Unlike for Clinton, Government shutdown may blow up for Obama...

[HardWorkingDem]

We all recall how Clinton received all the benefits from the government shutdown during his term, but I think with the current political climate it could possibly blow up in Obama's face.

For one thing, these right wingers seem to be able to get on any television show they want to nowadays and if this happens, I think there'd be a 24/7 blame-game heaped on Obama. For some reason these people seem to be like a stuck pig with all the wailing that they get away with.

Not only that, Dems just don't seem adept at getting their side out there right now.

It just seems that if this happens, Obama will receive the blame for it and not the Rethugs (which is even odder because all these people have been making ramblings about how they'll only compromise on their terms. How the hell is that "compromise"?).

[Uben]

1. Let SSI checks be a week late......

...and the whole USA would come down on republicans like flaming meteors! They won't do it. The tea naggers might do it, but not main stream republicans. They just use shit like that as a threat.

[Jim__]

2. But a threat may be all they need. The dems seem to fold fairly quickly. - n/t

[Odin2005]

6. if my SSI check is late I and a lot of other disabled folks WILL BE PISSED!!!

[HereSince1628]

9. But, they won't care, they see your "entitlement" as the problem.

:(

[provis99]

7. they will blame Obama for not giving in the Republican demands.

It's as simple as that.

[HereSince1628]

8. Let the payments on US treasury bonds not be made

and the economic crisis the teajadists cause will bring down governments all across the globe including ours.

It's actually within the capacity of their senators elect.

I don't know if any of them have any real sense of macroeconomics and how the US has financed the last 15-20 years. Even Bloomberg is scared shitless.

[Larkspur]

3. I'm no Clinton fan, but one of the main reasons Bill won that battle

was that he had good instincts on when and how to fight the RepubliCON-Artists. Obama is conflict adverse, so he's more likely to cave into Right wing pressure that fight it.

Could We Have Predicted What Happened Last Tuesday?

…the president's leadership style, which has now become clear: deliver a moving speech, move on, and when push comes to shove, leave it to others to decide what to do if there's a conflict, because if there's a conflict, he doesn't want to be anywhere near it…

Leadership means heading into the eye of the storm and bringing the vessel of state home safely, not going as far inland as you can because it's uncomfortable on the high seas. This president has a particular aversion to battling back gusting winds from his starboard side (the right, for the nautically challenged) and tends to give in to them. He just can't tolerate conflict, and the result is that he refuses to lead….

Obama, like so many Democrats in Congress, has fallen prey to the conventional Democratic strategic wisdom: that the way to win the center is to tack to the center.

But it doesn't work that way. You want to win the center? Emanate strength. Emanate conviction. Lead like you know where you're going (and hopefully know what you're talking about). People in the center will follow if you speak to their values, address their ambivalence (because by definition, on a wide range of issues, they're torn between the right and left), and act on what you believe. FDR did it. LBJ did it. Reagan did it. Even George W. Bush did it, although I wish he hadn't.

But you have to believe something. I don't honestly know what this president believes… if he doesn't figure it out soon, start enunciating it, and start fighting for it, …he's going to set back the Democratic Party and the progressive movement by decades, because the average American is coming to believe that what they're seeing right now is "liberalism," and they don't like what they see. I don't, either.

What they're seeing is weakness, waffling, and wandering through the wilderness without an ideological compass. That's a recipe for going nowhere fast…

This poor leadership trait is what makes me very disappointed in President Obama. I see a squandered Presidency because of his unwillingness rally his base and Middle class America to battle the economic royalists of today. Or as Weston says, “He's increasingly appearing to the public, and particularly to swing voters, like Dukakis without the administrative skill.”

[jobycom]

4. So much went into Clinton's manuever that people don't really realize.

It wasn't just that Clinton said "Veto!" and the Republicans blinked first. Clinton had prepared for it for months. First, he negotiated compromises with Gingrich, even cutting a lot of social spending so Americans could see him making an effort to work with the enemy. Americans saw Clinton as the reasonable one. Second, and much more important, Clinton worked Congress from the beginning. He found the weak spots in his party, shored them up with compromises and promises, and made sure that they found it to their benefit to be on his side. He listened to what they needed, instead of just telling them what he would give them. That way, the Democrats in Congress hung with him in strong enough numbers that he didn't have to worry about a veto.

The nation was just as conservative then, just as divided. Clinton was just a master at working the system, from his experience in Arkansas. A lot of the things he did that get the most complaints around here are exactly what it took to kill Gingrich's Neutron Bomb Budget.

Obama needs to get busy now. He needs to work Congress and start drafting a plan now. Last term, he was criticized by his own party in Congress when he would talk them into backing a politically risky bill, and then change his mind on it, leaving them looking like the bad guys. He has to be more careful not to do that, and he needs, most of all, to learn to work with people even when he doesn't agree with them. Some of that he's already brilliant at, some of it he needs to learn quickly. The ridiculous killer budget is coming, and he has to arm himself.

I wonder if he'd hire me as his adviser. I could just fix all his problems, you know. Maybe he should do away with a cabinet and advisers, and just ask DU when he has a question. :)

[Ozymanithrax]

5. During th Clinton Administratn there was 24/7 blame game.

Every media outlet was obcessed with hunting the President.

What hurt Republicans wsa that the voters out there realized when the government shut down that they weren't gong to get Social Security checks.

Republicans are gong to play the same game with the same media.

The difference is the economic climate and how it will be sold. But shutting the government down is still going to be hazadous. But to Republicans, politics is war, and casualties happen.