Heilemann and O'Donnell: Obama Will Demonize Victorious Republicans Just Like Clinton Did
If the Republicans are victorious at the polls next Tuesday, President Obama will demonize them the same way Bill Clinton did after the 1994 midterm elections.
So said New York magazine's John Heilemann and NBC News's Norah O'Donnell on this weekend's "The Chris Matthews Show" (video follows with transcript and commentary):
NORAH O’DONNELL, NBC: Can you imagine if Obama did what Bill Clinton did in 1994 and 1995, got together with Gingrich on welfare reform, on a balanced budget, on tax cuts creating a lot of people thought were millions of new jobs by them coming together.
CHRIS MATTHEWS, HOST: Yeah.
O’DONNELL: Imagine if Obama did something like that model, that’s one of the…
MATTHEWS: One of the reasons he can’t do it is the Tea Party has an alternative out there, the counterpunch out there, is the, the left, the Netroots won’t go along with it.
HOWARD FINEMAN, HUFFINGTON POST: No, there used to be Blue Dogs, now there’s the Tea Party. That’s the balance in the middle that’s changed. It used to be a conser, there was a budgetary conservative middle of Democrats back in the 90's that Bill Clinton had built his presidency on, really. He was the pro-business, moderate Democrat.
MATTHEWS: Well, you cover the Hill, Norah, what happens?
O’DONNELL: I think you have gridlock. I think you have gridlock, and that it’s more of a Truman sort of model, and that President Obama then runs against sort of this obstructionist Republican Congress led by these evil men like Mitch McConnell and John Boehner.
MATTHEWS: That’s pretty depressing for the American people who want solutions, isn’t it?
JOHN HEILEMANN, NEW YORK MAGAZINE: I just people forget that there was another part of the Clinton strategy. Yes, he cooperated with Republicans on certain very big things, but the other part was he demonized them like crazy.
MATTHEWS: This does not look good. This is depressing.
HEILEMANN: He took advantage, he took advantage of Newt Gingrich's extremism to make Republicans look bad. Obama can play that part of the game possibly very effectively.
MATTHEWS: Anybody got any good news?
And the liberal media blame Republicans for the toxic political tone in the nation.
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Comments
O'Donnell: "President Obama
Submitted by Chris Norman on Sun, 10/31/2010 - 7:14pm.
O'Donnell: "President Obama then runs against sort of this obstructionist Republican Congress led by these evil men like..."
Uh, I think the voters, in their belated wisdom, want an "obstructionist Congress". They want Obama's radical policies and spending obstructed.
I think you give the "voters"
Submitted by Dan The Man 2 on Sun, 10/31/2010 - 9:00pm.
I think you give the "voters" too much wisdom.
Huh? If voters get rid of
Submitted by Chris Norman on Sun, 10/31/2010 - 10:41pm.
Huh? If voters get rid of many liberals in favor of conservatives, how is that not being wise, although, as I wrote, belatedy? To what would you credit this action? Or, are you just being a little too snarky tonight?
Any voters who vote out liberals---
Submitted by matthewdean on Mon, 11/01/2010 - 2:12am.
are intelligent voters.
Any voter who voted for "hope and change", meh.
MD
I am saying I don't give the
Submitted by Dan The Man 2 on Mon, 11/01/2010 - 5:28pm.
I am saying I don't give the average voter any wisdom to vote out the Demons. The voters are usually uninformed or misinformed and vote on a whim.
Spoken like a liberal
Submitted by stage9 on Mon, 11/01/2010 - 11:03am.
"I think you give the "voters" too much wisdom." You prove our point. Spoken like a true liberal -- the voters are too stupid to know what's good for them."If God is dead, somebody is going to have to take his place. It will be megalomania or erotomania, the drive for power or the drive for pleasure, the clenched fist or the phallus, Hitler or Hugh Hefner." — Malcolm Muggeridge
The problem with the
Submitted by MidAmerica on Sun, 10/31/2010 - 7:20pm.
The problem with the Clinton strategy is that this time the nation is sending in the Republicans to stop obama not cooperate. In fact, if the Republicans do not reverse the obama agenda and set a new course there will be a third party in the 2012 election.
