The Light Or The Shadow

Me, six days ago on the GOP:

Let's stop and consider this plan. They have decided that the best way for the GOP to regain their political power is to hope that millions of Americans lose their jobs, their homes, and their livelihoods just so they can blame it on Obama.

Think about that. This means in fact the Republicans are basically convinced that the economy is going to fail so badly that they believe that the risk involved in this bald-faced partisan attempt to sink the President's measure and any hope of rehabilitating the economy is less than the risk of voting for the President's measure.

Josh Marshall, today:

Of course, at some level, why would Republicans be trying to drive the country off a cliff? Well, not pretty to say, but they see it in their political interests. Yes, the DeMints and Coburns just don't believe in government at all or have genuinely held if crankish economic views. But a successful Stimulus Bill would be devastating politically for the Republican party. And they know it. If the GOP successfully bottles this up or kills it with a death of a thousand cuts, Democrats will have a good argument amongst themselves that Republicans were responsible for creating the carnage that followed. But the satisfaction will have to be amongst themselves since as a political matter it will be irrelevant. The public will be entirely within its rights to blame Democrats for any failure of government action that happened while Democrats held the White House and sizable majorities in both houses of Congress.

More and more people are coming to a similar conclusion. As Josh says, the GOP cannot allow the stimulus bill to work. If he's successful, Obama saving the economy FDR style will end the GOP as we know it. The GOP is now fully committed to the failure of the stimulus and our economy. It is a harsh and disturbing reality, but I cannot see any other explanation.

Only by making the case directly to the American people can Obama get a stimulus that has any chance of working. Once again, the Democrats are allowing the Republicans to frame the dimensions of the argument. The Village is completely on board with the PR effort. Obama is getting rolled, and the result will be a multi-year depression. The only chance he has to stop it is to make it painfully clear that without it, we're back in 1931.

Think about it. The two outcomes facing the GOP right now at this moment are a stimulus bill that works and enshrines Obama as one of the greatest Presidents ever...or it fails, we spiral into a full-blown depression, and he goes down as one of the worst.

As a Republican on the Hill, which option would YOU choose, the light or the shadow? The fact that every single Republican in the House voted against the bill should clue you in.