Obama's Summer Doldrums

Summer is Washington,D.C. is miserable. This year is no exception. The heat index will be over 115 over the next few days. Rush Limbaugh says that the heat index is a government conspiracy to hype climate change. It's so bad that E.J. Dionne now believes there will not be a debt ceiling deal. And master portrait painter Lucian Freud died at 88,probably in response to the Murdoch hearings. The Senate will work all weekend. House Republicans will take the weekend off even though the clock goes tick-tock on defaulting on the national debt.

It's so bad that the Democrats are running ads of Ronald Reagan talking about Congressional games on the debt ceiling. The GOP has gone off the rails, down the cliff and into the gulch.

As I've written too often, summer is the pits for President Obama, his approval sags, progressives get testy and the GOP think of new ways to undercut the country. It would seem anyone could beat Obama in the summer. Well, apparently not. Today's poll has Obama beating Romney by 51 to 44. In fact, so far Romney is the only competitive Republican around and even they don't like him.

This caused the Gallup organization to ponder at the Christian Science Monitor breakfast why Obama over-performs in his polls. Yes, he's done his summer dip to the mid-40s. But the Gallup people say that's extraordinary. With struggling economies, both Clinton and Reagan at this point in their first term had slipped to the mid-thirties. And the Gallup people know something--by a margin of 58 to 16 Americans are more concerned about job creation and the economy than the national debt. But here is President Obama embroiled in a summer long fight over raising the debt ceiling, something that has always been done automatically.

Americans also know how to deal with tthe debt. Today's ABC/Washington Post poll shows that 72% of Americans want to eliminate the Bush tax cuts for those earning over $250,000; 66% want to end the FICA cap at $105,000, a similar percent want the wealthy to pay more for Medicare and 59% want to end tax breaks for oil companies. Virtually none of these are acceptable to Republicans. If you want to slip in the polls, look at the 72% disapproval ratings for Republicans in Congress about the way they are handling the debt ceiling debate.

Every time a deal has been announced all participants have to walk it back. Today we had another announcement of a "Grand Bargain" between President Obama and John Boehner only to have both sides declare the news was wrong. Republicans, now nearly a week late on the debt ceiling bill acceptable to Obama, doubled down and voted for the "Cut,Cap and Balance" budget, which would be even more draconian than the Ryan Plan. Since this can not become law or even a bargaining chip, why would you risk your re-election in a presidential year when people actually vote in voting for this nonsense? The minute Obama said he liked the Gang of Six proposal--he didn't support it--little Eric Cantor rejected it and the House GOP ruled it dead on arrival. Mitchell McConnell's strange plan that would allow Obama to raise the debt ceiling with no Republican votes seemed to gain life but was taken off life support today.

I happen to agree with Warren Buffett and Moody's--get rid of the debt ceiling. It only jeopardizes America's credit rating and it is totally a fake issue. Bill Clinton thinks that Obama should just invoke the 14th Amendment because the GOP is not being constructive.

Lawrence O'Donnell believes that Obama has created the greatest rope-a-dope in political history by offering $4 trillion in cuts because he knows the Republicans can not accept even the smallest tax increases. I actually tend to the view that Obama really does want a Grand Bargain. People forget that a month after taking office Obama had Paul Volcker as his adviser on the national debt, when the Republicans proposed a bipartisan debt commission he created one even though all the Republicans voted against it. But anything Obama proposes is simply rejected. This is even driving David Frum to despair because he thinks no Republican President could achieve such cuts and the GOP are absolutely insane to reject them. But as David Brooks recently discovered they are that insane. Which leaves you will Lawrence O'Donnell assertion that this will come down to a clean bill on the debt ceiling at the 11th hour. As he explained, it only takes a sentence or two.

Where he is right so far is that independents are swinging toward Obama in great numbers. Theyt are alarmed at the economic ignorance of the GOP. At some moments in the debate, I thought Obama was trying to split the business community off from the GOP with an eye to the 2012 election. Rating organizations have already warned that they are prepared to downgrade American securities. Automatically this would seriously downgrade the ratings for Virginia, South Carolina,Maryland, South Dakota and Tennessee. Over 450 CEOs have petitioned Congress to raise the debt ceiling and even the Chamber of Commerce has been lobbying the House Republicans. One small bond rating agency has already downgraded America to an A+. But observers say that if America defaults we will be the same as....drumroll...Zambia--a B+.

President Obama's first quarter fund-raising dwarfed the entire Republican field--in fact surpassing all their fund-raising combined. Mitt Romney had crowed about his take but onb closer analysis it turns out that he has very little small donations and alot of people who have already tapped out at the $2,500 level. And remember he actually has to run in primaries. Three-quarters of Romney's money comes from donors who have maxed out. In fact, they almost all come from corporate sources such as Morgan Stanley, Bank of America and Goldman Sachs. One in every eight Romney donors live in New York City or its suburbs, not the greatest advertisement for a national campaign.

