Tuesday, February 02, 2010

The Obama Effect

It seems that all it takes to make Republicans change their position is for Obama to come out in support of it. Yesterday Rachel Maddow gave a nice list.

- Bipartisan Fiscal Commission: orginally supported by Sam Brownback, Mike Crapo, John Ensign, Kay Bailey Hutchison, James Inhofe, and John McCain. All voted against it after Obama supported it.
- Pay-as-you-go: John McCain, George Voinovich, Susan Collins and Olympia Snowe supported it until Obama, then no.
- Cap-and-trade: John McCain and Lindsey Graham, yes then no.
- trying terrorism suspects in federal courts: under Bush yes, under Obama no.
- cutting taxes for 95% of working families and small businesses: same story.

It appears that the political thwarting of Obama is more important to Republicans than policy. They are more concerned about who wins than governing well. Many of us had that figured out years ago. Then it was an inference from the way campaigns were run. Now it's right out there in the open. Voters will get what they deserve if they continue to allow themselves to be bamboozled by this behavior. And Democrats will likewise get what they deserve if they don't raise the alarm.

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