House of Representatives Speaker, John Boehner seems to be quite an amiable fellow (and certainly sensitive, judging from his frequent tears). He also has a hell of a job with the lunatic fringe comprising 1 in 3 of his caucus. This makes his task of leading his party and the House through a legislative program very difficult. House Democrat Leader, Nancy Pelosi’s got it easy by comparison… Her liberal wing (the left of the party, Jay Rockefeller, Barbara Boxer etc) is only 1 in 10.

Speaker Boehner can’t get anything reasonable through his present caucus with such a large chunk of his members (Tea Party and fanatical Ron Paul-like libertarians) locked into uncompromising, fantasy positions that prevent him reaching any compromise with President Obama and/or Congressional Democrats.

It must have been humiliating for Boehner to handball the new year ‘Fiscal Cliff’ temporary fix to Senate Democrat Majority Leader, Harry Reid and Republican Minority Leader, Mitch McConnell, knowing that his only chance of getting a deal was a tacit alliance between a small rump of Republicans and the overwhelming majority of Democrats when the fix came back to the House from the Senate.
Unfortunatley for him, this inability to make deals and legislate, renders his hold on the Speakership pretty shaky.

The parties (in particular the GOP) are now so entrenched in their own version of the Battle of Flanders, that even a Christmas Truce would be impossible because anyone venturing out of the trench with a hint of Christmas goodwill towards the enemy would be cut down with a hail of bullets from his own side (Tea Party Primaries and the enemy of reasonable, Grover Norquist).

So, I can’t see any ‘big deals’ being done between President Obama and the Congressional G.O.P., in the near future, unless it’s done by Boehner using the deflection device to the Senate, outlined above.

I think that’s one of the main reasons why Obama has adopted the long-term ‘Theodore Roosevelt’ strategy of taking his message out on the road and through ‘Oganizing for Action’ (which is still filling my in-box) instead of going the traditional ‘Lyndon Johnson’ legislative route. I think Obama knows that the possibility of doing ‘Johnson’ type deals in this Congress is nill. Instead, Obama is hoping to discredit the Tea Party and Norquist from outside, by slowly changing the current ‘Deficit Hawk’ media narrative and moving the conversation back to the middle and away from the current ‘slash government spending and burn the economy’ political orthodoxy that seems prevalent in the USA (and which has resulted in a triple-dip recession in one country where it was unleashed, the UK under Cameron). It was this continuing campaign strategy that President Theodore Roosevelt adopted, at the turn of the last century, to fundamentally change the way Americans saw corporate regulation and the promotion of the interests of the average citizen instead of powerful political and wealthy elites.

Encouragingly, talk of the need for investment in the future (education, R&D, infrastructure etc) coupled with revenue increases – eliminating some industry subsidies (corn, oil etc), closing some tax  loop-holes for the rich, and means-testing safety net welfare for the wealthy (Social Security and Medicare payments) – and long-term deficit reduction (instead of the Sequester’s ‘Shock and Awe’), is already beginning to gain traction.

That the Sequester is a very blunt, indiscriminate instrument that is going to cause a shock to the US and World Economy, is almost beyond question. And, In the short term, there’s not much that can be hoped to wind it back. Obama’s strategy of continuing the ‘fairness’ tour campaigning, banging on about Republican’s protecting generous tax loop-holes for the rich while demanding cuts in programs benefiting the poor and middle-class, might just provide enough media cover to force a narrative change.

So, although a chorus of commentators, including the New York Times’ David Brooks, are urging Obama to quit his campaigning and get back to deal-making and governing, I think Obama is doing precisely what he needs to do to win the long game. He’s not thinking of the next 10 minutes (like Congress, commentators and the media), he’s thinking of the next 10 years and a possible seachange in America. I hope he succeeds.

Gee that boy can prattle on…. Enough!

Check out Nobel Economics Prize-winner, Paul Krugman’s New York Times Column and his piece on the Sequester:
• Sequester of Fools by Paul Krugman
(NYT, 22 Feb. 2013)

For the geeks:
* Although Theodore Roosevelt was a successful president, his long-term legacy was tarnished by his successors who ensured he was the last of the progressive Republican Presidents. From Taft on, the GOP became the ‘cut government’ conservative party of the rich and powerful and the hitherto generally conservative Democrats became the progressive party under the presidency of the husband of Theodore Roosevelt’s niece, Eleanor Roosevelt.
* Yes indeed folks, Franklin Roosevelt was a distant cousin of Eleanor, niece of President Theodore Roosevelt, who in 1918 launched her career as the most powerful political spouse in American History, before or since, with the possible exception of Edith Wilson, who in late 1919 effectively and secretly assumed the Presidency after Woodrow’s catastrophic stroke.

Is there any hope that Congress can get anything done on issues like immigration, gun slaughter, the budget, the sequester?

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