reBlog from yieldtopedestrian.com: Political Strategy in Hardball Mode
Click on a quote to select it...
I generally stay out of political commentary on this blog, primarily because I believe that all politics are – in the end – personal – and to bash one politician or another is implicitly insulting someone you know, someone you work with, someone you love. Discussing a policy or a specific approach is okay, but most people do not want to really discuss anything, but use discussion as a preface to attack. Considering how made up people’s minds are, or how opted out they are of the discussion altogether, I never see the point in adding to all of that.
Political strategy, on the other hand, I can’t resist. I love it. Setting aside the judgement of whether or not I think a certain policy is wise or foolish, I find the way in which those policies are deployed, marketed, defended, and executed endlessly interesting.
With that distinction made, let me now say: wow – these past three weeks have seen some fantastic “look at the hand” strategy in action. There are several problems with the President’s health care plan’s *deployment* (I am not judging the plan here – just the strategy) and things are rapidly falling apart for them. Separately, the White House has held off for almost eight months on any investigations or recriminations into the previous Administration, mainly because it is a Pandora’s box to go that route (what will the next Administration prosecute in this one?). In fact, the time had almost passed where they could feasibly do much just in terms of logistics and statute of limitations).
And yet… just when the healthcare plan started to fray… when the economic “recovery” numbers coming out of the second quarter made clear that the road back will take about six to seven years and be a long, slow haul… Boom! Special prosecutors, investigations, and the prospect of trials a la Law and Order. The White House has a lot of bad news they are trying to keep afloat (again – not judging from where the bad news comes – just noting that it is in their lap), and this was a hard ball, come on double eights effort to keep it up.
What always *amazes* me, however, is that for all the conspiracy theories out there, for all the mainstream media’s focus on “gotcha” journalism, no one ever talks about this stuff. It is almost as if they think this kind of political strategy is dead. And this is the most interesting part!
Well, almost – the most interesting part is to see what doesn’t fly, and where it lands. Stay tuned for a fascinating f(F)all… (I can never resist a triple pun).
