The DFL loves playing politics more than just about anything else. One of their favorite ploys – using their advantage with the complaint mainstream media to frame all debates in terms that favor them.  Have you  noticed the way the media has, on cue, picked up the meme of the “all cuts budget?”  No significant Republican has used the term – but the DFL and its minions and press enablers use the term every single time the topic of the GOP budget comes up.

Now, in the bad old days when the GOP  was largely RINOs, a little of this framing was enough to help enough “moderates” flake away to help the DFL get pretty much everything it wanted.

Those days are done.  If I have anything to do with it, they’re dead, cremated, and scattered at the foot of Elmer Anderson’s statue.

The DFL hates losing at it more than just about anything else.  Yesterday’s vote on Governor Dayton’s tax proposals was the sort of thing the DFL used to excel at.  Gary Gross gives us a snippet of recent history (that the media would largely prefer disappear down the memory hole:

It’s that the DFL hasn’t stopped playing political games since the session started.

They want nothing to do with Gov. Dayton’s budget. They’re treating it like toxic waste:

One exchange:

Question: “Do you support the tax increases in this bill?”

Thissen: “The governor is delivering on what he promised. We have always been in our DFL caucus in favor of a solution that is going to be fair…We need to look at the details of it. I think the most important thing now to look at is asking the Republicans, okay, what’s your answer.”

Question: “That didn’t answer the question…Do you support these tax increases?”

Bakk: “If you look at the tax incidence study, it will show you that more well to do Minnesotans, especially those over $500,000 in income pay a little bit over eight percent of their income in taxes and the rest of us, in the middle class and lower income Minnesotans, pay about 12.3 percent. And I think from a policy standpoint, the governor is right that everyone should be expect to pay about the same percentage of their income in state and local taxes.”

A third:

Question: “So yes or no. Do you two support the tax package in the governor’s proposal? Yes or no.”

Bakk: “Well, I certainly want to see the budget pages and I’m not going to tell you if they offer a vote on it I’m going to vote yes or no on it because we are actually having a hearing in the tax committee (to delve into the budget) either tomorrow or Thursday…After Thursday I can probably give you an answer.”

That exchange happened on Feb. 15. Sen. Bakk still hasn’t given a reply to Rachel Stassen-Berger. The bottom line is this: the DFL want to criticize Republicans like they do every budget year. They just don’t want their fingerprints on anything that Gov. Dayton has put together.

And the GOP knew it.  Which was the entire motivation behind yesterday’s exercise; the good guys kicked some sand in the DFL’s face.

And they’re used to being the big guys on the beach, dammit!  Not only are they not used to being in the minority – they are not used to a GOP that does politics better than they do!

Jeff Rosenberg at MNPublius – who presumably has gotten the memo that the GOP’s budget is less than two weeks away, closing in on the DFL like Eisenhower’s fleet weighing anchor and turning toward Normandy, writes:

Instead of putting together their own budget proposal [Hahahaha! – Ed.] the MNGOP has been content to simply snipe at Governor Dayton’s proposal. Today was more of the same. Instead of finally revealing their all-cuts budget, they opted for a sham vote on a portion of Dayton’s budget.

The shorter Rosenberg – “I’m going to give an incomplete-to-the-point-of-dishonesty side of the GOP’s agenda – I’ll carp over one of an entire palette of GOP budget-balancing tactics, the cut, and gabble about the fact that the GOP hasn’t submitted a budget because I can count on the media not to point out that the DFL didn’t submit one until the literal last minutes of the last session – because it’s to my and my party’s political advantage to do so.  But don’t you dare do it yourself!”

Of course, they didn’t vote on Dayton’s entire proposal. Despite Dayton’s frequent objections, the MNGOP continues to treat the budget in a piecemeal fashion. In today’s sham vote, they voted on the tax portion of Dayton’s proposal while ignoring the rest of it.

Dear DFL: we are not here to make you look smart (and either, apparnetly, are many of you).  We are here to win.  The electorate sent the DFL packing, and sent the GOP to the Legislature, with a very clear mandate; kick DFL ass.  Well, no – not “kick DFL ass”, but to get the growth in budget and government under control, which will inseparably involve kicking DFL ass.

And they are.

And yes, compromise is inevitable.  It’s politics. The GOP doesn’t have complete control.  You DFLers are used to a GOP that would get intimidated by your framing, and by your old stranglehold on the media, and essentially fold its cards right after the deal and beg for mercy.

Those days are over.  The GOP is playing to go into those negotiations from a position of strength – not the craven, panicky accomodation of the hamster-like “Republicans” of the Carlson era.  The GOP is playing like it’s holding the full house, Kings over Tens, that it actually holds.

Deal with it.

Or live in the ancient past.  Your choice.

This entry was posted by by Mitch Berg on Friday, March 4th, 2011 at 12:10 pm and is filed under Chanting Points Memo, Governor, The Incredible Shrinking Governor. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.