Monday, April 26, 2010

POLITICS - ...of Wall Street Reform

"Friday Talking Points -- Republicans Chicken Out" by Chris Weigant, Huffington Post 4/23/2010

Excerpt

Democrats had a pretty good week last week. As attention shifts away from unpronounceable volcanoes (more on them in a moment) to the struggle in the Senate over Wall Street reform, the two parties almost seem to have changed their normal methods of playing the political game. The Republicans are all over the map on the issue, and extremely worried about the impression by angry voters that they are doing Wall Street's bidding -- as well they should be. Republicans are, one day, loudly denouncing the reform bill, using their standard Big Lie technique... and then, the next day, saying a deal is very close, and even voting for strong reform in committees. Republicans (some of them, at least) are chickening out of the upcoming partisan battle the Republican leadership seems to want over the issue (more on chickens later on, too). Democrats have, so far, managed both to admirably stay on message and showed an amazing amount of backbone in countering specious Republican arguments. And, so far, polls show the voters are solidly on the Democrats' side on this one, and just not buying what Republicans are telling them. As I said, we seem to have entered BackwardsLand, or something.

What I think is happening in the Republican camp is that they woke up this week to the fact that they are truly painting themselves into a corner. Imagine yourself literally painting a floor, backing your way into a corner while the rest of the room glistens with fresh paint. At some point, you are going to raise your head, look around, and realize what a stupid mistake you've just made. I believe the Republicans just passed that point in time.

Bold emphasis mine

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