Norah O'Donnell?
Submitted by ConservaSerb on Sun, 10/31/2010 - 7:32pm.
Which idiot told her she was a journalist.
Oh, right. The same one that hired Matthews to clean toilets and lick commie asses.
Heilemann's still pissed his old man sold Old Style to Stroh's. ;)
A wise & frugal government, which shall leave men free 2 regulate their own pursuits of industry & improvement, & shall not take from the mouth of labor the bread it has earned - this is the sum of good government. T. Jefferson
Who cares about Tingles and his panel of idiots?
Submitted by Texndoc on Sun, 10/31/2010 - 7:45pm.
These people have no relevance at all. I have never seen his syndicated show but I would bet money he devoted ENTIRE SHOWS to Sharron Angle and "What an idiot" "What a moron" and I saw a clip from this panel of liberals predicting who wins in Nevada:
"Sharron Angle" "Sharron Angle" "Angle" "Sharron Angle"
Do they ever dissect WHY after the fact or just sit there as Zero's lapdogs?
Solutions
Submitted by KC Mulville on Sun, 10/31/2010 - 9:27pm.
Left to their own devices, Democrats came up with solutions ... Cap&Trade, Obamacare, Card check, etc.
The solutions should come from America, not the government. The best thing that could happen is to restrain these political hacks from attempting any solutions.
They give themselves away when they claim to want bipartisan solutions from Washington. They think bipartisanship is the issue. The issue is looking to Washington in the first place.
Far-left advocacy
Submitted by Phryj1 on Sun, 10/31/2010 - 11:44pm.
Says Norah O'Donnell, "...evil men like Mitch McConnell and John Boehner." She's not even trying to hide it. Nothing but complete and utter contempt for anyone who dares stand in the way of the far-left agenda.
What this panel fails to understand is that it's the far left that's going to drag the Democrats down with it. Since Obama's support base is predominantly far-left, he can't afford to co-operate with the GOP on anything. One of most pervasive far-left memes is that big corporations are evil and are the enemies of the people, and the GOP serves the big corporations above else. So, Obama risks alienating folks who actually believe that if he tries to reach across the aisle.
This gives the GOP an edge. They will have the initiative. What they have to do is push hard for a conservative agenda. Lower taxes, less spending, rolling back Obamacare and the financial reform, and creating jobs by making the U.S. a friendlier business environment. They have to really push hard and make Obama look like the obstructionist. That way, his approval rating will continue to erode and when Jan. 2013 rolls around, Obama will be out of a job.
Progressives seem to be completely averse to facts and logic. Apparently, reality has a conservative bias.
Chris Matthews
Submitted by Phryj1 on Sun, 10/31/2010 - 11:49pm.
As often as he goes in the tank for the left, I do have to give him credit here as he seems to be the only one actually concerned for the American people, while the others on the panel just want to see Obama get re-elected.
Progressives seem to be completely averse to facts and logic. Apparently, reality has a conservative bias.
Obama = Clinton?
Submitted by Maestroh on Mon, 11/01/2010 - 9:55am.
Let's see...Barry Obama, who has won all of one competitive election in his life (getting others thrown off the ballot elsewhere), is suddenly going to morph into a centrist.
Really?
How? Reps may as well send up the entire tax cut package; he's going to veto it anyway. They're forgetting ONE CRITICAL POINT in this whole thing - Clinton became popular again AFTER he submitted HIS OWN BALANCED BUDGET!!!
Is Obama going to do that? No. He cannot do it. It's not even remotely possible. In Clinton's case you had the tax increases that were voted in for 1993 and then the commensurate spending cuts for the "out years." Of course, the Dems would have increased spending in those "out years" but one important thing happened - they got thrown "out."
Besies, Boehner hardly looks like the caricature that Newt did. Newt was/is a smart guy but a little rotund and made an easier target. It's simple - if economy stays in the tank, Barry loses. Clinton won because by the spring of 1996 everyone was doing pretty well. One more thing: Obama doesn't have the Olympics in this country in 2012 to tap into, either.