I agree to a point about Obama’s negotiating. He does offer what he thinks is a compromise at the start. Republicans counter with “it’s not 100% of what I want, fuck you!”. Obama offers a bit more, Republicans come back with “Eat shit, it’s not 150% of what I want!” This goes back to Republicans agreeing on Inauguration Day 2009 that they would never work with Obama on any issue whatsoever.
What the Republicans wanted was for Obama to fail. Period. Stated openly on Day 1 of his presidency and adhered to even when it meant filibustering their own bills and blocking their own nominations. They made it abundantly clear that there was no chance of working with them and then (like you) blamed Obama for it, in the same way that they blamed Obama for being “divisive” when what made him “divisive” in their eyes was the mere fact that he was President instead of their guy.
So let’s stop pretending that there was anything Obama could have brought to the table that would have satified the Republicans short of total capitulation.
No, actually there are rarely any second offers. Often you’ll see Democratic Senators or Joe Biden getting involved after the initial failure. Then we run into the other problem, which is the Republicans’ fault: it’s not that they don’t want to deal, it’s that no one speaks for the majority of the conference.
Paul Ryan is pretty much demanding that if he’s speaker that he’ll speak for the vast majority of the conference, so if that works out the next President will find a better partner than Boehner was(not that this was his fault, he just didn’t have the leverage Ryan does).
That’s the usual argument, but putting more emphasis on one statement by Mitch McConnell isn’t really valid when you look at what actually happened over the next few years. There were negotiations, some of them were actually successful(mainly due to Democrats not named Obama), and when Democrats did have to go it alone it’s because the President put an offer on the table that was already his last offer and told them he could go no further. It’s like calling shopping at a mall a “negotiation” because the stores already assumedly are giving you their best price. And yet you still walk away if you don’t like the deals.
Now that Biden has dropped out the big question is how much he will throw support behind the frontrunner before and during the convention.
I think most likely he will be a good democrat and give his support. But while shaking hands and giving hugs you will see an odd look in his eye that he is not totally behind it.
Thats politics.
So–which specific negotiations do you mean?
(Hey, I’m playing along with your digression, since Your Democratic Choice proved you wrong again.)
The stimulus. That poisoned the well from the start. The President loaded it with tax cuts that he thought Republicans would support, the Republicans resented being told what they wanted, and there were never any serious negotiations about the stimulus.
I like how “Things the Republican leadership actually openly said” aren’t germane but adaher’s Amazing Obama Mindreading Act is.
(Bolding, mine)
Of course! The newly elected president puts a stimulus together with a ideas from the other side, and this leads to resentment.
Resentment that must have “poisoned the well” from then on.
Why oh why didn’t he offer a stimulus with no mixture of conservative and liberal ideas, knowing that trying to put a good-faith proposal together will only anger the other party. Classic arrogance.
When you say what your concessions will be before negotiations start and refuse any more or different concessions, then no negotiation has actually taken place.
It may not be a great negotiating tactic, but if Republicans reject good compromises because of tactics, then they’re the ones who are choosing to reject compromise, not the one who actually offers compromise.
There’s no compromise if you dictated what the compromise will be. Now I’m not saying the Republicans aren’t also at fault. Just that Obama was probably the worst negotiator to ever become President and that Biden and Clinton are a LOT better in this regard and either one would have seen more success as President in terms of getting bipartisan legislation passed. Biden’s negotiation of the debt ceiling deal is a case in point. Biden, McConnell, Cantor, and Ryan sat in a room with Biden and got 90% of the deal done pretty easily with professionalism. Then they’d go to Obama and he’d just speechify and say what he COULDN’T do rather than what he could. In the end, the final deal was pretty much done without his input at all except for one key part: the sequester, which Obama then claimed wasn’t his idea even though it was. So yeah, just uniquely bad at that part of the job.
I don’t buy this, at least not necessarily. If I know you’re going to offer 8, and I really want 10, it’s still reasonable, and still a compromise, if I say “I’m offering 9 – let’s just skip all the back-and-forth and we’ll both say yes and go home!”. You don’t have to say “yes”, but if you reject it simply because you don’t like that tactic, then you’re the one rejecting compromise, not me.
It’s insulting because he’s telling our side what we want when we want something else. Preemptive concessions are stupid because you look weak and you insult your negotiating partners at the same time.
If Obama wanted to do it right, he would have said, “Hey, we’re doing a stimulus. What kinds of things do you want in there?”
The Democrats had the votes, so they just steamrolled the Republicans. That’s fine, but it has consequences. Instead of coming to office in a spirit of bipartisanship, he right away went for just steamrolling the minority. That damaged his Presidency a lot more than Republican bad intentions.
Then there’s the other thing I’ve mentioned many times, how he insults the opposition a lot more than most Presidents do. Most Presidents leave that to allies. He does it personally, which pisses off Republicans, but more importantly, means they stop taking him seriously. If you read Bob Woodward’s books on the Obama Presidency, a common theme is simply Republicans’ disdain for him. It’s not hate as it was with Clinton, it’s not whining about being steamrolled as it was with LBJ, they just think he’s in over his head. He’s never actually ready to negotiate, often he doesn’t even have a written proposal for them. And let’s not forget that Obama was willing to turn that same unPresidential demeanor on Democrats when they questioned his Iran deal and we’ll see more of that attitude when TPP comes up for a vote.
And if the Republicans wanted to do it right, they would have said something other than “Fuck off, we only want you to fail and lose”.
Except they never said that in the President’s presence. Which is why calling that comment the whole reason for what happened over the following years is just seeking excuses for his failures. Why did Biden succeed where Obama failed. Did Republicans have a secret plan to make the Biden Vice Presidency successful?
So what?
So what they actually did say was pretty normal negotiating terms. And deals were made, which indicates that they did not plan to make him fail.
Concessions were made, and then they voted No anyway. That isn’t a negotiation.
Their public statements were lies, then?
He forgot to turn on the sunlamp? :dubious: