by Brent Budowsky
The passage of the jobs bill represents a great victory for President Obama, a huge triumph for Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) and a tremendous moment for the smart Republican senators, Arlen Specter of Pennsylvania and Olympia Snowe and Susan Collins of Maine. It is a crushing blow for the do-nothing, obstructionist, recession Republicans who are betting against America.
A popular president with support in the nation that has risen again to the high 60s to mid 70s in popularity asked for a jobs bill by Presidents Day, and gets it. The recession Republicans, tarred by landslide losses in 2006 and 2008 because of their diehard support for George W. Bush, sink further into the political hole. When America recovers, Obama wins; Harry Reid wins; the Speaker wins; Sens. Snowe, Specter and Collins win; and the recession Republicans lose. They are betting the ranch that America fails, because they know if the program succeeds, if America succeeds, they are left out on the limb of that old black magic of recession Republic economics.
These guys have gone so far right, they can't see Main Street with a microscope. They are so politically maladroit, the best they can serve up for a nation that is hungry for solutions is a stone-cold dish of Bush doggie bags.
They tried to cut the jobs bill in half. They tried to take spending for jobs out of a program to create jobs. They opposed fuel-efficient cars for the federal fleet, weatherizing buildings in the cold winter and building schools for the kids while they supported that old black magic of tax cuts for the wealthy and repeated, ad nauseam, the sad platitudes of Herbert Hoover and the defeated policies of John McCain in 2008.
The three Republican senators standing almost alone in the region of the nation where most Republicans are no longer welcome are called traitors and Benedict Arnolds.
The recession party gloats when Republican Sen. Judd Gregg of New Hampshire declines to serve in the Cabinet, though he will not run again and will very probably be succeeded by yet another Democrat in yet another state where the recession Republicans are no longer welcome in Senate seats or the governor's mansion.
The death march of the recession Republicans continues. It is their curse, their failure of economics, the curse that led them to minority status for a generation after Hoover, the curse that led to their latest disaster in 2008, after their disaster in 2006.
The recession Republicans are hoping the president fails, and betting the ranch that America fails, which is a very bad bet indeed.
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