I have officially run out of alternative ways to express the concept that irony is dead, so I will simply say: “Irony is dead:”

Beginning Sunday, the White House will harness every part of the Democratic Party’s machinery to defend President Obama’s budget and portray Republicans as reflexively political, according to party strategists.

A participant in the planning meetings described the push as a successor to Democrats’ message that Rush Limbaugh is the Republican Party leader. “We have exhausted the use of Rush as an attention-getter,” the official said.

David Plouffe, manager of Obama’s presidential race, helped design the strategy, which includes the most extensive activation since November of the campaign’s grassroots network. The database—which includes information for at least 10 million donors, supporters and volunteers—will now be used as a unique tool for governing, with former canvassers now being enlisted to mobilize support for the president’s legislative agenda.

(Via Hot Air Headlines)

And this is why you don’t run candidates as if they were demigods come down to earth. You end up being critically short of people who aren’t afraid to tell you when you’re singing off-key.

Let me sum up the President’s plan, here:

1. Spam every person who ever signed up for Obama’s email/cell phone list with a barrage of requests to go out and convince other people that what the country really needs right now is to keep passing the Democrats’ collective wish lists.
2. -
3. Profit!

That’s pretty much it.  Sure, there’s going to be a bunch of television ads and talking heads, but the heart of this particular campaign is going to be the email database.  Unfortunately, they’re probably not going to be asking for money – the transition team was annoying people Left and… Left, really; the Right just found it hysterical – just for people’s time, energy, eloquence, and dedication to a project that will double the national debt over the next ten years.  I’m sure that the other 9,999,999 people in that database (I just wanted to know what the campaign was up to on any given day) are going to be absolutely ecstatic to participate in that project. Particularly when it comes to hosting little deficit-justification parties; nothing screams “Saturday afternoon” like “a meeting to explain why your unborn kids need to go into debt.”

All justified mockery aside, if you look at the plan itself (and not just my sneers at it) you’ll see that it’s a very speculative sort of effort. It could counter attacks on the budget and the agenda. It might keep the Blue Dogs from voting their class interests. It may make Republicans look like they’re playing politics. As to that last bit, if Boehner Communications Director Kevin Smith’s pithy response:

“If I had to defend the president’s budget—which is being eviscerated by both parties because it spends too much, taxes too much, and borrows too much—I’d probably waste time on fictitious claims like this, too.”

…is playing politics, then we’re ready to play, too. Because what the Democrats don’t want to reveal in all of this is that they don’t need the GOP to pass any of their legislation. They own the government. It’s theirs. Success and failure is all theirs to hold. This is the goal that they’ve spent most of the last eight years trying to reach. And now that they have?

They’re scared.

Moe Lane

PS: The Republican Party doesn’t do fear, sorry. Our vices lie elsewhere.

Crossposted to Moe Lane.