The rest of the Republican field is struggling. The anti-Romney, Tim Pawlenty, has been dropped from Public Policy Polling because his numbers have shrunk do drastically as not to make him competitive. They have replaced him with non-candidate Rick Perry. Karl Rove amplified the charges that Michelle Bachmann's migraines rule her out for the Presidency. This was based on a former aide to Bachmann and Karl wants to help winnow the field. Look at Kareem Abdul-Jabbar--he suffered from migraines and became the highest scorer in NBA history. Or look at U.S. Grant, JFK. The Newt--well, he is gungho for a default. He's also running about $1.5 million in debt at this early stage.

Frothy Mix Santorum knows he has a good thing. Since he is forever immortal in googleland, he's using his plight brought about by Dan Savage to raise money off the "gay" attack on him. Rick has moved his family to Iowa to camp out until the primary. At least everyone will know about frothy mix.

Meanwhile our Wisconsin Dancing Cows are beginning the recall season and look to be sweeping the field against the Walker GOP. In Ohio, the anti-union bill will be on a referendum. In the past this type of bill has been roundly defeated. To give you some idea of the mood in Ohio, Obama and Sherrod Brown lead the polls for 2012 and Kasich has joined his brother GOP governors in approval hell, dipping inton the 30% range. The Minnesota state shutdown is over partly because some knucklehead forgot that if the state closed down liquor licenses couldn't be renewed, beer couldn't be sold and fishing licenses could not be had--just in time for summer vacation and tourists.

My Queen of the Rodeo, the great Elizabeth Warren, didn't make it as head of the Consumer Protection Agency because she was too good, too bright and too honest. A class act, she made it clear that Republican congresscritters were too blame, not President Obama. She said he fought for the agency from the beginning, even during the days people urged it to be traded off for some concessions. She picked the staff of the current Bureau, established its independence, even while people were trying to defund it. It is one of her pick's, the former Attorney-General of Ohio and five-time Jeopardy winner, Richard Cordray who has been nominated. She says that she has been on 24/7 for the past 14 months and will go back to Massachusetts and rest and think about running against Scott Brown for the Senate in 2012. From her time as providing oversight for the TARP program and lobbying for Finance Reform, she was a breath of fresh air in Washington and it is our loss she was not made the first head of the agency she created. But as a country, we are not a meritocracy, we only honor those who fail upwards. She would be great in the Senate,taking over Ted Kennedy's seat.

Remember the debt ceiling is a man-made disaster. It has never been made a disaster before and there is literally no truth to the notion the United States would or could actually default on its debt. While I believe Obama has clearly been the only adult in the room,I believe the GOP has deliberately fostered such frustration with government itself that the situation is dangerous. This is how democracies are lost. People begin to distrust all their institutions, believe they are incapable of producing solutions and no longer represent them.

Every rational writer--whether right, left or middle--has analyzed the GOP's positions and all come to the conclusion that they are insane, crazy and will not do anything they propose. If you didn't like the huge deficits the Ryan Plan would entail, then you'll really like the results of "Cut, Cap and Balance". Bruce Barlett among others was one of the first to write how the Balance Budget Amendment is truly one of the worst ideas ever brought forth in the history of Congress. These proposals either have to be the most cynical ideas of some wealthy individuals who stand to profit enormously or another example of Elite Hysteria. When wealthy donors to Ricky Cantor call him to say they can absorb additional taxes and Grover Norquist starts backing off holding Republicans to their no tax pledge, you know everyone thinks these ideas are nuts.

And is Rachel Maddow right that John Boehner is the most incompetent speaker in the history of the House? Why would you allow your caucus to vote to eliminate Medicare when you know it has no chance of suceeding? Why would you spend an additional week allowing your Caucus to even double down with "Cut, Cap and Balance" when you know that is even worse? The idea of satisfying your base doesn't hold water when the next election will have almost double the turnout as 2010. Even Karl Rove's ads against voting for raising the debt ceiling aren't working. There is something refreshing about Rove's total cynicism--Congress without fuss raised the debt ceiling seven times while his President totalled the economy. The American people in huge numbers are opposed to these positions. And if Boehner really wants a Grand Bargain as some who know him insist he does, why allow your own caucus to keep boxing you in?

Democracy itself has faced many challenges. We are facing challenges similar to what the world experienced in the 1920s and 1930s. British institutions are under seige in Omnigate, the series of events prompted by the revelations of the Murdoch empire's dirty deeds. The European Union is challenged by the real default possibilities of Greece, Italy, Portugal, Spain and Ireland. And after a stunning first year and a half of achievement, our own political system is paralyzed and our democratic rights are being eroded day-by-day in the states.

Pray for Rain.