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Obama Not That Concerned with Keeping the Arkansas Senate Seat

By: Leon H. Wolf (Diary)  |  February 24th, 2010 at 12:00 PM  | 

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One might think that Barack Obama needs every vote he could possibly get if he hopes to cram a massively unpopular health care bill through the reconciliation process in a shaky and gunshy Senate.  So when Blanche Lincoln – who faces a tough but not impossible re-election fight in Arkansas – piped up and requested a little more moderation from the President, you might have expected Obama to at least sound conciliatory in his response.

Wrong.

If the price of certainty is essentially for us to adopt the exact same proposals that were in place for eight years leading up to the biggest economic crisis since the Great Depression … the result is going to be the same. I don’t know why we would expect a different outcome pursuing the exact same policy that got us into this fix in the first place.

…  And I don’t know why people would say, boy, we really want to make sure that those Democrats are in Washington fighting for us.

More below.

Chris Lane of the Washington Post notes a couple of remarkable things about Obama’s response.  First, Obama’s response was a first-round knockout of a world-class strawman.  Neither Lincoln nor any other elected Democrat wants anything to do with any of Bush’s economic policies.  Obama is just so habitually incapable of dealing with the actual arguments of his Republican opponents honestly that he appears completely unable to flip the switch and even deal with the actual arguments of those in his own party.

Second, his response did not even acknowledge that Lincoln might have a point, or even include a Clintonesque phony ”I feel your pain” acknowledgement that Obama is dragging sitting Democratic Senators to their electoral death.  I guess after having thrown so many people willingly under the bus of his own self-promotion, Obama has become accustomed to believing that people who have fought long and hard to get Senate seats will just lay down in front of the bus for him, just like so many short-term political appointees to his Administration.

I have a hunch it’s not going to play out that way.  Knowing Blanche Lincoln in particular the way I do, I think Obama’s arrogance is finally going to catch up to him among the one constituency he currently needs most.

COMMENTS

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  • swami7774

    …3 weeks ago.

  • kaysersb

    Wow…the quote cited in this post makes Obama sound like the crazed kamikaze pilot Joe Stack. His suicide/I Hate The World note stated that repeating the same process expecting a different outcome is the definition of insanity. Does that mean Obama is ideologically linked to Joe Stack or…worse….the Tea Party?!?!

  • owise1

    Obama/Reid/Pelosi are going to accomplish something that the Republicans could never have accomplished in their wildest dreams: the disenchantment of the majority of Americans with, and the eventual rejection of the FDR big government policies and programs. Pres. Obama’s determination to engineer the big government takeover of every aspect of the American life and economy, without any regard even for the more moderate members of his own Party, will ultimately have the opposite result as we are already seeing. Americans by the droves are rejecting his policies/programs. Moderate Democrats see it, but they have fed the beast for so long that now they find themselves unable to kill it, and the beast is now prepared to turn on them.

  • charlienj

    Probably the biggest reason that Obama doesn’t care about keeping Blanche Lincoln in that seat is because she’s constantly voting with the minority and blocking Obama’s policy agenda. If she’s gone, then what votes does he actually lose?

  • caboose

    turns ole Blanche out in November.

  • archer52

    Owise states that the leftists will so poison the populace that they will be able to do something Republicans can’t- turn the people against big government.

    I’m afraid I disagree in part. By all accounts, most people are sheep. As long as they can work, eat, raise families and such, they usually go along to get along. For example, how else do you explain the people allowing the liberal progressive infection that courses through the schools where their beloved children are taught?

    They may buck a little, but if they get used to the bit, they’ll trudge along like always. What makes the people revolt is fear, anger and hunger. I just finished a book on Mao’s Cultural Revolution and have referred to this a number of times here and at my website. What I learned from the very well researched book was two things.

    1. People will put up with a lot, even treachery and murder, if they have no other choice or are believers. 2. However, all people have an innate desire to be free, to think free, to live free. It is just they don’t have the will or courage to demand it. When Mao died, it was almost no time before the country rebelled spiritually and politically. He held them under his thumb and when he was gone they exploded against the rules he put in place. However, instead of demanding total freedom they soon slowed down and went back to their old comfortable ways. It will take that nation another twenty years, if ever, to realize total individual freedom, which is about the same time it will take for us to realize we are slaves.

    An odd way to end up if you ask me.

  • Menlo

    If he means spending more of our money, it would seem to me that’s exactly what he is pushing to do. They’ve tried spending their way out of every problem that exists and even more out of ones that don’t exist.

    By that measure, they are the ones who want to keep doing the same thing.

  • larryp

    this guy Obama has been taught well. In the abusive relationship ,whether alcohol or other, the target will defend and draw closer to the perpetrator when someone criticizes him or her. Same thing here, Obie is always sticking it to the people that support him. and he goes after them and they draw closer and closer in response.
    It is the way the psych cycle works.and Obama is a master of it.

  • Banjo

    Blanche Lincoln cast the vote that allowed ObamaCare to leave the station.

  • ramcclain

    As one who divides my time between Memphis and Arkansas, I can say with certainty that Blanche needs to go. It is past time. She does not always vote with the minority, but rather the way the wind will blow to favor her. When she is in trouble, she moves to the center; after trouble gone, or reelection, she is back to the Left, voting with her cronies. She does not represent her constituents, or the majority of them.

    She is from East Arkansas, and one of the poorer towns/counties now, which like much of E. Ark., has lots of voters on entitlements, with the numbers growing. In the past she has had the farmers supporting her ($$$), but now even those in my area are fed up with her and say they will not vote for her again.

    The big question is can the Republicans get/stay organized enough to beat her? I hope so. She is a disaster.

  • voxoreason

    According to Ann Coulter, under Bill Clinton, when the big investment banks made risky bets and won, they made fortunes. When they lost the bets, the American taxpayers paid off the losses. Bill Clinton avoided republican interference by giving Mexico a $20 billion line of credit to pay off their debts.

    Ms Coulter has her detractors, but I would trust her more than any on the left. Plus, with the material she’s got to work with, why bother to prevaricate?

    Joy Behar on Tim Tebow re the Superbowl pro-life ad: ?The only argument against any of it is, that, you know, he could just as easily become some kind of a rapist pedophile. I mean, you don?t know what someone?s going to be.”

    Yeah, perhaps a nut job lib such as Joy Behar. Liberals say the darn’dest things.