Tuesday, October 19, 2010

looming midterm erections

Although I think the Democrats deserve whatever drubbing may be heading their way after their massive ineptitude since Obama's election, I can't say that I'll be all that happy to see the GOP regain power in the legislative. It's not obvious to me that the GOP has any more coherent a self-image and agenda than the Dems do, and it's also not obvious that the Tea Party is not merely a subset of the GOP, what with all the sinister cross-pollination going on. If the Tea Party claims it's for small government, for example, how does this distinguish it from classical conservatism within the GOP? (NB: I'm not one of those idiots who view the Tea Party as a hotbed of racism and xenophobia.)

Perhaps the best thing that can come of the midterms will be a renewed dynamic tension between the legislative and executive branches, resulting in just the sort of static (by which I really mean gridlock preventing government from further mucking up the market) that can lead to economic robustness. Although it might be too much to hope for a return to the scenario when Clinton was in office (a GOP-dominated Congress after a so-called "Republican Revolution"), we can always hope for something that echoes the 90s.


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1 comment:

Anonymous said...

I see the last two elections with respect to Congress as imperfectly applied term limits. Twice now incumbents have been on the chopping block. My own view is term limits are the real answer for several reasons, but won't happen without a successful Constitutional Convention.