point there’s nothing to do about it. Get some sleep, and deal with it tomorrow.”

“Alright, but Alex -”

“What?”

“I’ve got a bad feeling about this.”

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Real Clear Politics: Morning Roundup
GOP Gives the Climate Debate a Sunny New Outlook
By Samuel Post
The Washington news cycle is being dominated early this Monday morning by news from the office of the Senate Majority Leader and the Republican National Committee of a major development in the climate debate.
“From this day forward,” stated RNC Chairman Bruce Richardson, “we shall refer to the phenomenon so pessimistically labeled as ‘global warming’ by a new name; from this day forward, global warming will be called ‘The Extended Summer Effect.’”
Mr. Richardson and Majority Leader Thompson could not be reached for further comment at this time, but promised, “We will continue to focus on this important development to the debate regarding the Extended Summer Effect.”
How the GOP seeks to do so is currently a point of great speculation. Although there have been no confirmed reports, rumors are floating around the Capitol that Congressional Republicans have been moving to amend all bills concerning the environment to replace any use of the term ‘global warming’ with ‘the extended summer effect.’
The blogosphere has been buzzing over the new term, and a senior RNC official in new media said with confidence that it would “totally be going viral.” Aside from general chatter over the name change, a large deal of focus has been on who created the term. While several names have been thrown around, the consensus seems to be that it was crafted by GOP strategist Andrew Ellicott.

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Check back next Tuesday for the second chapter in this special three-part fiction piece.

Jake Laperruque can be contacted at editor [at] wupr.org

Today President Obama will hold his televised health care summit with Congressional leaders, discussing ideas from both Democrats and Republicans about formulating a solution to America’s significant health care problems. If you’re thinking “Republicans talking about ideas? That doesn’t sound right . . .” you may be coming to the same conclusion that many pundits have made about the health care summit in recent weeks: It’s A Trap!

The reasoning behind this Admiral Ackbar mentality is that after a year of floundering and failures, . Politically, the Republicans best option is continuing to be the Party of No. Compromising on health care offers them nothing; Democrats will take credit for health care reform regardless of whether Republicans worked with them or not. The GOP’s best bet is to obstruct, then condemning the Democrats as dictatorial if the pass legislation or incompetent if they don’t. The risk of a Tea Party rebellion makes the Republicans even more likely to stick to their Prevent Defense and continue to block the Democrats as much as possible.

The problem is that this strategy does not look good on television, and that’s exactly where President Obama wants to put it. Billing the health care summit as an event to engage in dialogue and exchange ideas, Obama has called the Republican’s bluff that his plans for health care reform are not good for the country, challenging them to prove the point by suggesting something better. What will the GOP do? As our great political mentor Jed Bartlett has shown, ignoring the President when he asks for a public discussion never goes well. Republicans will have to attend the summit. But what will they do? Likely push the talking point that most Americans disapprove of Obama’s plan, suggest starting the process over, and throw in something about tort reform. Their goal will be to say as little as possible, take whatever hits they get about not having their own ideas, and move on.

So what should the Democrats do? Not let them move on. After the summit President Obama needs to go against his instinct to talk about how much he loves bipartisanship and meaningful discourse and instead vocally criticize Republicans for not bringing anything to the table. He should label them as Do-Nothing-Obstructionists. And he should make sure this label sticks. The Democrats need a new angle to get their agenda back on track and limit their losses in the upcoming election. Rather than a referendum on the state of the country (still pretty bad), the Democrats need to make the public debate and upcoming election a question of who puts forward the best ideas, because in that type of debate the Republican mantra of “Don’t Do Anything!” isn’t going to cut it. The health care summit has the potential to be a turning point that shifts the public debate. The trap is set. Now the Democrats have to spring it.


Jake Laperruque can be contacted at editor [at] wupr.org

Democrats took a hit to the chin Wednesday as two Democratic Senators and two candidates for governor announced they would not be seeking reelection. The decision of Chris Dodd (Connecticut) and Byron Dorgan (North Dakota) to retire rather than run again is just another piece of bad election news for a party mired in a year of really crappy poll numbers and patriotic protests. However, these retirements seem to be more a symptom of a problem than a cause of it. The same thing occurred in the buildup to the 2008 election when many Congressional Republicans, knowing they would face tough reelection challenges only to return to a more Democrat-filled House decided it wasn’t worth and opted for retirement instead. Similarly, the announcements of Dodd and Dorgan gives credence to the fear that many Democrats already have: 2010 is going to look like a Walter Mondale election. And while a unanimous smackdown may be an exaggeration, the Democrats prospects for 2010 look increasingly bleak, with strategists predicting a loss of 20 to 30 seats in the House, and the possibly of the GOP retaking the majority in the Senate. At this point a bad election year Democrats seems beyond any doubt. The real question is why.

