(OLIVIER DOULIERY VIA BLOOMBERG)Perhaps the Republican leadership really enjoys President Obama’s company. That’s about the most satisfying explanation I’ve found for their oft-repeated demand that he take a more direct role in the negotiations.
But it’s very peculiar. The talks broke down because Republicans, having negotiated $2 trillion in spending cuts, refused to negotiate any tax increases. Fair enough. But the coordinated message emerging from the Republican leadership emphasized something different: They missed the president. “I believe it is time for the President to speak clearly and resolve the tax issue,” said Eric Cantor in his prepared statement. Mitch McConnell’s floor remarks were titled, “Where’s the President?” Even Chris Christie is getting into the act. “If you’re the executive you’ve got to be the guy who’s out there pushing and leading,” he said on Sunday’s “Meet the Press.”
Interestingly, plenty of liberals would agree with the Republicans on this one. They hate the White House’s tendency to keep Obama on the sidelines until late in the fourth quarter. Obama is more popular than any of the Republicans and many of his supporters believe that he’d be able to negotiate a better deal if he took his case directly to the public. That’s not, presumably, an analysis the GOP agrees with, which means one side or the other has this wrong.
I’ve not yet gotten a fully persuasive explanation for the GOP’s desperation to see the president negotiate directly and speak publicly. But here are a couple of the ideas that are floating around:
1) Deflect blame. Republicans blew up the negotiations. Eric Cantor left the table and Jon Kyl followed him. They needed some way to pin the breakdown on the White House, but after Democrats had agreed to $2 trillion in spending cuts, they didn’t have much to work with. So they came up with this: “Where’s the president” line, hoping that his absence would make it look like he wasn’t taking deficit reduction seriously.
2) Drag him down. The White House, looking toward 2012, is determined to keep Obama above the political fray. Republicans, looking toward 2012, are determined to drag him into it. If Washington is going to be bitter and divisive and unable to do the country’s work, the GOP wants that to be part of Obama’s brand, not just an anchor around the necks of incumbent legislators.
3) It’s personal. The most human explanation is that the Republicans simply find Obama’s distance personally offensive. They’re tired of the guy basing his political persona around being better than they are.
But the incentives here are tough. From the GOP’s point of view, the worst possible outcome is for the president to swoop in and negotiate a bipartisan deal. That’s exactly the kind of leadership that the country really likes. But nor is it an obvious political plus to beg the president to meet with them and then refuse to actually negotiate. The analysis I’m tempted toward right now is that the Republican Party doesn’t have much of an endgame here and the congressional leaders are simply trying to buy time to figure out how they can either come to a deal without their party blasting them for selling out or resist a deal without the country turning on them for wrecking the economy. But perhaps I’m missing something.
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