Posted by
Patrick Henry on Sunday, September 12, 2010 4:41:31 PM
It's a familiar, if troubling scenario. He comes home weary from a long, frustrating
day at the office, only to be greeted by her with a list of urgent chores. He can't find
his favorite jeans, and that comfortable sweatshirt has gone mysteriously missing.
Hastily exiting the bedroom, he slams the door on his finger, curses, then turns and
kicks the cat who goes flying under (or over) the sofa. Sound familiar?
A knockdown analysis of this familiar behavior suggests it is a malicious act
not caused by any action of the cat and reflecting both impotence and loss of
self-control by the iniatiator. It tells us nothing about the cat beyond what we
could have deduced from his offended yowl. But it tells us loads about the kicker.
Barack Obama and the Democratic party have embarked, this week, upon a
veritable frenzy of "cat-kicking." Belaguered by polls which show their public
approval tanking, policies that voters are convinced aren't working, an economy
that would lose races with molasses in January and the nuisance of mid-term
elections, they have lashed out at "the cat." His name is John Boehner.
What? Never heard of him? He is the ten term representative from Ohio's
8th district, elected by his peers as minority leader in the House of Representatives.
He seldom speaks publicly unless provoked, shows no inclination to run for
higher political office and is, in short, somewhat boring. A graduate of Xavier
University, Boehner took a job as a salesman and eventually became the president
of his company. This suggests that he has a grasp of the business community and
some personal "snap." Some believe that should the Republicans gain control
of the House in the upcoming elections, Boehner will be Speaker, although that
is by no means a foregone conclusion. So why the attacks on Boehner?
It is from the oldest page in the Democrats' playbook. Isolate, personalize,
polarize and demonize. If the Democrats can take all of their own frustrations
and failures, combine them with every bad thing they believe Republicans ever
did, impute them all to some poor individual who makes a ripe target then, they
think, they can run a campaign. When you can't campaign on your own
accomplishments -- and 2010 Democrats certainly can't -- then all you're left
with is desperate-sounding rants and personal attacks designed to vilify someone
identified with your opponent. Boehner is the poor volunteer sitting on the trigger
board above the dunk tank.
Unfortunately for Obama and the Democrats, they have made three fatal
miscalculations. First, Boehner makes a lousy punching bag. What Dems need
is someone who fits the truly evil caricature (in their eyes), someone like George
W. Bush. In Obama's Cleveland speech he made one clumsy attempt after the
other to identify Boehner with Bush, until by the end of the partisan rabble-
rousing that sought to pass itself off as a speech on the economy, many were
convinced that Obama himself actually thought Boehner was Bush. But Boehner
has the wrong profile, the typical American profile, no record of corruption or
going against the will of the people, no obvious public gaffes, nothing beyond
Obama's politically motivated accusations that would cause voters to identify
him as a villain or as in any way responsible for the country's current plight.
This strategy is even a step less effective than continually blaming Bush for every
problem, which polls already show has worn out its welcome.
Second, Boehner isn't Obama's enemy. The truth is. The economy is stalled,
the Porkulus did not work, unemployment remains well above where Obama
himself promised it would peak with little hope in sight, credit is tight, mortgages
are failing, businesses won't invest amid tax uncertainties and regulatory night-
mares, his vaunted healthcare reform is widely hated, and he is responsible.
He can kick Boehner all he wants, and there may be a dimwit or two who will
bite, but most people know intuitively that this arrogant, academic pretender of
a president has no answers to the problems plaguing the nation.
Finally, Obama and Democrats run the risk that going negative against a virtual
non-entity will backfire, causing the public to think through where fault and
responsibility really lie, and become even more entrenched in rejection and
anti-incumbency. They also run the risk of angering Boehner and the rest of the
Republican leadership, in which case they will be stone throwers who live in
glass houses. It is Obama and the Democrats who rammed through the health-
care overhaul disregarding public opinion and without a single Republican vote.
It is they who blew a trillion dollars on a worthless stimulus package to drive
an already sinking nation deeper into debt. And it is they who continue unabated
on binge spending and out-of-control taxation. Who do they think they're fooling?
For politicians who pride themselves in being the "intellectual elite," the Boehner
bashing is a flawed strategy that can only be seen as desperate, delusional and utterly
impotent. They already stood to get some serious cracks in their crystal palace of
absolute power. They may repulse voters, paricularly Independents, enough that
they end up standing in the shards of its rubble. Kicking the cat is really, really
dumb!