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The Democratic Strategist

Political Strategy for a Permanent Democratic Majority

Why Whining About Obama’s SOTU Initiatives Won’t Help GOP

Re MSM denial about the need for executive action, Greg Sargent says it well at The Plum Line:

Few pundits have been willing to reckon directly with the fundamentals of GOP obstructionism. A real reckoning would acknowledge that implacable GOP opposition to the Obama agenda, which began when the country was facing a dire, open-ended economic emergency, has for years been rooted in a combination of deliberate strategic choices and structural factors that have created a deeply unbalanced, unconventional situation. Commentators refuse to deal seriously with all of this — even though it is the actual cause of the very paralysis and dysfunction they regularly claim consternation about — and it will probably be absent from discussions of whether Obama’s planned executive actions are defensible

As for public opinion regarding Republican proclivities for bipartisan cooperation, Sargent explains:

…The new NBC/WSJ poll, for instance, finds that a majority of Americans, 51 percent, believe Republicans will be “too inflexible” with Obama, while only 25 percent say they have the balance right (one wonders about the faculties of the 17 percent who say Republicans have been “too quick to give in” to the president). By contrast, only 39 percent say Obama has been too inflexible with Republicans….Yesterday’s Pew poll found that by a huge margin of 52-27, Americans say Dems are more willing than Republicans to work with the opposition. While the GOP holds a narrow lead on the economy, it also found lopsided Dem advantages on which party is viewed as extreme and which party is more concerned with ordinary people — suggesting, again, awareness of the basic imbalance…Beyond all this, let’s remember that the minimum wage hike is popular – and Congressional Republicans aren’t.”

Republicans can whine all they want. But the public gets it, and it’s hard to see how the GOP’s complaining about popular — and much-needed — executive order is going to win them any swing voters in November.

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