The strongest reason seems to be renewed Republican activism. In 2008, it seemed like people were ashamed to admit they were in the GOP; people would say, “Um, I’m a Republican,” with the same sheepish guilt as someone asking to take the last piece of pizza that everyone else wanted. But with Bush gone and Democrats in control of everything, times have changed. And although the Republican brand name still isn’t selling (hence the Tea Party shenanigans), freaking out at Democrats has become the trendy new way to be political engaged (hence the Tea-Bagger shenanigans). So expect GOP activists to come out of hibernation this fall and work vigorously to kick Democrats out of office.

While it is no surprise that Republicans are getting giddy over the prospect of adding Democratic Congressmen to the ranks of the unemployed, what seems to make less sense is the role that Democrats and Independents seem prepared to play in the thrashing that will likely occur this November. Currently, Democratic candidates are polling poorly with Independent voters (one of the main reasons why they’re polling badly overall), as is President Obama, whose numbers have taken a steady slide towards Bush-town. Meanwhile, liberals and progressives have grown angry and begun to sour on the Democratic majority they worked so hard to get elected, with some leading progressives even suggesting we should scrap the current health care bill. The dissatisfaction among liberals – the big group of activists Democrats need to win – and Independents – the big group of voters Democrats need to win – stems from the fact that during continued tough times for our country, the government doesn’t seem to be accomplishing anything.

But is a lack of achievements a fair reason to remove the Democrats from office? Normally, yes: a government that can't make improvements to the country is one that ought to be replaced. But the current culture of Washington calls for a different approach. In my last online column, I described the problem of the filibuster as an assumption that both the majority and the minority want to take action during a time of Obstructionist politics. Now more than ever, the minority party acts as the Obstruction Party, trying to prevent the majority from accomplishing anything in the hopes that the lack of achievements can act as a selling point to retake power in the next election. And while the GOP is currently using the tactic, its something that both Democrats (guilty of exploiting “Our Lack of Ideas Our Better Than Bush’s Bad Ideas” obstruction in 2006) and Republicans (guilty of the current “Change-We-Can-Prevent” obstruction as well as vintage-Gingrich obstruction back in the early 90’s) have used, the real culprit is the Washington culture that has made Obstructionism an acceptable norm.

There are several problems with this. The first and most obvious is that an effective Obstructionist Party is not necessarily an effective agent of action. Just because Republicans can water down the Stimulus Package, block legislation to prevent climate change, and spend eight months shredding health care reform doesn’t mean they can effectively address any of these problems. In fact, if the last Republican majority is any indicator, they will likely augment our problems. The second and more fundamental problem is that because it’s easier to be the Obstructionist Party than the Majority Party. (As the saying goes, “There’s a thousand ways to kill a bill but only one way to pass it.”) This rewards Obstructionists by giving the boot to the Majority encourages the system and creates a vicious cycle. So while Democrats and Republicans alternate between being the try-and-fail-to-get-stuff-done-majority and the do-everything-to-stop-anything-from-happening-minority, the country will continue to suffer as our biggest problems (health care reform, social security sustainability, preventing climate change, the continued threat of terrorism, debt and deficit troubles, innovating in an increasingly globalized world, reducing our dependence on fossil fuels, the lack of a playoff system for college football, the continued collapse of the auto-industry, immigration reform . . . you get the idea, things are bad) go unaddressed by the government whose obligation is to improve the well-being of the people.

What is the solution? We need to take a stand against Obstructionism, and demand that this system cease to corrupt the culture of Washington. Obstructionism will only end if we show both Democrats and Republicans that the Minority Party cannot win the next election just by bringing government to a standstill. So in the next election, instead of keeping the majority in if they lived up to their promises and kicking them out if they didn’t get enough done, let’s look to both parties. Let’s compare the majority and the minority; ask who has the best ideas, who has the best plans, who best presents a vision for the future. More than anything, let’s require that our leaders attempt positive action rather than obstruction, and demand nothing less than their most full and honest effort to make America better each and every day.

Jake Laperruque can be contacted at editor [at] wupr.org

Ever since its inception, the filibuster has been the subject of criticism and concern. However, despite concerns that the bill-blocking tactic is a simple manipulation of procedure, most had viewed the filibuster as a consensus building tool in the spirit of our governments founding. (Remember all that cool stuff about separation of powers and checks and balances that we learned in fourth grade?). But in the aftermath of the health care debate, the filibuster has come under attack by a wide range of commentators, notably Paul Krugman of the New York Times and Ezra Klein of the Washington Post. The focus of these critiques is that the health care bill highlights the damaging nature of the filibuster; senators can hold legislation hostage and prevent any government action. According to these critics, by requiring 60 votes to close debate (and in doing so essentially requiring 60 votes to pass a bill), the filibuster raises the required level of support to an unnatural, virtually unobtainable level. To bolster their argument, the anti-filibuster advocates point to the fact that the Democrats hold the largest majority either Party has possessed in decades, yet because of the filibuster the vast majority of their legislative priorities are held in stasis. If this procedural rule inhibits government from taking action and serving the people, then it needs to be eliminated.

