The winning guess is the one that's closest to the actual price, so the strategy is to pick a price a penny or so below your competitor's choice, thereby blocking him or her out from benefiting from that entire range of possible lower answers.That's what the Republicans are doing to the President's stimulus (oops...I mean recovery) plan.
Expect the same strategy for anything else that comes out of the White House or Congress.They're betting that Obama has topped out, whether on aggregate cost of the programs, or with the multitude of vague expectations that come along with them. They're saying, in effect, it won't be what everyone wants it to be, and when it's anything less, it'll be the failure that the Republicans predicted.
The bet is that the President will lose, which will mean his opposition will have won. Just as the Republicans have taken absolutely no responsibility for causing the mess we're in, they're not stepping up to do anything to get us out of it. It's a brilliant strategy, even if its proscriptive merits amount to little more than a schoolyard taunt.
They've mobilized to chant "socialism" instead of participating in real debate, compromise, and action, happy instead to sit on the sidelines as the self-appointed watchdogs for the Democrats' spending of tax dollars the Republicans would rather see squandered in different ways. Again, it's smart politics, up to a point, as they'd get beat up in their home districts for even talking civilly to members of the other party, let alone having produced a result that wasn't in keeping with whatever narrow confusion (oops...I mean values) that put them in office.
If the government fails, they succeed?I've got to say that the Republicans' cold calculation is no worse than the Democrats' base instincts.The faux populism of punishing corporations, the insane number (and variety) of spending projects in the recovery plan, the griping about Iraq that defies the facts and reason...the Democrats couldn't work harder to ensure that they fail. They're all too happy to guess an incomprehensibly high price tag, almost in willful disregard for how the game is played.
So where's the branding message in all this? I think the challenge is for both parties to do a better job of defining success, and then labeling it: what programs (or expenditures) will yield how many jobs, improvement in lending rates, home foreclosures stopped, etc., by so-and-so dates.
Opposition, no matter how principled, is not the same as governance, even if it's smart tactical branding strategy. Conversely, controlling the debate within government is not the same thing as wisdom or foresight, even if the votes support it. Each party could pick the details it wants to support and encourage, and then live or die by them? Then again, maybe they just don't care. Talk about a stupid game show.
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