The Obamanation

[Lamplighter]

Grover Norquist controls the $ for all Republican re-election campaigns,
and for Republicans, re-election it is more important than anything.
His interview below has confirmed for me how the Republican hierarchy
views and actually intends to control the Presidency.

Thoughts about differences between Republican and Democratic presidents
first occurred to me when Ronald Regan slept through his term with a nice smile and movie-star personality.
George H.W.Bush was a single term President because he did not toe the Republican line on taxes.
But George W. Bush was exactly what the Republican hieracrchy wanted
... dumb but a "nice guy" who stayed in tow of Cheney and Rove.

Surprisingly, Norquist inadvertently complimented Obama, saying:

if Obama had “wanted to govern when he had 59 [or] 60 senators and
a solid majority in the House, that’s the time to have done whatever he thought was useful
and he did” a few of those things.
For instance, Norquist noted, the president pushed through Congress the health-care bill,
the Dodd-Frank banking bill, and the stimulus package.

Obama “did all those things,” Norquist said. “The things on his list of things to do, he did;
everything he talks about now is that which he didn’t do when he could have” done it,
given solid Democratic legislative majorities during the first two years of the Administration.

Charlottesville Libertarian Examiner
Richard Sincere
2/20/12

Grover Norquist surveys the 2012 political and legislative landscape

Grover Norquist, president of Americans for Tax Reform, is a prominent conservative activist.
He informally heads up what is known as the “Leave Us Alone Coalition” and
works behind the scenes to promote conservative ideas in government.<snip>

Norquist pointed out that Obama’s State of the Union Address in January
“was a list of things he says he wanted to do,” but, he said,
Obama “was president for two years with a Democratic House and a Democratic Senate
[and] he didn’t do any of those things.”

Rather than the State of the Union being “a list of things he considers high priorities,” it is,
Norquist explained, “a list of things he thinks it will be clever to talk about in his reelection campaign.
It’s not a list of things he actually wants to do” because otherwise “he would have done them.”<snip>

Looking forward to the presidential election, Norquist predicted that
the Republicans are going to nominate a candidate “whose job will be,
if he gets elected, to sign the bills that Boehner and McConnell send him.”<snip>

As a result of these political conditions, Norquist reiterated,
“we should have a Republican House and Senate in 2013.
The big fight now is [to] pick a Republican to get across the finish line
and all we need him to do is sign the bills.”

Norquist emphasized that regardless of the Republican presidential nominee,
if he wins the election, he will need the cooperation – and the leadership –
of Congress to get any of his initiatives passed into law.<snip>

Using blunt language, he said that
“what we need is a Republican president to do what Obama did:
get his butt elected and then sit there and look pretty and read the Teleprompter.”

[TheMercenary]

Good article, thanks for sharing. I do think Norquist lives in his own little world of understanding the process. I don't think Bush was that dumb and Obama certainly is not either.

Originally Posted by Lamplighter

Grover Norquist controls the $ for all Republican re-election campaigns,

You can't really believe that Lamp. That is a fantasy.

and for Republicans, re-election it is more important than anything.

Completely true for both parties. And it is going to get much worse before it ever gets better.

His interview below has confirmed for me how the Republican hierarchy
views and actually intends to control the Presidency.

Again, that is a stretch of the imagination.

[Lamplighter]

Gosh Merc, I thought you were more attuned to the machinations of GOP politics.

Here's a link back to when the Republicans were, according to John Boehner,
going to come to agreement on the July, 2011 debt ceiling bill,
which included the lapse of the Bush Tax Cuts.

The press interviewed Norquist about the Norquist/ATR pledge,
and how he would respond if someone voted to allow the Bush Tax Cuts to lapse.

That link includes the "official ATR position statement",
and a recording of the interview in which Norquist says he
"... would denounce him as a tax raiser and a bad guy"
Within hours, Republicans got the message.

Boehner's agreement floundered, and he was embarrassed
time and again by the GOP sheep changing direction
and reneging on Boehner's previous agreements.

[Lamplighter]

It's baaaaaack ! - If anyone but the 1% cares

The US Dow-Jones opened at a psychological level of 13,055 - best since mid-2007.

[Griff]

As someone who looks for pro-liberty positions in candidates I figured Obama'd be a lock for improving our drug laws. The GOP preaches family values but jails young black men like crazy making sure nuclear families don't develop. Well Obama is apparently just a little worse than Bush.

Back when he was running for president in 2008, Barack Obama insisted that medical marijuana was an issue best left to state and local governments. "I'm not going to be using Justice Department resources to try to circumvent state laws on this issue," he vowed, promising an end to the Bush administration's high-profile raids on providers of medical pot, which is legal in 16 states and the District of Columbia.
Nope.

[ZenGum]

Originally Posted by Lamplighter

It's baaaaaack ! - If anyone but the 1% cares

The US Dow-Jones opened at a psychological level of 13,055 - best since mid-2007.

Well, all that bail out and stimulus money had to go somewhere.

[Griff]

Word.

[Lamplighter]

Originally Posted by ZenGum

Well, all that bail out and stimulus money had to go somewhere.

Grump

I've heard the DJ index is a "6-month out predictor".
If so, this trend will not bode well for the GOB campaigns.

[SamIam]

The GOP campaigners do not bode well for the GOP campaigns.