However, there are reasonable rebuttals to this argument. As previously stated, the filibuster acts in agreement with the basic principles of American government. The structure of our government was created to prevent hasty action and easy access to excessive power. The filibuster acts as a check, ensuring that any Senate majority cannot shove throw whatever legislation it wants without consulting the minority, examining public opinion, or even considering the ramifications of their actions. Similarly, the filibuster acts as a consensus building mechanism; by requiring 60 votes to close debate, the filibuster requires that the majority work with the minority, and craft a bill that takes a variety of viewpoints into consideration. With this wide range of opinions, isn’t the best result most likely to emerge?

The problem with this defense of the filibuster is that it presumes that both the majority and the minority are interested in taking action, even if their vision of what policies we should enact differ. Currently, however, the strategy of the minority party is simply to obstruct as much as possible, and prevent anything from happening. While this has been a tactic used by both Democrats and Republicans since the Speakership of Newt Gingrich, it has occurred to an absurd degree in the last year. Not only has this caused increased tensions in the Senate, it has also turned the filibuster into a tool for abuse rather than consensus building. While 50 years ago the filibuster was only used on 8% of legislation, this decade it is employed 70% of the time (which again shows that this is a problem caused by both parties). The filibuster could be an excellent means of achieving moderation and pushing legislators to find common ground. But when the main goal of lawmakers becomes trying to prevent the government from doing anything, the filibuster is too strong a tool of obstruction. That is the culture of Washington now, and that means the 60-vote filibuster must be brought to an end.

However, to entirely eliminate the filibuster would be a poor choice. While the current model does not work, removing all extra burdens to the passage of legislation goes too far, and would likely lead to radical policy shifts with each successive election. As appalled as outspoken liberals such as Krugman and Klein are by the current procedural structure of the Senate, they would likely be even more irked if the Republicans could have passed whatever they wanted back when they had a razor-thin 51-49 majority earlier in the decade. The best solution is to find a middle ground; the filibuster should not be eliminated, but rather weakened so that it can continue to require consensus without being an easy method of obstructing all legislation. If, for example, a 55 vote majority were required to close debate, then it would still require consensus beyond a simple majority and foster compromise, but would allow the Senate to function without obstructionists holding a trump card that can be used on every piece of legislation the body sees.

Finally, while the filibuster does appear to be in need of reform, there is a greater point to take from this issue. We can improve efficiency in Washington and make government more effective, but so long as obstruction is the best strategy for the minority party, we will never have a truly effective government. Our lawmakers need to move past this culture of obstruction, and if they cannot the voters need to go to show them we will no longer accept it. Perhaps it is time we did not simply look to results, but also to effort. I’ll discuss this topic and how we can affect this flawed obstructionist culture in my next online column.

Jake Laperruque can be contacted at editor [at] wupr.org

News networks obsess over elections. E-Day, Super Tuesday, Decision Day, Countdown to November, Countdown to the Primary, Countdown to February 5^th, Countdown to Whatever. Why the fixation? Because elections are fun. They’re a competition. It’s CNN’s chance to act like ESPN; they get to guess and predict, they get to declare a winner and a loser, and they get a big scoreboard to play with.

So when the polls closed last Tuesday and Election ’09 came to a close, you could barely say “projection” before the news networks began setting their sights on Elections 2010 and 2012. The big question: What does this mean for President Obama?

When the results were finalized and Republicans Bob McDonnell and Chris Christie had a nice, big checkmark next to their names, the appropriate spin story was obvious: "The elections were a referendum against the Obama agenda, and Obama and the Democrats now face an uphill elections battle."

But just how seriously should this assertion be taken? Not very. As much as the pundits and pols enjoyed spending the night assessing on election implications (Will this sink the health care bill? Are the Democrats definitely going to lose their majorities in 2010 an 2012? Does this mean Obama is unlikely to win re-election in 2012?), their speculations and assertions hold little value. Exit polls - including the ones from the networks that advanced the electoral-implication story – all reflected that the vast majority of voters did not cast a ballot based on their opinion of President Obama and his agenda; they voted for and against the people who were actually on the ballot.

However, although most of the analysis of what Election ’09 means for the Democrats and President Obama can be viewed as news-network-hyperbole, some there are some true implications. In 2008, strong turnout and support among young voters and African-Americans was a major aid to then-Senator Obama and Democrats as a whole. In 2009, without Obama at the top of the ballot, these groups did not go to the polls in such high numbers. In 2010 Democratic members of Congress who were elected in 2008 with the support of these groups will face a tougher challenge drawing them out to the polls without Obama. The President and campaign-extraordinaire can come out to support these candidates, headlining fundraisers, speeches, and events. However, the 2009 election reflected the limits of this; Obama campaigned heavily for Corzine in New Jersey, but it did not have the needed impact of turning Democrats out on Election Day. So while Election ’09 did not reflect a national opinion of the job the President and the Democrats have been doing or the policies they support, it does show that the lack of Obama on the ballot could make 2010 a difficult election year for Democrats.





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