Many on our side have downplayed the debt ceiling victory. Ok, it was a modest victory. Cutting spending by 5% over 10 years is not the sort of promise a candidate could win with but as others see it the victory was much more. The Progressive Caucus, the citadel of big spending in the Democratic Party, is displaying a swelling of outrage and indignation the country hasn't seen since Pearl Harbor but they will be ok when the swelling goes down. Other pundits on both sides marvel at the victory, albeit in my opinion, a modest victory, strictly along tactical lines. House Republicans may not know Obama's twitter handle but the got his number. He really is their perfect foil. His rigid adherence to liberal values, values roundly rejected by an overwhelming majority, make him predictable and vulnerable. As he tries to compromise with political reality and a core base that touts a reductio ad absurdum of Keynesian economic theory as its dogma, he gets downright flaky. He reverses positions and while protesting he will never consent does consent. Then after consenting goes back to protesting. The Republicans display a united front and it goes beyond just appearance. The media has hyped the notion of a rambunctious freshmen class that threatens the long term well being of the party to the point of tedium. Only 22 freshman Republicans bucked Boehner on the final vote and there has been no personal animosity in a very trying episode of legislative accomplishment. Maureen Dowd sees it in more stark terms. The difference is between smart or dumb.
"Consider what the towel-snapping Tea Party crazies have already accomplished. They've changed the entire discussion. They've neutralized the White House. They've whipped their leadership into submission. They've taken taxes and revenues off the table. They've withered the stock and bond markets. They've made journalists speak to them as though they're John Calhoun and Alexander Hamilton.
Obama and [Speaker] John Boehner have been completely outplayed by the "hobbits," as The Wall Street Journal and John McCain called them.
What if this is all a cruel joke on us? What if the people who hate government are good at it and the people who love government are bad at it?"
Toby Young at the Telegraph : "If Obama ever was a socialist he isn't now."
Young is ecstatic over the Republican victory. Put in context with any reform that the Cameron government has been able to enact it is outstanding. Mr Young credits the Tea Party for the victory, but correctly I think, links it to a worldwide rejection of the welfare state.
"The same picture emerges wherever you look. In the European election in June, 2009, the Left took a hammering. In Germany, the Social Democrats polled just 20 per cent of the vote, their worst result since the Second World War. In France, the Socialist Party only mustered 16.5 per cent, its lowest share of the vote in a European election since 1994. In Italy, the Democrats polled 26.1 per cent, seven percentage points less than they received at the last Italian election. As David Miliband pointed out in a recent lecture: “Left parties are losing elections more comprehensively than ever before. They are fragmenting at just the time the Right is uniting. I don’t believe this is some kind of accident.”
Ok it wasn't a great victory. But everything has to start some place. Wars are won with victories both large and small.
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